Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Question

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy
and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do
forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget
her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their
wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would
make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall
see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view.

Which best describes why this is an example of inductive reasoning?

A. It starts with details and uses them to support a more sweeping statement

B. It makes an assertion, then counters arguments against that assertion.

C. It defends an argument with carefully researched facts and excerpts

D. It uses an anecdote to support a broad claim about the injustices of slavery

Answer 1

A. It starts with details and uses them to support a more sweeping statement.

In the excerpt, Frederick Douglass begins with specific observations about the experience of enslaved people in the context of the Fourth of July celebrations and then uses these details to support a broader statement about the injustice of slavery in America. This approach aligns with inductive reasoning, which typically involves moving from specific instances to broader generalizations.