How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" (25-26)
Sorry, but Douglass can't hear the music over all the suffering of the slaves, so excuse him if he doesn't dance to the popular tune. He quotes Jeremiah on the Babylonian exile of the Israelites, drawing a biblical parallel to modern-day slavery. The response of American churches to slavery was important: some argued that the Bible supported slavery, while others argued that it clearly did not. Think about how personal religious beliefs might have affected a person's stance on slavery and abolition.
Quote #2
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. (28-30)
The audience thinks Douglass is going to talk about how great they are…but he's going to use this opportunity not only to say how bad they are on regular days, but how much worse they look on the Fourth of July. Douglass asks his audience—white Northerners who might never have seen a slave—to see him as a slave. Putting a personal face on what was for many people an abstract idea (slavery) was always part of Douglass' strategy, from his use of photography to his autobiographies.
Quote #3
Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America! (33)
Douglass lowers the boom. Guess who's on his side? God, the Bible, the Constitution, all those things white America loves. "They're not loving you back today," says Douglass. In this passage, Douglass uses parallelism—or grammatically similar phrases—to give us the feeling that he's pounding opposing arguments into the ground, at least figuratively.