Quote 1: “Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity.” (Douglass, 3)

Paraphrase: When a person of color is constantly not being heard by a person of power, they feel the need to get brutal or vicious. 

Response: In this quote, douglass is trying to say that the oppressors cannot be oppressed. The white people are the ones with power yet, they get mad when someone with no power has a problem. Or even how they act after not being heard the first time.

Quote 2: “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”(Douglass, 8)

Paraphrase: America’s history lies about its past, and still continues to lie in the present, and actively ignores all the things said about it till the future.

Response: Douglass is proving a point on how there are some things in America that are being shadowed or even not talked about. And he is basically saying this in his speech to be known. He proves a point with the meaning behind America being “free”. He repeatedly says and explains how it isn’t. Not everyone in america was free at the time, they still had slaves who they didn’t think as people but as property to take advantage of.

Part 2

Quote 3: “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?”(Douglass, 9)

The type of writing strategie being used is rhetorical strategy. 

He organizes the crimes, and compares the crimes punishments in Virginia and shows how people of color and white men are treated unfairly. He clearly compares on how black men have a crime, they automatically receive the punishment of death. While if it is a white man having a crime, the same crime, they will subject the white men to the like punishment. Which is good to include in my speech, because when using comparison for your speeches, it makes your argument stronger when defending your point. So i’ll definitely keep this in mind.

Quote 4: “Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans?” (Douglass, 9)

The type of writing strategie being used for this quote is asking questions.

This strategy is effective to the readers because Douglass himself specifies exactly what is going on in his situation by asking questions to his audience. Rather than him talking throughout his whole speech, he asks questions to keep us engaged into his speech with his type of tone he is bringing. This leads us to think about and search for an answer, find new information, and to learn either new concepts or even ideas.