Eloquent Boldness

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 that must be eliminated. An example of this would be when Lincoln states that the nation as a whole will either completely legalize slavery or bring slavery to an ultimate extinction. He follows this statement with the rhetorical question, “Have we no tendency to the latter condition?” With this statement Lincoln evokes the emotion of sympathy from the audience through ethical appeal. Ultimately he hopes to instill the belief that the elimination of slavery is the correct solution to the current problem of the increasing rift between the North and South.

Lincoln uses the metaphor, “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Regarding the comments made by those who believe the greatest of the Republican party are small compared to their adversaries. This belittles the Republican delegates and raises them up in anger in hopes that they will take action against this accusation. The reference to the Republican party members as a living dog, plays on the emotion of anger invoked by the Democratic comments. With the uses of this metaphor Lincoln hopes to help in the accomplishment of the Republican cause. In his closing remarks Lincoln states that, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work and who do care for the result are they who must be intrusted with the republican cause.