Hi student! =)

Thank you for the amazing question! I can see you put much thought into it. Let's see if I can help...

Okay, first we should take a look at the line reference.

" I ask you , has the Southern heart been fired for thirty years for nothing?".

What do we know about what this line says?

For one, we know it is about the Southerners. Good. What else? Well, we know it refers to their feelings (the southern heart) about emancipation, which is about freeing African Americans from slavery. It is about the idea of eliminating slavery, not about the African Americans themselves. So basically, we are trying to figure out "how the Southerners feel about eliminating slavery?" Knowing this will help us determine what the word "fired" means in context.

Next, we must look at the surrounding sentences to get a better idea of the Southerners' feelings. The author says in line 58-59 that "it is a slavery which those white people (referring to southerners) have been taught, for thirty years, is a divine institution (a good and noble thing). So if we paraphrase these lines, we understand that the southerners learned for a loooooong time that slavery was good. So how do you think southerners would feel after learning this fact about them? Pretty upset, right? Perhaps frustrated? angry at the situation of eliminating slavery? These are small, simple logical conclusions that can be reached from the passage.

Furthermore, if you read a few lines past 60, the author further goes on to ask the question: how can southerners, who have been taught that African Americans should not have freedom and who believe that slavery is good, have their minds changed in one day? Plus, the very next sentence says that the southerners look at African Americans as the reason for the southerners' humiliation. These pieces of context further support the idea that southerners would most likely be emotionally stirred in a negative way, or roused (D).

(A), let go, doesn't fit because the Southerners' feelings haven't been released (let go). To let go of your heart means to not be emotionally attached to something, which doesn't fit given the information we just discussed.

Anyways, I hope this explanation helped!!

And as always, keep moving forward!! You got this!

Jin Teacher