Transatlantic Fugitivity: Irony,Empire,and Transnational Citizenship

Abstract

The role of irony and sarcasm has been widely noted in Frederick Douglass’s 1852 Fifth of July oration. In this paper, I use a different and neglected episode in Douglass’s career as an orator—specifically, his exile and speaking tour in the British Isles from 1845–1847—to examine his ironic rhetoric in a transnational frame. In the transnational mode of ironic rhetoric employed during his exile, irony proceeds through the figurative transposition of symbolic meaning in contrasting geopolitical entities—for instance, a contrast wherein Douglass’s condition of freedom in “monarchical” Britain provides a source of rebuke for practices of enslavement in “democratic” America. I then explore how Douglass deployed similar rhetorical techniques upon his return in his critique of U.S. expansionism during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). In expanding the boundaries of irony to encapsulate a transatlantic audience, he uses sarcasm and rebuke to call into existence a transnational democratic citizenry. Doing so first requires breaking down patriotic modes of identification that shield the slaveholding and imperial nation-state from criticism. The purpose of irony is not simply to instill a sense of sympathy with the enslaved and conquered. It is to lead citizens to withhold sympathy from slaveholders and expansionists. Ironically, the impetus for democratic transformation comes from without rather than from within the nation.