Frederick Douglass wrote the paragraphs you mentioned as part of his Independence Day oration delivered on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.
In this speech, Douglass aimed to address the prevailing sentiment among some Northerners who, while opposing slavery, were not necessarily advocating for immediate abolition. These individuals were willing to tolerate slavery in the Southern states, as they believed it was protected by the Constitution, but they did not want it to expand into new territories.
Douglass sought to persuade this audience to adopt a more radical and abolitionist stance. He wanted to challenge the complacency of those who were content with limiting slavery rather than actively opposing and eradicating it. His goal was to convey the urgency of the abolitionist cause and to highlight the moral and ethical imperatives of ending slavery altogether.
At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. It was reported and reprinted in Northern newspapers and was published and sold as a forty-page pamphlet within weeks of its delivery. The 500 to 600 people who heard Douglass speak were generally sympathetic to his remarks. A newspaper noted that when he sat down, “there was a universal burst of applause.” Nonetheless, many who read his speech would not have been so enthusiastic. Even Northerners who were anti-slavery were not necessarily pro-abolition. Many were content to let Southerners continue to hold slaves, a right they believed was upheld by the Constitution. They simply did not want to slavery to spread to areas where it did not exist. In this Independence Day oration, Douglass sought to persuade those people to embrace what was then considered the extreme position of abolition. Why did Frederick Douglass write these paragraphs? What does he hope to
communicate to the audience about his subject? How does he convey his message?