Rhetorical Analysis Of Abrahams Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

Abolition of Slaves
In Abrahams Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation Speech, he used repetition, persuasion, the appeal to authority, and parallel structure to state the new commandment that was going to be distributed and the motives behind it in order to establish peace and equality. In addition, regardless of the immediate consequences that Lincoln was aware would occur, what was his vision for the long term effects that motivated his speech and what rhetorical devices and historical context did he apply in his speech to make it clear of what he wanted?
Historical Background
Slavery, was the condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons. The slave was a species of property; he belonged to someone else. In some societies slaves were considered movable property, in others immovable property, like real estate. The slave usually had few rights and always fewer than his owner, but there were not many societies in which he had absolutely none. As there are limits in most societies on the extent to which animals may be abused, so there were limits in most societies on how much a slave could be abused. The slave was removed from lines of natal descent.

Parallel structure was also used in the speech by repeating himself more than once to make his statement very clear. Although the speech repeats itself it did not provide alliteration. The proclamation did provide an antithesis stating, “And which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if the proclamation were not