Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland in 1818 as a slave to a sea captain, Captain Anthony. After decades of slavery, Frederick Douglass fled to the North and became a leading member and promoter of the abolitionist movement. In an attempt to provide an illuminating account of the harsh treatment of slaves, Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass detailed his life starting from his meager early years to his escape to the North. In writing his autobiography, Douglass used a variety of techniques including the use of the three rhetorical strategies: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to create a powerful and influential argument against the institution of slavery in America. Pathos is a form of persuasion that manipulates the reader's feelings by deliberately creating content to evoke an emotional response. Frederick often used pathos to describe to his readers that slavery is morally wrong. Beginning with the first chapter, Douglass appealed to his reader's morality by recounting slavery's common abusive practice of separating children from their mothers at an early age. Of this practice Douglass writes: “What this separation comes about for, I know not, except to hinder the development of the child's affection towards the mother, and to attenuate and destroy the mother's natural affection for the child. (Douglass 16) Drawing a disturbing parallel to the treatment of animals, Douglass highlighted the treatment of enslaved children who were separated from their parents to avoid attachments, but he does not stop at this example. Only a few pages later, Douglass detailed the brutal beating of a slave that occurred during his... middle of paper... possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but only because it had the power to force me to give it up. The right of the grim-faced pirate on the high seas is the same. (Douglass 89) Logos is a key feature in Douglass's writings. He uses it to add credibility to a predominantly emotion-based argument. It is nearly impossible to create a convincing argument on a controversial topic like slavery at the time without the combination of a writer's credibility and the use of emotional and logical arguments. If Douglass had been deficient in any of these areas, his writings and arguments would not have had the strength necessary to propel him to prominence in the abolitionist movement. Douglass skillfully combined these three key elements of persuasive writing in his narrative to make his case against slavery. Works Cited1. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/douglass.htm