The President of the United states of America, Abraham Lincoln , in his second inaugural address explains to the people of America that “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation.” Lincoln supports his speech by talking about the past and about everything that led up to the war. Lincoln also supports his claim by saying that in the bible that it is wrong to make a profit on the work of enslaved men, based on the color of their skin. Lincoln’s purpose throughout his speech is to address the nation about all of the wrong things that we were doing in our lives that made it hard on the African American slaves living in America at that time. …show more content…
This bill was dangerous because it basically challenged the south’s whole way of life. I’m not saying that the bill was wrong but I think that Lincoln passed it as a way to gain a lead in the civil war, not just for the freedom for African Americans. Lincoln also talks about how we ask God for help in “ wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces” but we still tried to do this. “Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” Lincoln says this and it is very true about what happened in our country at that time, but for some reason he never comes out and says that the Union started this war when they bombarded Fort Sumter in
He said in his First Inaugural Address, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” when trying to stop the oncoming civil war. Lincoln was trying to show that the people of America were all inherently allies and need not fight a war against their friends. He reminded everyone that they all pray to the same God and read the same bible, yet they are using his words to fight each other.
It would be more than difficult not to read Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address without some sense of pride or honor for one’s own country. He brings about a call to civility among all citizens striving for unity and harmony with one another. Lincoln understood the dilemma that slavery became for not only the Northerners attempting to abolish the practice entirely, but also for the Southerners perpetuating it in the first place. The fact that there was a faction rising in favor of slavery on a scale that would divide the country indefinitely and that Lincoln foresaw this danger demonstrates the level of prudence he was able to acquire up until his presidency. In this address, Lincoln stressed the importance of the nation staying unified and true to the principles set by
Within this address, Lincoln captivates a war-torn nation in order to communicate a message of unity to the once opposing sides of the Civil war, North and South, in hopes of being able to convince the people to work together and “bind up the nation’s wounds.” Lincoln’s address is scattered with parallel structure however, its appeal to emotion is most clearly observed when Lincoln utilized it alongside comparative diction to unite North and South as people of similarities rather than differences. In the entirety of his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln never once discussed North and South as two sides of an argument, instead his comparison of them begins as he speaks of how “both parties deprecated the war.” His use of parallel structure then aided this comparison as he details that one side would “make war rather than let the nation survive;
In this moment of time, everybody should be embarrassed and ashamed for what they caused. Taking a deeper look at ‘”the war came”’, Lincoln leaves out the side who caused this because his attention is not solely on who to put the blame of the war on but, to reinforce the fact the North and the South has experienced an equal amount of great
During Abraham Lincoln’s presidency at the start of the 1860, an issue that had divided the nation was slavery. Lincoln’s election to presidency as a republic was not received well by the Southern slave states, as they thought that as a republican he was out to abolish slavery. In an effort to calm southern states and keep them from seceding from the United States, he attempts to ease them with his First Inaugural Address. In his First Inaugural Address his key points are to clam southern leaders of slave states, keep the states from seceding, and make them at ease as he enters presidency.
Lincoln goes on with saying that it is God, not the Union or the Confederacy, that brought upon the Civil War. He claims that it is their punishment for slavery that their creator forced such a devastating event among them. By associating the cause of the war – and all its devastation – with that of the Divine, Lincoln brings forth not a single feeling of
Instead, he subtly suggests the south was at fault, and by doing this he does not directly blame the people. This passive tone shows that Lincolns focus is not to blame for the war, but to show that war brought suffering of equal proportions to both north and south. In the last half of his address, Lincoln logically explains why God had not ended the war and urges his audience not to judge. He states to his audience that they should “judge not that they be not judged,” alluding to the Lord's Prayer and appealing to his audience's Christian beliefs, and pacifying his audience. Lincoln continues to appeal to his audience’s religious background and answers his statement “and the war came”, revealing that "If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come… He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came" (30-32).
Abraham Lincoln’s Establishment of Impartiality During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln served his presidency to the United States (U.S.) during one of the most decisive and divisive time periods in the nation’s history. Lincoln began his presidency shortly after the official formation of the Confederacy in the Southern states of the U.S. President Lincoln delivered his first Inaugural Address in 1861 to an already divided nation with the knowledge that the potential for a civil war was growing and that conflict was imminent. Taking the reins of a nation that was seemingly at irreconcilable odds, Lincoln served his first four-year term as president from 1861-1865; a time period that saw the violence of the American Civil War engulf and divide an entire nation. Near the end of the Civil War in 1865, Lincoln was elected for a second presidential term. It was during Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address in March of 1865 that he was tasked with again speaking before a divided
The address touches on the idea of equality throughout. Lincoln appeals to the idea that the founding fathers built the nation with the people's freedom in mind when he states “A new nation, conceived in Liberty. ”(Lincoln, paragraph 1). This appeals to the notion that people want to have freedom, including the slaves who had no freedom, in Lincoln's time, and was one of the primary reasons the Civil War was occurring. Lincoln uses the idea of freedom to change people's mind about the issue.
Lincoln was well educated over current case-law problems pertaining too slave and free states. Over one of the worst decisions ever made by the Supreme Court, the Dred Scott decision threatened to bring slavery into the North. Lincoln was stressing the fact that if something wasn’t done, slavery would no doubt trickle out of the South, and into the rest of America. While the Supreme Court was fumbling and backtracking, there was another law that brought slavery closer. The Kansas-Nebraska bill overrode previous legislation and allowed white male residents to vote on whether to permit slavery therein.
The 16th president of the united states, Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address, Lincoln states that though the first inaugural speech was important, there was an even more important topic at hand now. He talks about how even with the war coming to an end, blacks and whites are still be treated differently and he is very against this. He first supports his claim by saying that blacks and whites are equal by that they pray to the same God and pray the same prayers yet they are not equal in the eyes of society. He then goes on to say that in the end God will judge us all the same. Lincoln’s purpose of this statement is to say that he is against inequality in order to make a country that is not at ends with each other over the color of someone 's skin.
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Rhetorical Analysis The purpose of this speech is detailed in the time period. This speech was written/spoken at the end of the American Civil war. It is President Lincoln’s way of putting a tentative end to the war and a start to the recovery period. He is still oppressing the south in his diction when he states “Both parties deprecated war: but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
In his first inaugural address, March 4, 1861, Lincoln expressed his view that, “one section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes that it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute,” it must be noted that, Lincoln originally resisted calls for abolition, because “he did not want to alienate border-state Unionists and northern Democrats,” but “with war threatening, Lincoln [made a calculated move] by sending armed ships to resupply Fort Sumter. [In response] Davis ordering the bombing of the fort on April 12, 1861. This attack marked the beginning of the Civil War,” (Two Viewpoints; Goldfarb, 59; America’s Stories). This type of war was completely new and thus “required a new kind of political leader, one with skills not only to direct armies but also to guide the energies of the citizenry toward victory.
President Abraham Lincoln, in his inaugural address, addresses the topic of the civil war and its effects on the nation and argues that America could be unified once more. He supports his claim by using massive amounts of parallel structure and strong word choice. Lincoln ‘s purpose is to contemplate the effects of the civil war in order to unite the broken America once again. He adopts a very hopeful tone for his audience, the readers of the inaugural address and others interested in the topic of American history and the civil war.
Lincoln's uses rhetorical strategy throughout his Second Inaugural Address was the use of an appeal to his audience's emotions. This is evident during his entire speech Lincoln continuously revert to religious evidence of some sort to support his claim. He says that although it may seem absurd for slavery's proponents to be allowed to pray to God, that his audience and he should “judge not that [they] be not judged,” alluding to the Lord's Prayer and appealing to his audience's Christian beliefs. He continues religion when talking about the Christians, he states, “Fondly do [they] hope, fervently do