Mocking the sacred: Frederick Douglass's "Slaveholder's Sermon" and the antebellum debate over religion and slavery

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Volumn 88, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 326-341

  Selby, Gary S ^a  

^a GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Abolition; Frederick Douglass; Hierarchy; Parody; Perspective by incongruity

Indexed keywords

EID: 0038891618     PISSN: 00335630     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00335630209384380     Document Type: Review

References (93)

1. Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates and Interviews, vol. 1 (1841-46), ed. John W. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 12. Subsequent citations from this collection will be indicated in parentheses in the text.
2. An example of this hierarchical view is Thomas Roderick Dew, Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832, (1832; reprint Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 2, 105. For an extensive historical treatment, see Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black; American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969). Douglass's awareness of social hierarchy forms the backdrop to his rhetoric from the beginning of his career as an abolitionist orator. It lay behind his complaint that the slaveowners "ride about in their carriages … with the finest of cloth on their backs, with rings upon their fingers, and in enjoyment of every luxury that wealth can buy," all paid for through the labor of "the poor slaves" (p. 7). His outrage at being dragged from railroad passenger cars, "where the dogs of his fellow passengers were suffered to remain" (pp. 9-10), was fueled by his sense of the place in the social order to which he had been assigned - beneath white men's dogs. In contrast, he praised those in the abolition movement who chose to treat him "like a man and a brother" (p. 14). He claimed the abolition movement as the place where "the slave sees an exposition of his true position in the scale of being. He finds that he is, indeed, a man" (p. 22).
3. An example of this hierarchical view is Thomas Roderick Dew, Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832, (1832; reprint Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 2, 105. For an extensive historical treatment, see Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black; American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969). Douglass's awareness of social hierarchy forms the backdrop to his rhetoric from the beginning of his career as an abolitionist orator. It lay behind his complaint that the slaveowners "ride about in their carriages … with the finest of cloth on their backs, with rings upon their fingers, and in enjoyment of every luxury that wealth can buy," all paid for through the labor of "the poor slaves" (p. 7). His outrage at being dragged from railroad passenger cars, "where the dogs of his fellow passengers were suffered to remain" (pp. 9-10), was fueled by his sense of the place in the social order to which he had been assigned - beneath white men's dogs. In contrast, he praised those in the abolition movement who chose to treat him "like a man and a brother" (p. 14). He claimed the abolition movement as the place where "the slave sees an exposition of his true position in the scale of being. He finds that he is, indeed, a man" (p. 22).
4. Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969), 307.
5. Douglas Ambrose, "Of Stations and Relations: Proslavery Christianity in Early National Virginia," in Religion and the Antebellum Debate Over Slavery, ed. John R. McKivigan and Mitchell Snay (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998), 40.
6. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
7. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
8. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
9. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
10. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
11. Douglass was able to claim his status as a fugitive slave only early in his career because supporters purchased his freedom shortly before he returned from England in 1847. An excellent rhetorical history of this period is Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State Univ. Press, 1998). Other rhetorical studies include Neil Leroux, "Frederick Douglass and the Attention Shift," Rhetoric Society Quarterly 21 (1991): 36-46; Gregory Stephen, "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism: 'Antagonistic Cooperation' and 'Redeemable Ideals' in the July 5 Speech," Communication Studies 48 (1997): 175-91; David B. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998); Jacqueline Bacon, "Taking Liberty, Taking Literacy: Signifying in the Rhetoric of African-American Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 64 (1999): 271-87; and Gary S. Selby, "The Limits of Accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian Abolitionists," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2000): 52-66.
12. John W. Blassingame, introduction to Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates and Interviews, vol. 1 (1841-46), ed. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 1. A number of scholars have noted that Douglass frequently attempted to reveal the incongruities inherent in the nation's treatment of African Americans. See, for example, Philip S. Foner, Frederick Douglass (New York: Citadel Press, 1969), 50-51; Henry L. Gates, "Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Douglass' Narrative," in Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, ed. William L. Andrews (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 79-93; and Lampe, 80.
13. John W. Blassingame, introduction to Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates and Interviews, vol. 1 (1841-46), ed. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 1. A number of scholars have noted that Douglass frequently attempted to reveal the incongruities inherent in the nation's treatment of African Americans. See, for example, Philip S. Foner, Frederick Douglass (New York: Citadel Press, 1969), 50-51; Henry L. Gates, "Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Douglass' Narrative," in Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, ed. William L. Andrews (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 79-93; and Lampe, 80.
14. John W. Blassingame, introduction to Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches, Debates and Interviews, vol. 1 (1841-46), ed. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1979), 1. A number of scholars have noted that Douglass frequently attempted to reveal the incongruities inherent in the nation's treatment of African Americans. See, for example, Philip S. Foner, Frederick Douglass (New York: Citadel Press, 1969), 50-51; Henry L. Gates, "Binary Oppositions in Chapter One of Douglass' Narrative," in Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, ed. William L. Andrews (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 79-93; and Lampe, 80.
15. Although most scholars recognize the presence of parody in Douglass's antislavery rhetoric, his strategic use of it is largely unexplored. See, for example, Blassingame, xxxi; Chesebrough, 92-93; Foner, 50-51; and Lampe, 80-81.
16. rd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 74-75.
17. Thomas Rosteck and Michael Leff, "Piety, Propriety, and Perspective: An Interpretation and Application of Key Terms in Kenneth Burke's Permanence and Change," Western Journal of Speech Communication 33 (1989): 329.
18. Stuart Hall, "The Spectacle of the 'Other,'" in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Hall (London: Sage, 1997), 236.
19. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 141.
20. Hall, 236.
21. Burke, Rhetoric of Motives, 141.
22. Hall, 244.
23. Rosteck and Leff, 327.
24. Burke echoes what Mary Douglas discovered in her anthropological study of taboos and social order, that religious or ritual notions of purity "have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience." Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 15.
25. Martha Solomon, "Ideology as Rhetorical Constraint: The Anarchist Agitation of 'Red Emma' Goldman," Quarterly Journal of Speech 74 (1988): 186-87.
26. Burke, Permanence and Change, 90.
27. Solomon, 187.
28. Burke, Permanence and Change, 90, 119.
29. Rosteck and Leff, 330.
30. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 122.
31. Hall, 236.
32. Butler, 33, 147, 139, 146.
33. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
34. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
35. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
36. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
37. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
38. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, "The Divine Sanction of Social Order: Religious Foundations of the Southern Slaveholders' World View," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1989): 211. One factor was the South's "deepening economic stake in slavery and its pursuit of social cohesion in the face of threatening slave revolts." See Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 154. Another was the rise of free market capitalism in the North, which led southerners, as Fox-Genovese and Genovese argue, to defend slavery as "the best possible bulwark against the corrosive and un-Christian impact of industrial capitalism and its cruel and morally irresponsible market in human labor-power" (pp. 211-13). They note that "the slaveholders never tired of saying that they treated their slaves better than the capitalists treated free workers - that their slaves had better and immeasurably more secure living conditions than most of the world's proletarians and peasants" (pp. 224-25). A third was the emergence of a scientific discourse that, in the view of many, empirically rationalized the "ideology that a person's potential is determined by his or her race." See Kirt H. Wilson, "Towards a Discursive Theory of Racial Identity: The Souls of Black Folk as a Response to Nineteenth-Century Biological Determinism," Western Journal of Communication 63 (1999): 193. For other discussions of the scientific argument, see George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 71-96; and William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Two accounts of attempts by African Americans to counter these prevailing beliefs are Stephen H. Browne, "Counter-Science: African American Historians and The Critique of Ethnology in Nineteenth-Century America," Western Journal of Communication 64 (2000): 268-284, and Wilson.
39. Larry E. Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 127.
40. Ambrose, 36.
41. Ambrose, 54. See his analysis of a sermon by a prominent turn of the century Anglican preacher, Devereux Jarrett, entitled "Cure and Conversion of Naaman," which contains language remarkably similar to that parodied in Douglass's "Slaveholder's Sermon."
42. For a discussion of the roots of radical abolitionism in the rise of the Protestant evangelism, see Gilbert H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1963), and Carwardine. For an overview of the debate on whether the Bible supported slavery, see Susan Zaeske, "Angelina Grimké's 'Appeal to the Christian Women of the South': Characterizing the Female Citizen in Jacksonian America," forthcoming in Constructing the Citizen in Jacksonian America (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press).
43. For a discussion of the roots of radical abolitionism in the rise of the Protestant evangelism, see Gilbert H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1963), and Carwardine. For an overview of the debate on whether the Bible supported slavery, see Susan Zaeske, "Angelina Grimké's 'Appeal to the Christian Women of the South': Characterizing the Female Citizen in Jacksonian America," forthcoming in Constructing the Citizen in Jacksonian America (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press).
44. Angelina Grimké, "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South," in The Public Years of Sarah and Angelina Grimké: Selected Writings, 1835-1839, ed. Larry Ceplair (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1989), 50.
45. nd ed. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1835); Theodore Weld, The Bible Against Slavery (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837); and Albert Barnes, Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (Philadelphia: Perkins & Purves, 1846).
46. nd ed. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1835); Theodore Weld, The Bible Against Slavery (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837); and Albert Barnes, Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (Philadelphia: Perkins & Purves, 1846).
47. nd ed. (Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1835); Theodore Weld, The Bible Against Slavery (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837); and Albert Barnes, Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (Philadelphia: Perkins & Purves, 1846).
48. David Christy, "Liberty or Slavery; or, Slavery in the Light of Moral and Political Philosophy," in Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments, ed. E. N. Elliott (Augusta: Pritchard, Abbott and Loomis, 1860), 339.
49. T. Stringfellow, "Slavery in the Light of Social Ethics," in Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments, ed. E. N. Elliott (Augusta: Pritchard, Abbott and Loomis, 1860), 484.
50. Michael W. Casey, "From British Ciceronianism to American Baconianism: Alexander Campbell as a Case Study of a Shift in Rhetorical Theory," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2001): 153. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, common sense realism "exerted a master influence upon American thought. From the mid-1820's, its preeminence was challenged increasingly by various and mushrooming forms of romantic idealism, but it remained the single most powerful current in general intellectual and academic circles until after the Civil War." Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in an Age of Science: The Baconian Ideal and Antebellum Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1977), 21.
51. Michael W. Casey, "From British Ciceronianism to American Baconianism: Alexander Campbell as a Case Study of a Shift in Rhetorical Theory," Southern Communication Journal 66 (2001): 153. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, common sense realism "exerted a master influence upon American thought. From the mid-1820's, its preeminence was challenged increasingly by various and mushrooming forms of romantic idealism, but it remained the single most powerful current in general intellectual and academic circles until after the Civil War." Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in an Age of Science: The Baconian Ideal and Antebellum Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1977), 21.
52. Mark A. Noll, "The Bible and Slavery," in Religion and the Civil War, ed. Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), 44.
53. Fox-Genovese and Genovese, 223. Ironically, the same evangelical fervor that gave rise to radical abolitionism in the North led southern Christians to see in the Bible "the natural grounding for the moral obedience of slavery."
54. As Noll points out, the perversity of the proslavery biblical argument was that it failed to distinguish between the Bible's treatment of slavery and its treatment of race: "The precise problem was the indiscriminate mingling of truths delivered by plain, universal, intuitive common sense. Exegetes merged their conclusions from the Bible (derived through intuitive literalism) with their conclusions from common sense intuitions that blacks were an inferior people fit by nature for what Philip Schaff called the 'the wholesome discipline of slavery'" (p. 61).
55. Based on his study of published sermons from northern and southern churches, Noll concludes that by the time the war began, "proslavery advocates had largely succeeded in winning the Bible" (p. 45). McGivigan and Snay similarly note that even "a striking number of prominent northern divines - including Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College, Moses Stuart, a professor at Andover Seminary, and John Henry Hopkins, Episcopal bishop of Vermont - joined southerners in finding slavery sanctioned by biblical teaching." John R. McKivigan and Mitchell Snay, "Introduction: Religion and the Problem of Slavery in Antebellum America," in Religion and the Antebellum Debate Over Slavery, ed. McKivigan and Snay (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1998), 8. See also Fox-Genovese and Genovese, 23.
56. Blassingame includes at least partial texts of nine speeches in his edition of Douglass's speeches from this period. Of those, five deal extensively with religion and slavery.
57. Blassingame, 17, n. 1.
58. Lampe, 19.
59. One of the recorded speeches from early in his European tour entitled "I Am Here to Spread Light on American Slavery" (October 14, 1845) contains a version of the "Slaveholder's Sermon" (Douglass, 43). Remarkably, Douglass also includes a parody of the "ignorant slave's" response to the sermon that is not found in any of his other early speeches on religion and slavery: "Me hear a good sermon to day, de Minister make ebery thing so clear, white man above a Nigger any day."
60. Blassingame states that the audience also included some "New England freeman" and at least "one southern gentleman" (p. 9).
61. Blassingame, 9.
62. Blassingame, 16.
63. For an analysis of other argumentative strategies in these early speeches, see Selby.
64. Quoted in Lampe, 81.
65. Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces; Together with Rules, Calculated to Improve You and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of Eloquence (Boston: Caleb Bingham and Company, 1817), 26. The pivotal role of this treatise in Douglass's rhetorical development is discussed in Lampe, 9-13.
66. Bacon, 271. See also Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), and Hall, 244-46.
67. Bingham, 26.
68. Barry Alan Morris, "The Communal Constraints of Parody: The Symbolic Death of Joe Bob Briggs," Quarterly Journal of Speech 73 (1987): 465.
69. Burke, Permanence and Change, 74.
70. Quoted in Lampe, 103-104.
71. See also the account of his "Southern Slavery and Northern Religion" (p. 24).
72. As Lampe demonstrates, Douglass was remarkably well prepared to begin a career as an abolitionist orator by the time he was "discovered" by Garrison (pp. 1-56).
73. As a number of scholars have observed, enactment can be a compelling form of evidence through which, as Campbell and Jamieson argue, a rhetor "incarnates the truth, is the proof of what is said." The power of enactment inheres in the congruity between the enacted persona and the claims about identity being advanced. The speaker embodies irrefutable evidence in support of those claims. Remarkably, for Douglass the opposite was the case. The force of his discourse hinged on the incongruity between the identity he claimed, with the associations it evoked, and the actual persona he enacted, which was incontrovertible refutation of the identity given him by society. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "Form and Genre in Rhetorical Action: An Introduction," in Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action, ed. Campbell and Jamieson (Falls Church: Speech Communication Association, 1978), 5.
74. Quoted in Blassingame, 6.
75. Blassingame, 20-21.
76. Margaret A. Rose, Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), 33.
77. Bingham, 26.
78. I am indebted to Lampe's painstaking historical reconstruction of Douglass's early oratorical career.
79. "Anti-Slavery," Liberator, 3 June 1842, 86.
80. "Frederick Douglass," Liberator, 17 June 1842, 94.
81. "Latimer Meeting," Liberator, 9 December 1842, 194.
82. Liberator, 8 July 1842, 106.
83. Personal correspondence quoted in Lampe, 82.
84. Milo A. Townsend, "Frederick Douglass - The Clergy and the Church," Liberator, 8 December 1843, 194.
85. "Letter from Dr. Hudson," Liberator, 8 July 1843, 2.
86. S. H. Gay, "Disgraceful State of Things in Hartford," Liberator, 26 May 1843, 82.
87. "Convention at Dedham," Liberator, 22 March 1844, 43.
88. Burke, Permanence and Change, 119.
89. Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1957), 2.
90. Festinger, 19.
91. This also explains attempts to discredit Douglass by circulating rumors that he had never been a slave. J. M. McKim, reporting in William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator about a speech on religion and slavery that Douglass gave in Philadelphia in August 1844, noted that "many persons in the audience seemed unable to credit the statements which he gave of himself, and could not believe that he was actually a slave. How a man, only six years out of bondage, and who had never gone to school a day in his life, could speak with such eloquence - with such precision of language and power of thought - they were utterly at a loss to devise." (J. M. McKim, "Frederick Douglass in Philadelphia," Liberator, 31 August 1844, 138.) In his second autobiographical work, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass reports hearing people challenge his claims to be a slave because he "did not talk like a slave, look like a slave, nor act like a slave." People said of him, "he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves." Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855; reprint, New York: Arno, 1968), 362.
92. This also explains attempts to discredit Douglass by circulating rumors that he had never been a slave. J. M. McKim, reporting in William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator about a speech on religion and slavery that Douglass gave in Philadelphia in August 1844, noted that "many persons in the audience seemed unable to credit the statements which he gave of himself, and could not believe that he was actually a slave. How a man, only six years out of bondage, and who had never gone to school a day in his life, could speak with such eloquence - with such precision of language and power of thought - they were utterly at a loss to devise." (J. M. McKim, "Frederick Douglass in Philadelphia," Liberator, 31 August 1844, 138.) In his second autobiographical work, My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass reports hearing people challenge his claims to be a slave because he "did not talk like a slave, look like a slave, nor act like a slave." People said of him, "he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves." Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855; reprint, New York: Arno, 1968), 362.
93. Townsend, 194.