Douglass, in regards to abolitionism, briefly touches on the roles that each individual has in building and progressing America. To those who he regarded as privileged, white Americans, he called them to action. At the moment of the speech, they had the most power to enact change and free those in bondage. He argues that the white community had dehumanized blacks and therefore, by viewing them as animals or objects, have become more so immune the injustice of owning another human. His argument in trying to show the illogical double standard of slavery is shown as he confronts Thomas Auld, saying that “[Thomas Auld’s] mind must have become darkened, [his] heart hardened, [his] conscience seared and petrified” for if he was to enter the precincts