Persuading the People
In today’s schools, children grow up knowing about the wonderful writings of famous authors, such as William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Jane Austen. These authors were phenomenal story tellers, but were not the only great writers of the past. These writers were popular for many different reasons, but one trait that they all shared was their ability to truly make the reader feel how they felt and believe what they believed.
This selective group of authors accomplished this by using a variety of persuasive techniques, including what Aristotle called “pathos,” “logos” and “ethos.” Many writers of the past used these same techniques to create very powerful arguments, but never became well known. This could be due to the heavy racism shown worldwide for at least the last five centuries. William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Jane Austen were all white and British, which were considered top of the “food chain.”
However, a few writers of less desirable races did become popular, for example, Frederick Douglass. He was an African American slave, born and whipped in America. Douglass gained freedom in his early adult years and with his little education, wrote the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass used logical, emotional, and ethical appeals in his personal narrative to create a very effective argument against slavery.
Since Frederick Douglass was unable to support his argument with data and research, his logical appeals were often from common knowledge. It is common knowledge that the bond of mother and child begins even before birth and is very essential for growth until the end of the toddler years. Douglass described the slave owners separating children from their mothers before they even reached the end of their first year. As for why, he said, “I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.” (Douglass 2). The lack of this kind of psychological growth is harmful on any person. Since Frederick Douglass used what he knew to abolish slavery, his logic comes from his own experience. Next, many people have based their lives and logic over biblical views.
Slavery was justified as good since it was
mentioned in the Bible. Douglass discussed that white men would produce children from a female slave in order to make more slaves because biblically, this was ok, and great for their wallets! Since the Bible claimed that slavery was brought on when God cursed Ham, Douglass rubuttled, “If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to their white fathers” (3). Ham’s descendants were meant to be blackened slaves; therefore, it was portrayed that all black people should be enslaved. Even though this is biblical logic that slavery was right for black people, the mulatto children being created were simply not black, making their argument not valid. This twisted logic done by some Christians was not justifiable and showed how slavery should be abolished. Moving on, Douglass reiterated that his reasoning against the bible was not to slander it, but rather to connect where slavery was misinterpreted. Douglass stated,
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the region of this land Christianity” (71). Douglass does not think it was logical at all to entitle the south as a Christian atmosphere in the biblical aspect that slavery is so highly justified. They viewed as slavery was right because the bible said it was, yet they would rape women in order to gain more slaves. The whole aspect of slavery from the bible has been contorted to fit the wants of the slave owners. Douglass believed that this selfish act was another reason why slavery should be abolished. The Biblical views being misconstrued, the bonds of mother and son being mutated, and the morals of Christianity logically supported his argument that slavery needed to be abolished.
Frederick Douglass used common knowledge of how humans feel to force the reader to connect on an emotional level. When he was young, he witnessed several beatings. Douglass remembered, “It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it” (4). Not even being able to communicate his own feelings shows that the experience was extremely traumatic. The reader can think of the many hardships they themselves has been through and would not want other people to feel the same indescribable pains. Frederick Douglass connects to the reader in other ways. Knowing that most people can relate to a mother-child relationship, Douglass mentioned the rare occasions he spent with his mother. After her passing, he recalled, “I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger” (2).
While comparing that relationship to the relationship they have had with their own mother, the reader feels empathy towards the slaves because they know this lack of this kind of a bond is not right for people. Douglass tugged at the heart of the reader by mentioning another special family bond, brotherhood. Many of the slaveholders had mullato children, who became slaves. Douglass explains that even though it sounds cruel, it was better for the masters to sell their own mixed children than to keep them because otherwise, “he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but a few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back” (3). In a perfect world, most people would say that siblings should be equals, so hearing that a person that is possibly still a child is forced to beat their own sibling, their equal, could absolutely devastate the reader. By making the reader emotional, Douglass forces the reader to realize that slavery could not continue without making all people, including slave owners, emotionally upset.
Another support Douglass used was his ethical appeals to prove his credibility in abolishing slavery. Since Douglass was raised in slavery, he experienced many traumatizing events. Upon recalling his first memory of the cruelty of slavery, he remembered, “I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant” (4). Since Frederick Douglass lived through this kind of slavery, and the reader has most likely not, the reader has to trust him when he was how traumatic it is to go through, and that no person should have to go through it. Even though people have different beliefs, most can agree to some of the same morals. One of those common morals is that it is better to tell the truth.
Douglass recalled a time where that was not the
case, “He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment’s warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death. This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions” (11). It is understandable being punished for lying, but being punished for telling the truth is simply unjustifiable. Another common moral, that was not always shared in those times, was that it was wrong to beat and torture someone. Douglass saw this happen several times though. He described the overseer, “I have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even master could be enraged at his cruelty” (3). Slaves were not the only ones to find this kind of treatment wrong. Even though the master himself would beat slaves, he knew that beating someone nearly to death was just too far. It seems that even the cruelest people can feel remorse.
In summary, Frederick Douglass did a good job executing his argument using logos, pathos, and ethos. By using common knowledge, all readers can understand from a logical side why slavery was wrong. His use of emotional appeals really tied in the reader emotionally and made them feel attached to the argument. When Douglass brought ethics into the argument, it became almost impossible to argue that he was wrong. Because Frederick Douglass has been able to see and experience slavery personally, his dedication to the subject helped in creating a remarkably effective argument.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.
