Question

What, To a Slave, is the Fourth of July?"
by Frederick Douglass

We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.



What, to a Slave, is the Fourth of July?



"JFK Inaugural Speech"
by John F. Kennedy

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."



President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address (1961)

Question
Use the passages from Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln to answer the question.

Which best identifies the themes of the foundational documents?

(1 point)
Responses

Both Lincoln and Douglass express the theme of forgiveness.
Both Lincoln and Douglass express the theme of forgiveness.

Lincoln stresses forgiveness while Douglass focuses on punishment.
Lincoln stresses forgiveness while Douglass focuses on punishment.

Lincoln stresses punishment, while Douglass focuses on forgiveness.
Lincoln stresses punishment, while Douglass focuses on forgiveness.

Both Lincoln and Douglass express the theme of punishment.

Answer 1

Lincoln stresses forgiveness while Douglass focuses on punishment.

Lincoln’s lines ("malice toward none...charity for all") call for healing and mercy; Douglass’s passage demands the nation be roused, exposed, and its crimes denounced — a call for reckoning.