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Rhetorical Analysis Of The Emancipation Proclamation

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The Civil War marked a huge milestone in the history of our nation and the documents and speeches that were made around this time had a large impact on it all as well. One big speech that was given during that time was the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a speech that helped free the African American slaves of our country. President Lincoln gave the speech in the midst of the war. The Civil War was one of the biggest challenges that our nation faced. President Lincoln uses repetition and pathos to help convey his message about slavery. In the beginning of the speech, President Lincoln uses repetition to make his ideas more clear to his audience and to help bring them to the same conclusion that he has. President Lincoln repeats "we" to represent the unification of the people, that we all believe it, not just him. There is also the repetition of the …show more content…

He uses the words "who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract" to evoke a feeling of sadness in us. Lincoln talks about the soldiers and the ones "who struggled here." When you think of someone struggling, you think of them possibly being or getting hurt and that is sad and leaves you with an unsettling feeling. They struggled without us being able to help them, we were trying to end the war so the slaves were free and the soldiers are not getting hurt anymore. Also, at the end of the speech, he says, "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Those words evoke a feeling of promise in us. "Shall not perish from the earth" gives us a feeling of promise. When something doesn’t perish, it doesn’t die. To have a government that will never die makes us feel good because no matter what, as long as we come out united from the Civil War, our government will be able to make it through everything that we go

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