Read the passage. excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America!

Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this speech.

How does Douglass use parallelism in this excerpt?

to emphasize his claim that slavery should have no place in the land of the free

to present compelling evidence in defense of America’s legacy of slavery

to establish that as a former slave he has the authority to discuss this topic

to communicate important background information about slavery in America