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Civil Disobedience Rhetorical Analysis

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The reiteration of the same message, especially one of such importance to the speaker, constructs necessity and pressure to act upon the speaker’s claim. Repetition does not pertain only to a recurrence of the same word or group of words, but rather it can be the recurrence of the same idea or concept. Although Thoreau had no intentions of doing so, Civil Disobedience can break down into three sections, all of which address three different topics that relate back to his dissenting opinion of the Mexican War and slavery. Thoreau states “when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law...What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.” Not only does Thoreau clarify his urgency, but Thoreau comprised his first protest of slavery and the war.

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