Fredrick Douglas "America's brighter future"

This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence.
-Fredrick Douglas

I really enjoyed this passage in Fredrick Douglas' speech. The way he uses the storm to portray his message was really interesting and effective. I also like how he explained that America was still young, and has much potential for its future. That is a great way to reach the audience, and it helps them to listen and want to change for the better.

Dialogue

Sarah and I wrote out a short script which we felt might happen the following historical persons and author meet up to discuss freedom. They have varying different views on freedom and I feel like we left off the discussion at a part in which it could have become pretty heated. They time in which they lived is very different and the "norm" point of view society had about freedom also was extremely different.    

Historical Persons/Author:

Anne Hutchinson

Thomas Jefferson

Ronald Takaki

Overall question:

Is it possible for Americans to exert their freedoms without suppressing the freedoms of minorities?

Dialogue:

Takaki: Throughout history, the white majority has oppressed minorities from personal freedoms in order to pursue their freedoms to the fullest extent they believed possible.

Anne Hutchinson: To further this point, it was not solely based on race. Many women were oppressed of these freedoms because men viewed women as inferior.

Thomas Jefferson: It was necessary at the time for the white majority to suppress the minorities and women because the country was not fully stabilized. It is not that I wanted to fully oppress the minorities and women, for example, I have stated that Native Americans and whites are both “Americans, born in the same land,” and hopefully we will achieve the ability to have good relations in the future.

Takaki: This was not your intent because in my research, I have discovered that you wanted to “encourage them to abandon hunting and turn to agriculture”, put them in financial ruin, and remove them from the borders of civilized society.

Anne Hutchinson: The white man’s stupidity in oppressing others from their freedoms can also be exemplified in my case because I was viewed as a threat to the religious hierarchy in Boston and as a threat, I was subsequently forced to leave Boston. So therefore, who has the right to determine who is eligible for the same freedoms?