Frederick Douglass (5 points)
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham. . . . There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
Question: Why did Frederick Douglass mention the Fourth of July in his criticism of slavery? What contradiction does he see between the American ideal and the American way of life?