Eloquent Boldness

A detailed Summary of Eloquent Boldness

Should slavery be allowed in the United States? This question divided our nation into two separate entities in the late 1800's and laid the foundation for an ethically compelling speech. On June 16,1858, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, spoke out to over 1,000 Republican delegates in the Springfield, Illinois, state house for the Republican State Convention. At this gathering, Lincoln delivered an extremely courageous, "A House Divided," speech. In this eloquent yet bold speech Lincoln uses evidence that appeals to emotion, evidence revealing credibility and evidence that appeals to reason in hopes of encouraging support in the Republican cause; the formation of a unified nation without slavery.

Lincoln builds an appeal to emotion with the first statement of the speech, "Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention." This statement gives each member of the audience a sense of importance and captures their attention by personally addressing the delegates in an honorable and professional manner. Lincoln emotionally involves his audience throughout the speech through rhetorical questions. Lincoln uses these questions to imply that slavery is an unethical and immoral practice

Lincoln masterfully uses evidence that appeals to logic to support his views on a unified nation without slavery. The passage, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," is masterful evidence appealing to logic. This statement forced the delegates to agree due to the fact that past civilizations that have fallen, such as the French during the French Revolution because the nation was divided against itself. Lincoln also uses repetition to strengthen the evidence appealing to reason. This is exemplified though frequent reference to the, "care not" policy posed by Senator Douglas towards the Dred Scott Decision and the Nebraska Act. Lincoln believed that this was a weakness of the Democratic party, because it tried to persuade people not to care about the issues at hand. Lincoln exploited this policy because this policy was not logical and took away the freedom of the people. Through questioning the Supreme Court decision on the Dred Scott case Lincoln backs his opinion that the Democrats were creating a conspiracy that would lead to the legalization of slavery in all states. Lincoln argued that this nation was founded on, "Squatters Sovereignty," and that the decision to give the case to the Supreme court took away the peoples' right of freedom.

Lincoln's credibility was strong before the speech, however, he further strengthened his credibility with the evidence given in two key passages. The allusion to

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Approximate Word count = 963
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History