Fredrick Douglas

When beginning to read Fredrick Douglas's speech on the government, he starts to tell us about how he is happy that America is so young. With America being so young in independence, it has time to grow and develop into a better country. Douglas also seems to express that the past is what shapes the future, but you can't dwell on the past. When Douglas says "Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead." He is simply saying that the future is never guaranteed but the past is what shapes the future. There's nothing like the present and for you to live in the present and believe in God as well. Douglas also explains the independence wasn't for everyone. Even the America was a free country, not everyone that resided in America was free, since this was a time of slavery. Douglas went on to tell his audience that it wasn't fair that slaves were still a going thing and that it wasn't fair to the colored people that didn't have as many rights as everyone else. When reading Douglas's speech it reminded me of the stories Stowe told us about. She expresses her thoughts of slavery in her story, especially the second one, in explaining how the father figure was free for ten years and was in free states, but then out of nowhere they took him back into slavery. No one back then was really guaranteed freedom and your rights could be taken away from you by the government due to what they thought what was right and what was wrong. Douglas's speech also ties in with Stanton's argument over women's rights. Even though America was independent, it didn't allow women the same rights as men, which pretty much gave them the same rights as slaves in America.