Logical Fallacies in Frederick Douglass's Slavery Speech

Introduction

In 1852, at a Fourth of July celebration in Rochester, New York, former slave Frederick Douglass delivered a famous speech arguing against slavery. Douglass began by highlighting the differences between the circumstances of white and Black Americans at the time, focusing on the irony that a national day celebrating independence only underscored the gulf between himself and his audience of white Americans. His speech remains one of the most celebrated abolitionist addresses in American history, and in it he makes several strong arguments against slavery. However, while the speech is powerful, persuasive, and moving, it is also a remarkable example of fallacious rhetorical devices. Throughout the speech, Douglass employs several fallacies, including the ad hominem attack, begging the question, and the appeal to belief. These fallacies appear to support his argument, but because they leave his claims vulnerable to legitimate challenges, they ultimately undermine the logical strength of his case. That said, this does not mean Douglass's argument was ineffective overall. While it contained several fallacies, it also contained significant support for the proposition that slavery was immoral.

One of the fallacies apparent in Douglass's speech is his use of an ad hominem fallacy. Generally, an ad hominem fallacy is "a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of the person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting)" (Nizkor Project, Description of ad hominem, 2011).

Ad Hominem Fallacy

In Douglass's argument, the interesting twist is that rather than deploying a negative ad hominem attack, Douglass relies on the reputed goodness of God to make his point. He states, "Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine" (Douglass, 1852). Clearly, Douglass is trying to suggest that God's inherent goodness means that God could not sanction something like slavery. However, this is a fallacy. "The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made)" (Nizkor Project, Description of ad hominem, 2011). In other words, whether or not God is good has no logical bearing on whether or not He established slavery.

Another fallacy that Douglass employed was begging the question, also known as circular reasoning. "Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true... This sort of 'reasoning' is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim" (Nizkor Project, Description of begging the question, 2011).

Douglass asks, "Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it" (Douglass, 1852). However, this statement was simply not true; the humanity of Black people was a seriously debated point during that period. He repeats this assumption in two further statements: "For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race" and "the manhood of the slave is conceded" (Douglass, 1852). Furthermore, while he provides a significant amount of evidence supporting his proposition, those statements only highlight his circular argument, because he consistently begins not with the proposition that a slave is human, but with the assumption that nobody doubts that slaves are human.

Begging the Question

The third fallacy that Douglass employs is the appeal to belief. "Appeal to Belief is a fallacy that has this general pattern: Most people believe that a claim, X, is true. Therefore X is true. This line of 'reasoning' is fallacious because the fact that many people believe a claim does not, in general, serve as evidence that the claim is true" (Nizkor Project, Description of appeal to belief, 2011). Douglass states, "There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him" (Douglass, 1852). However, the fact that enslaved people universally experienced slavery as wrong does not logically establish that slavery is necessarily wrong in a moral sense. For example, a similar statement could be made about prisoners, yet the majority of the population would argue that imprisonment is appropriate for those convicted of crimes.

To a modern audience, Frederick Douglass's famous speech The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, which he delivered after being asked to speak on the Fourth of July, seems like a reasonable argument against the practice of slavery, which is now condemned worldwide. However, it is important to keep in mind that Douglass was not speaking to a modern audience, but to a country where roughly half of the population supported the institution of slavery. That audience would have been keenly alert to any errors in Douglass's argument. In his speech, he employed three logical fallacies that actually weakened his otherwise powerful condemnation of slavery: an ad hominem fallacy when suggesting that God would never approve an inhumane practice like slavery; a begging-the-question fallacy when assuming that nobody doubts the humanity of enslaved people; and an appeal to belief when suggesting that because enslaved people universally found slavery objectionable, it must be morally wrong. These arguments would not have been persuasive to those invested in the institution of slavery, given that the alleged subhumanity of enslaved people and the invocation of divine providence were two of the most common arguments made in its defense. However, for an audience already sympathetic to Douglass, these fallacies would have been far less evident, because they would have accepted the underlying assumptions as self-evidently true without requiring further support.

Conclusion

The Nizkor Project. (2011). Description of ad hominem. Retrieved February 20, 2012, from

The Nizkor Project. (2011). Description of appeal to belief. Retrieved February 20, 2012, from

The Nizkor Project. (2011). Description of begging the question. Retrieved February 20, 2012, from