Frederick Douglass and an inspiration: a rhetoric-based approach to high school history?

First, the Douglass.

Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy has posted the entire text of Frederick Douglass's speech of 160 years ago today, "What July 4th Means to the Negro."

Since this is a blog of religious practice among other things, I am excerpting (emphasis and some paragraph breaks mine) this part about the Fugitive Slave Act (which, among other things, required all states to enforce within their own boundaries the property "rights" of slaveholders):

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were nor stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

...But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!

They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and with out hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation-a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons, and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea’ when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”

...The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.”

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday School, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery, and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds, and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared-men honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning... [G]reat religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example of the Hebrews, and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.2

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are....

...[T]he anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead of a hostile position towards that movement.

The whole speech is long, covers many more points than this one, and is a wonderful piece of argument.

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Now, the inspiration.

I am preparing to teach 19th-century American History again this fall with a crop of late-elementary school kids, and Frederick Douglass is one of the personages whose biography we'll highlight; this piece makes me wish it were easier to teach 19th-century American rhetoric directly to kids under eleven or so.

In my vision for homeschool high school, I have generally assumed that a "survey of American history" course would be a necessary evil -- you know, pack the entire thing into one school year, anchored by a text that necessarily runs broad but not deep. I thought the best I could hope for would be to find a really well-written text (and that not necessarily a text made for schools).

I wonder now if, especially given the way I taught elementary school history, if I couldn't put together a sufficiently informative U. S. History course based primarily on pieces of rhetoric. I think you would still have to have the history spine to hold it together, provide a time-sequence, and give context, but perhaps I would not have to work so hard to find a wonderful "main text" if the intellect and imagination were fed by primary sources -- not meta speech, but speeches. And pamphlets, and laws, and opinion-pieces, and court opinions, even advertisements.

I suspect I would have to cut back a bit on other literary analysis in order to fit it in -- or conversely, I could make that the same year that "literature and writing" focuses on persuasion, analysis, satire, and the like -- er, rhetoric, I suppose -- so that History and Literature/Language Arts dovetail.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Barbara C.]

It sounds pretty cool, but it also sounds like a lot of work to my currently pregnant brain. LOL

Actually, I already do combine history with literature (and science) a bit at the elementary level. I do the four-year classical cycle and include a brief mention of famous literary works during the time periods and sometimes I get juvenile versions/movies for supplementation.

Assuming we homeschool, through high school the plan is a literature/history combination using primary sources and books combined with a history spine.

You might consider looking at the eleventh and twelfth grade history/reading lists in The Well-Trained Mind as a starting point.

[bearing]

"It sounds pretty cool, but it also sounds like a lot of work to my currently pregnant brain. "

Certainly more work than relying on a prepackaged curriculum, but maybe it would be satisfying and interesting work. A big portion of the work (for the teacher) would be in (a) selection of pieces to read and understand and (b) paring the list, or otherwise economizing, to fit into the available time. Selection of pieces can be driven by the pieces that are mentioned or quoted in your history spine.

Once the list was generated, the teacher would have the responsibility to have read and understood each piece enough to engage it with the student. That is, of course, work, but it can be interesting and fulfilling work.

If you choose a low-effort way to evaluate your student's understanding, I don't think it would be so bad. E.g. oral discussion of key points; an assignment to convert a text into an outline of the argument's key points; having your student deliver a short speech in character or alternatively a longer, flowery speech in more modern, terse style.

I imagine you could also have some fun re-imagining yesterday's rhetoric in today's media (The Federalist Papers as a group blog? Fisking yesterday's opinion pieces?)

[Christy P.]

Can't believe I haven't sent this to you before:

http://historytools.org/

Courtesy of my friend David who also happens to be a history professor (and married to Ruth)

[DarwinCatholic]

Seems like an interesting idea. It would have the virtue of getting you a lot of comparatively short pieces to work with (though as Barbara says, selection would obviously be the big task) and focusing on primary sources.

Some of the difficulties would likely be how much time you'd have to spend balancing that with context (since rhetoric isn't always a very honest medium -- whether intentionally or due to the limits of the speakers knowledge and objectivity) and focusing in on the topics which, from hindsight, actually look significant rather than those that loomed large at the time.

Or, on the flip side of that, maybe the challenge is to look at what loomed large at the time and really focus on why, as opposed to the quick shrug off that a lot of topics often get in textbooks. (For instance, it would be a lot of work, but looking at William Jennings Bryan's cross of gold speech through the lens of folk economics and the pressures on the, then large, agrarian voting population would probably make an interesting unit, which if done right would actually give some insight into the folk economics enthusiasms that people get off into these days.)

[GeekLady]

On the whole, I think this is a very good idea, not just for history, but for every topic. But the groundwork in understanding and analysis would need to be well laid for it to work.

Primary sources are much more attractive to a teen than dry in depth analysis, I think because they stir up the heart and demand a response. Which is what makes them tricky, of course. I think incorporating a smaller number of pieces, from a variety of subjects and examined in greater detail, as part the general study of rhetoric might serve better. Simultaneously, it can supplement the understanding of other subjects.

Rhetoric has become so intensely manipulative today, that learning how to respond to it, instead of being jerked around by it, seems to be increasingly important.

[Bearing]

Alternatively, how to craft it.

[GeekLady]

Well, yes, but not everyone is strictly up to crafting it.

[Rebekka]

I think it sounds very, very interesting, but also very time-consuming! Definitely different than the textbook approach from my high school history class, but I can also imagine that what you're considering would be extremely difficult with a class of hooligans who mostly don't care. We had a textbook and some posters on the wall with over-arching themes in American history, of which the only I can remember is Westward Expansion (but then, I did go to high school in CA). Also, we only made it to 1900. Again.

But I agree with the previous commenter that learning how to recognize and respond to rhetoric is really important, in the critical thinking sense. I'm sure that this could be the actual backbone of some of the high school curriculum and many of the other subjects could use this as a jumping off point. Like science. (What I mean, in my completely unintelligible way, is I went to high school, community college, and I have a BA from a nice college, but it wasn't until I got to Denmark and went to nursing school and had to take epidemiology and statistics and nursing theory that I even started grokking critical thinking. I'm sure part of it was that I was older, but they didn't want us to just regurgitate the info - they wanted us to consider whether or not it was good enough, too. It was an epiphany.) But, yes - understanding agendas is very important, especially when anyone and everyone has access to media.

[Kate]

Yes to primary sources for history! I'm a history TA at a Wisconsin university and it's amazing how few students can read a piece of rhetoric from history--they find them too convoluted and confusing. Textbooks are fine, but they're the twice-simplified version of the tensions and issues of a certain time/place. Most professors prefer to use primary sources, but hate doing the catch-up work required to help their students delve into them. It will teach your kids excellent skills they'll need for college (assuming that's part of their goal) and will help them decisively find and analyze the essential points of any piece of rhetoric.

[Barbara C.]

I should confess that I have been putting my own history curriculum together for the past three years, including finding all of the resources. Normally I do find it very intellectually stimulating. I've just been currently struggling to put together things for the upcoming school year (Modern History 1850-present). Maybe it's the pregnancy or the heat or the volume of material to be covered.