0:00
Hey there good people. Welcome back to another episode, where we've been discussing in the past few episodes how to rhetorically analyze a written text. And this episode is time to reap the fruits of our labor. By putting what we've been studying into practice through analyzing an example text for its use of rhetorical strategies. So we're carefully going to read Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address that speech to better understand how to analyze a text rhetorical strategies in terms of its content, structure and style. So Lincoln, you know, delivered this speech on March 4 1865. In Washington, DC. Though the Civil War was not yet over, the struggle had turned in the unions favor, and the end of the conflict was in sight. In this address, you'll see Lincoln acknowledging the price the nation has paid for the war, and arguing that lasting peace and reconciliation will come only through mercy and forgiveness. Indeed, many historians and rhetoricians consider this Lincoln's greatest speech. The rest of this episode is going to come in two parts. First, I'll read Lincoln's second inaugural address. And then immediately following that, I'll proceed into the rhetorical analysis of it. If you'd rather not listen to the inaugural address, you can check the description for the timestamp of when the rhetorical analysis begins, and hop skip it to do that on to it. Anyway, here's Abraham Lincoln. fellow country. Alright, hold on, let me get a straight face. fellow countrymen. At this second appearing to take the Oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first then a statement somewhat in detail, of course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great Contest, which still absorbs the attention and in grossest the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is I trust reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future. No prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending Civil War. All dreaded it all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address has been delivered from this place, devoted all together to saving the union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, seeking to dissolve the union and divide effects by negotiation. 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 and the war came. One eighths of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would run the union even by war. While the government claims no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease whether even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looks for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask adjust guys assistance in bringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not that ye be not judged. The prayers of both cannot be answered, that have neither that have neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses for must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.
5:00
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses, which in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both north and south this terrible war as the world do to those by whom the offense came. Shall we discern there in any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribed to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away? Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the welds piled by the bonds man's 250 years of unrequited soil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the last shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago, so still, it must be said the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together, with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right Let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish adjust and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Okay, that's the speech don't provide any commentary, because doing so might skew how the rhetorical analysis is perceived. So, to avoid any of that, I'm just going to go straight into the rhetorical analysis. Alright, in terms of the speeches content, notice how Lincoln makes several related arguments designed to persuade his audience that after the Civil War ends, the North must treat the south with charity, and compassion. He opens his address by asserting that he will not detail a course of action for the country's future. Clearly everyone in the nation has been and continues to be consumed by the war. Next, Lincoln asserts that the primary cause of the war was slavery. Four years earlier, the union sought to halt the spread of slavery peacefully. However, the Confederacy he asserts, would not accept this position and turn to armed conflict instead. Neither side though anticipated the duration and the ferocity of the war. While both sides in the conflict, call on God for victory, Lincoln questions whether any divine power would support the perpetuation of slavery. Interestingly, he sees both sides in the war being chastised for their involvement with slavery, and hopes that the suffering all or undergoing can purge their collective guilt and set the stage for a more just nation. Lincoln closes his speech by asserting that reconciliation will only succeed if it is based on mercy, forgiveness and justice, not revenge, and recrimination.
8:18
Both Lincoln's position as president and the occasion of the speech will lend credibility to his address. That's ethos. However, Lincoln enhances his credibility by articulating the North's perspective on the wars causes a position the most of his audience would presumably endorse. Making numerous references to God and God's will also serves to enhance his ethos but serves as an emotional appeal as well. Like in hopes the citizens of the North will be swayed to extend mercy to the South after the war by ascribing such position to divine will, by speaking mercifully and understandingly about the suffering of the south during the war, Lincoln models the behavior and attitudes that he hopes the members of his audience will adopt themselves. Now structurally, Lincoln opens his address by commenting on the previous four years of his presidency, and acknowledging the country's current struggle before laying out the North's view of the wars cause. Having articulated a position his audience would accept, Lincoln then changes the direction of the speech. Instead of attacking the Confederacy for its secession from the union, he speaks about the suffering the war has brought to all Americans. How neither side in the conflict accurately anticipated the terrible nature of the war, and how the South has already suffered severely for its actions. Audience members might expect Lincoln to call for revenge against the South, but instead, he argues the both sides have suffered enough. At the end of his speech, he urges his audience to treat the south with charity stylistically, the speech is remarkable for its somber tone. Though this is an inaugural speech Lincoln is not celebrating. Instead, his his tone reflects the suffering the nation has endured over the previous four years and the hard work that lies ahead of it. syntactically, considering the syntax, he employs balanced sentences to create memorable phrases, such as all dreaded it all sought to avert it. And then finally, do we hope fervently do we pray? Also with malice toward none with charity for all. He creates these memorable phrases. And he also emphasizes the Balanced View he takes concerning the wars consequences, does this again through his syntax, the north and south have both suffered and reconstruction must be based on an understanding of their shared humanity. Lincoln repeatedly employs language from the Old Testament to emphasize his view of the war as a form of divine judgment against the nation for its past offenses. Now, underlying this argument is the notion that Justice lies in the hands of God. If God has scourged the nation for its transgressions, there's no need for humans to further the South's punishment following the war. So there we have it a brief rhetorical analysis of Lincoln's second inaugural address, covers all the areas we covered content, we covered structure, we covered style. Of course, we could open these up and go into more detail. But this brief rhetorical analysis of Lincoln speech, hopefully will give you some idea of how an author can manipulate a text content structure and style to achieve a particular aim, and also how to go about examining those on their own terms with specific consideration given to the rhetorical situation and the general historical context.