During President Lincoln’s second inaugural address, the audience expected the speech to be on politics, slavery, and states’ rights. Instead, the speech was on the effects of civil war and gave his vision for the future of the nation. While doing so, he uses rhetorical strategies to achieve his purpose, which is to convince his audience to unite so they can move forward and fix their broken nation. With Lincoln’s main goal of linking the North and the South into one, he tends to use words such as each, both, neither, we, and us. Even though at the time they were looked at as two separate territories, this is his attempt of verbally joining the two as one, painting a picture of unity so that eventually they can work together to “bind up the nation’s wounds.” This continuous wording is also used to express the similarity of the divided people. Some examples include, “All dreaded it,…”, “Both parties deprecated war,…”, “All knew…”, “Each looked for an easier triumph,…”, and “That of neither…,” are all examples of him uniting them through the use of diction. Overall, Lincoln gets his audience to understand that it is possible for them to come together because in a way they are similar. …show more content…
“Both parties deprecated war,…, and the war came.” The war is being presented as something that was not asked for, but he’s not angry about it at the same time. There is no direct blame placed on the North or the South. To him everybody played a role and was guilty in the leading up of the war. He’s uniting everyone into the guilt. 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
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
Utilizing rhetorical devices such as formal diction, allusion, and repetition, Abraham Lincoln’s “The Gettysburg Address” successfully expresses the importance of coming together as a nation during the Civil War. Lincoln portrays himself professionally and speaks to his audience in a strong, firm manner by using formal diction. Instead of making his speech casual and more personal, in a sense, the author makes sure that his words are to be heard and respected by using the word choice he did. For example, in the thirds paragraph, Lincoln talks about the soldiers stating, “It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have this far so nobly advanced.” The specific word choice
In the closing months of the Civil War, and in his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln speaks upon important matters at the time. These matters being about slavery and politics. He wanted to express his thoughts on the ongoing Civil War and his hopes for creating a better future. In order to achieve his purpose, Abraham Lincoln utilizes sophisticated diction, irony, and pathos. Abraham Lincoln uses sophisticated diction in order to express his thoughts on the Civil War and his hopes for creating a better future.
The parallel structure underlined what his objectives were for the country. For instance, he says, "to bind up the nation's wounds...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. " Lincoln's main objective was to try to leave the Civil War in the past, so they could build a promising future together as a nation. Another case of allusion was toward the start of the address when Lincoln stated, “All dreaded it, all sought to avert it.” He said “all” referring to both the North and South so they could stop fighting and work together to build a stronger
Both Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass undertake the onerous task of appealing to an audience that does not want to listen. As a politician, Lincoln’s goal in the political landscape is to affect concrete change and reinstate the Missouri Compromise. On the other hand, Douglass is calling out the hypocrisy of the American people in supporting an immoral institution. Douglass’ primary goal is to sow doubt into his audience by appealing to their morality and sense of justice. Douglass exhorts the American population while Lincoln nudges them towards the logical approach that will preserve the Union.
He states that “both parties deprecated war; one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” Although compromises were made between both sides of the nation they were unable to resolve the political issues between the north and the south. The war stemmed from Lincoln’s presidency and the decisions he made with his presidential power. As a result the South felt as though the threat to their institution of slavery was becoming too great. The south felt that in order to preserve their culture of slavery it would have to become its own nation and the only way the north felt they could stop the Confederacy and preserve the union was by retaliating back. Thus, making the Civil War inevitable to
Abe Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, uses language with which the audience can connect and relate. Through inclusive pronouns, parallel sentence structure, pathos, and metaphors, Lincoln does not simply list off what the war has entailed or recommend a certain path the people must take. Lincoln instead consoles the nation as if it was a dear old friend whom is in dire need of advice. The first rhetorical strategy Lincoln used was inclusive pronouns such as “we”, “us”, and “all”. Additionally, the president began the address with the inviting words “Fellow Countrymen”.
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.
It is seen clearly in his word choice that Lincoln calls for a lasting and fair peace, but not only between the North and South. He also calls the American people to apply this concept of peace with other countries and in foreign policy. Throughout his Second Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln employs a variety of rhetorical strategies to promote unity between Americans. As Lincoln once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
America has always struggled with division, especially amongst the issue of equality. Slavery pushed the North and South morally, politically, and economically apart. Tensions grew, however right before the Civil war and his election, Lincoln gave an address attempting to unify the nation. He said that he was “devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, [however] insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union '' (Lincoln 1). In this, Lincoln addresses his rhetorical situation, and utilizes words such as [insurgent] and [destroy] to convey the direness of the situation.
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.
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. Lincoln begins his essay utilizing historical references in order to illustrate to the public the basis of what the nation was founded upon. Through this, he reminds Americans the morals and ideals that the people are willing to spill blood for.
Lincoln urges the people to “strive on to finish the work we are in,” “to bind up the nation's wounds,” he is trying to get the United Sate Citizens to become one again to unite and be one strong country, showing that even after a huge war that the country can remain strong and unified and that this war will allow for a strong brotherhood in the US. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is significant because Lincoln offered and objective point of view. Lincoln did not speak of the unloyalty of the South nor did he praise the North. Rather, Lincoln used multiple points to show that the Unification should be the main focus of his speech not that the states should be divided because of
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.
“.. but it [world] can never forget what they did here.” (465) Here, Lincoln is discussing that the world can not forget about the many soldiers who died