Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave a speech that, unbeknownst to him, would become one of the most recognized speeches in the history of the United States. The empowering speech was given in the midst of the gruesome civil war that began between the north and the south over the long-conflicted morality of slavery. Through one of the most highly remembered speeches of our history, The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln commemorates the dead and wounded soldiers at the site of the battle in Gettysburg through references to history, unificating diction and metaphors of life and death to unite the nation in a time of separation and provide a direction for the future of the country.

The Gettysburg Address was intended to be an argument to persuade. Abraham Lincoln was inspiring his troops because morale was low after the Battle of Gettysburg. They need motivation to keep fighting. Lincoln used logos by explaining that because people gave their lives defending what they believed in, the living should finish the job the dead started. By talking about the fellow soldiers who died at Gettysburg, Lincoln appeals to the pathos of his listeners.

Abraham Lincoln in the speech, The Gettysburg Address, constructs a point of achieving a "just and lasting peace" between the North and South without retribution. Lincoln supports his assertion by justifying his beliefs of unity between the states. Lincoln's purpose is to influence the people to not allow what has been done to go to waste. He wants his audience to realize that this division will only persist if no one settles the current issues in society. Lincoln speaks in a sympathizing, determined tone to address the Americans who are mourning the loss of their loved ones and to the rest of Americans who he wants to see a change from.

During the history of the United States there have been very respectable speakers Martin Luther King Jr. John F. Kennedy but perhaps no greater leader in American history came to addressing the country like Abraham Lincoln. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln gave a short speech concerning the effect of the Civil War and his own personal vision for the future of the nation. In this speech Lincoln uses many different rhetorical strategies to convey his views of the Civil War to his audience.

President Abraham Lincoln uses a variety of rhetorical strategies in his Second Inaugural Address to pose an argument to the American people regarding the division in the country between the northern states and the southern states. Lincoln gives this address during the American Civil War, when politics were highly debated and there was a lot of disagreement. Lincoln calls for the people of America to overcome their differences to reunite as one whole nation once more.

Referring to such a defining moment in history were just one of the reasons why President Lincoln’s speech was so successful. The Gettysburg Address, one of the shortest, most quoted, and successful speeches in U.S. history was all due to the way President Lincoln was able to use ethos, logos, and pathos while presenting his speech to the audience at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Firstly, of the three modes of persuasion President Lincoln used his first was ethos. Ethos, are used to convince the audience with the author’s reliability or ethics.

The second inauguration address of Abraham Lincoln is as powerful as it is brief. He wrote a speech prompting for the end of the Civil War and the lasting vision he has for the future of the Union. Throughout the speech he uses comparisons, religion, and the moral high ground to move and rally the nation split over four years of civil war. Lincoln compares the response and lengths the North and South would go to obtain their interests. The slaves, to the South, were a “peculiar and powerful interest” since it greatly supported the Southern economy through the cotton industry.

The speech Abraham Lincoln gave on March 4th, 1865, titled the ‘Second Inaugural Speech’, was mainly political theology, in which he sought to address the major issues in which he would face in his presidency. His voice was very strong and clear, and he used diction, a passive voice, and a very well mannered tone in order to achieve the full purpose of his speech to the ‘fellow countrymen’. He achieves this effect very well, while speaking to both the North and the South about binding up the nation’s wounds that have stricken them in the core. The diction that Lincoln chooses to use displays that he is very educated, and that he wished to establish that he was speaking to both divided parts of the country, the north and the south, and that he planned on bringing the two together in his words.

One of the most famous speeches in the history of the United States is the Gettysburg Address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The speech is directed to the American citizens and the soldiers to gain their support; Lincoln also wanted to lead the people to peace and prosperity. The main focus of the speech was to honor the soldiers that fought in the Battle of Gettysburg and to emphasize the importance of liberty. The tone of the speech is extremely hopeful in such a way that he hopes the audience will live a peaceful life.

Gettysburg Speech In 2000 at Gettysburg, Coach Herman Boone presented his football team with a heartwarming, pathos speech about a historical war event to cause his players to fathom the importance of acting as a team. Coach Boone’s Gettysburg speech was a mesmeric allusion to President Lincoln’s famous dedication, and provoked a comparison between one of the hardest fought battles of the civil war and the need for teamwork. His morning practice speech is meant to inspire by arousing images, to appeal to their emotions, on the consecrated field of one of the most difficult times in American History. “Anybody know what this place is?”

In President Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” he effectively uses juxtaposition to make an emotional appeal so that his audience would feel a sense of remorse. In the second paragraph, Lincoln contrasts the deaths of the soldiers to a nation that might live. For example, he states that the field was “... a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” Lincoln is saying that the soldiers fought a war so that the nation would have a chance of unifying. By using juxtaposition, Lincoln wants to evoke a sense of guilt in the audience because the soldiers gallantly fought a war just so the rest of the nation can experience the freedom and equality that they had hoped for. Lincoln gets the audience to feel guilty

An Analysis of Gettysburg Address One war that had a huge impact on America was the Civil War. In this war it was the Confederates (South) and Union (North) this was a battle where brothers would fight brothers. It destroyed many men in the States, they had to fight against their own people. During this big war there was one major battle that was a turning point for the war.

In "The Gettysburg Address," Abraham Lincoln brings his point across of dedicating the cemetery at Gettysburg by using repetition, antithesis, and parallelism.

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States and Commander in Chief during the Civil War. He was a member of the Free Soil Party and later became a Republican. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the Confederate States after the Battle of Antietam, and ultimately led the North to victory in the Civil War. What most do not know, however, is that he got to that point after a long road of lying and deception. Abraham Lincoln constantly altered his views on slavery and other issues during the 1800s purely based on his audience. In addition to this very unpleasant approach, he freed the African Americans only as an advantage that could lead him into winning the war. Furthermore, Abraham Lincoln should be referred to as just another politician.

It was given after the Civil War almost as a way to retsore the nation. In the speech Abraham starts off by saying “ Four score and seven years ago” which is significant because that was when the Declaration of Independence was signed and when the colonies gained their freedom fromGreat Britain. He then goes on to say that the founding fathers bulit the nation on liberty and equality for all men, but years later they are fighting to see if its true. He uses atlleration to honor the fallen soliders by saying, “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” To conclude, Abraham Lincoln was a hero to many people but to others he was a man with a questionable motive.