Rhetorical Devices In Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

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In an almost identical setting four years prior to the occasion of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln delivered a speech regarding a war that was yet to come. Over the next four years, that impending conflict became a very real national catastrophe that divided Lincoln's nation. Now, at the start of his second term as president, Lincoln issues a speech focused on reconciliation and the renewal of a wounded nation by joining again with the South. As a skilled public speaker and an extremely respected political figure, Lincoln utilizes three rhetorical strategies to highlight the similarities between the North and South as well as to declare the war as the real enemy in an effort to urge the U.S. to reunite. In the second paragraph …show more content…

He begins to set up this form of comparison at the end of the second paragraph by including the phrases "the nation survive," and "the war came." Suggesting the nation has the opportunity to survive implies life within its entity that is being threatened. Saying that "the war came" gives the war the ability to come and go which creates a being for this idea. Lincoln strengthens these personifications throughout the rest of his speech. Lincoln endowed the war with the ability to live and die as he had previously done with the nation when he conveys his desires that the war "may speedily pass away." This displays the war as Lincoln's as well as the nation's true enemy as it has been given human qualities that define it as the opponent that must be defeated. He then urges the people to "bind up the nation's wounds" ; this grants the nation the ability to be wounded. By personifying the nation in this way, it suggests that the nation has been weakened and appeals to society's good nature and desire to help a wounded friend. Lincoln displays the U.S. as needing the help of the people and therefore calls them to aid in reuniting the nation as well as condemns the war -- not the opposing side -- as the true enemy in that same

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