27. Determine the author's tone expressed in the paragraph. * (1 Point)
The following is an excerpt from a speech by ex-slave Frederick Douglass in 1852:
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail
to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade
more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing
to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the
people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already.
Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They
acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave.
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he
be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like
punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The
manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments
forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any
such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in
your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl
shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man! ("What to a Slave
Is the Fourth of July" by Frederick Douglass.)
What is Douglass's main argument in this passage?
The laws about slaves are unfair.
Slaves are human beings.
He does not need to argue about whether slaves are human beings because everyone already agrees that
they are
Slavery should be abolished.