Persuasion From Candidate: A Rhetorical Analysis

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln lost a U.S. Senate race to Stephen A. Douglas after a series of debates on slavery. In 1859, Lincoln and Douglas delivered speeches on the Ohio Statehouse grounds. Lincoln came to Columbus in support of William Dennison, the Republican candidate for Ohio Governor. In his first Ohio speech, Lincoln spoke to a small crowd of fifty people on the east terrace of the Statehouse.

Fort Sumter was built on an island at the entrance on charleston harbor in South Carolina to defend the major ports of the United States. Major Anderson decided to withdraw his troops from the fort on April 12, 1861. Beauregard from the confederacy attacked the Union troops. Thank God no one was killed in the attack.

About a week after arguing in the Matson Trial, Lincoln moved with his family from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C. prior to the start of his term in Congress. By then, he was married and had two children. During and around Lincoln’s time in Congress, both the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, the major political parties at the time, fought to keep slavery in places. The Wilmot Proviso, a proposed bill that would outlaw slavery in the newly acquired territory as a result of the Mexican War, was introduced by U.S. Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania in 1846. After failing to pass before the end of the legislative session, the bill was re-introduced several times during the congress that Lincoln served in.

Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln’s speeches, both made powerful and important impacts. Both of their speeches were made because they believed in a better America and they used their words to help solve important problems.. Such as using repetition and parallelism to empower their speeches. Making their tone in such a way that it inspires the listeners as they speak. Whether if the speeches were long or short the meaning always stayed big. A strong theme that was used was freedom.

Although in the beginning of his political career, Lincoln was not a particularly religious man, he integrates biblical references, allusion and scriptural quotes to address political issues. Many Historians and scholars have pondered the Lincoln's spiritual and religious affiliation. Harry Stout has written that Lincoln grew steadily more spiritual during the Civil War and that “along with spirituality came a sort of mystical fatalism.” Lincoln once said “Americans believe in Chosen people.” Lincoln compares the founding of America to the founding of Israel.

In A Lincoln Preface it states Abraham was elected president in 1860(Carl Sandburg, pg 453), this shows that Lincoln was dealing with the slavery issue his entire presidency. They provide us information including Lincoln’s birth year being 1776, and that Harriet Beecher Stowe visited him(Carl Sandburg, pg 453, 454). This shows how much slavery was affecting him and the United States. In Arthur Ashe Remembered it told us how Arthur Ashe created the Arthur Ashe Foundation to help find a cure for aids and how he contracted it through surgery, this shows how much he cared about beating his battle with aids and how he wanted to help others throughout their battle too(John McPhee, pg 461). Also, about how Ashe received many honors throughout his tennis career including 1968 U.S. Open and the 1975 Wimbledon Singles Championship(John McPhee, pg 461).

At the beginning of the Civil War, domestic communication coordination was still primitive. For example, for long distance reporting, generals in the United States deployed groups of delivery men, who carried letters on horseback. These deliveries, conducted on horseback oftentimes over hundreds of miles of treacherous terrain, could take days to reach the final destination. Other early war communication tactics included the use of torches and flags to signal from one post to another. This method also had substantial weaknesses as it inaccurately relayed information amidst the smoke and fog from the battlefield.

Abraham Lincoln was an extreme activist for the emancipation of slaves. For the previous eight years before Lincoln came into office, Pierce and Buchanan were the president and felt that slavery should be upheld in the south, much to the disapproval of the free-soil party, later to become the Republican Party. Once Lincoln received the place as president for the republican party, a few of the states in the south began to succeed from the Union and a month after his inaugural address was the commencement of the Civil War. The Union hoped that the war would be over quickly and that they could return to their daily life, but that hope was forgotten after a Confederate victory in the Battle at Bull Run. Lincoln was vaguely familiar with wartime strategies and atmospheres after serving in the Black Hawk War but surprised many with his excellent command and leadership during the Civil War.

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

In The Gettysburg Gospel, Gabor Boritt elucidates conjectures on Lincoln’s writing methodology concerning the Gettysburg Address “swings between two extremes” (Boritt 14). The themes ambit divine inspiration and transitory work that led to instantaneous corollary to what some scholars, such as Garry Wills, postulate as perpetual revelations and meticulous work that lead to an evolving causatum. Boritt believes that many writers and scholars have perceived predispositions; “It takes a heroic effort for the students of Lincoln to separate themselves from their subjects. Most of us fail to a smaller or larger degree” (Boritt 11). This is judicious for the “Lincoln’s Address was written spontaneously” argument.