preview

Rhetorical Analysis Of Patrick Henry 's Speech

Good Essays

In this essay, I hope to convince the reader that Patrick Henry’s speech “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” given on March 23rd, 1775, at the third Virginia convention, held in St. John 's Church in Richmond, was the best argument to encourage American colonists to support the cause of independence from Britain. The main reason Patrick Henry’s speech was so effective was through his use of emotion and logic to convince colonists’ that they were dealing with the question of whether they are content with continuing to be slaves of England or if they truly desire the freedom that independence would provide them. Key points of his argument I will go into depth about include the British military presence in America surveying the colonists every move and intimidating them, the ways colonists had tried to reason and work with Britain in order to avoid having to declare independence, his assurance that the colonies already are strong enough to challenge their right to independence from England, and that preservation of liberty is worth fighting and dying to retain. At the end of the third paragraph of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” Patrick Henry said, “Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been

Get Access