Analysis Of Anna Howard Shaw's The Fundamental Principle Of A Republic

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On the stagnant day of June 21st, 1915, dozens of women congregated into the towering City Opera House in the town of Ogdensburg, New York, and awaited to bear witness to a speech that would soon revolutionize the battle for the The Women’s Suffrage Movement. Complimenting the sweltering heat, Reverend Doctor Anna Howard Shaw’s fiery passion is ignited in her speech The Fundamental Principle of a Republic. Shaw implements several points to support her argument for equal voting rights, each supported by various literary devices. Starting to frame her argument, Shaw initially opens with powerful ethos, “When I came into your hall tonight, I thought of the last time I was in your city. Twenty- one years ago I came here with Susan B. Anthony, and we came …show more content…

Confronted with the belief that, if women were given the right to vote, charities would shrink in size, Dr. Shaw counters with a metaphor.“ If we put in the word "opportunity" instead, that is what republics stand for. Our doctrine is not to extend the length of our bread lines or the size of our soup kitchens, what we need is for men to have the opportunity to buy their own bread and eat their own soup”. In this metaphor, the comparison to buying bread and eating soup is akin to being able to vote and enjoy the benefits of voting, comparatively voting for a candidate that shares one’s values. Yet, without the opportunity to reap such benefits, a women would only ever be stuck in a soup line of someone else’s choices, forever unable to make her own to see the change she wants. Towards the end of the speech, the anti suffragettes who are attacking Shaw’s argument make one last stand as one man out in the crowd screams out, “Well what does a woman know of war anyway?” Immediately, her reaction leads into a pathos-woven anecdote describing the horrors thousands of mothers would soon

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