Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave; in the name of humanity; in the name of liberty; in the name of the Constitution and the Bible; dare to call in question and to denounce -- Despite his reuse of the phrase "fellow citizens" a few paragraphs earlier to underscore his bond with the audience, Douglass now clearly defines his allegiance. He will speak with the voice of the slave in delivering the epideitic message of his speech: "the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July."