Rhetorical Analysis Of American Citizenship

Citizenship for Dummies

In Buffalo, New York on January 26, 1883, a 25 year old Theodore Roosevelt delivers the speech “Duties of American Citizenship.” Young but extremely accomplished, Roosevelt has graduated from Harvard and is currently serving on the New York State Assembly. Just two years before this speech, a man who had been denied a government job based on his political allegiances assassinated President James Garfield. So, the Civil Service Reform is passed in 1883 to ensure government jobs would be rewarded based off of merit rather than politics. It is this reform that spurs Theodore Roosevelt to deliver this speech, asking the American people to participate in and clean up the political system by utilizing the rhetorical appeals

He wants to push the public into action; the way he does this is by shaming them. Politics of this day are very divided: “voters spoke of political loyalty in the same breath as religious affiliation”(Hartman). With a very uncommon view of the time, Roosevelt argues that “it is perfectly supposable that he may feel so strongly for or against certain principles held by one party, or certain principles held by the other, that he is unable to give his full adherence to either”. The party system is not absolute, and it is practical that many people could not identify with either of the parties. Because of the emotions people place with politics, Roosevelt appeals to his audience’s emotions by creating a hypothetical situation where a man “feel[s] so strongly” about his political views. To achieve his intended purpose, he must convince the public that honor and prudence are more important than an allegiance to a political party. His ideal citizen makes decisions based off of ”his individual beliefs and theories of right and wrong”(Roosevelt 2). Rather than exercising blind loyalty to a political party, Roosevelt encourages that citizens act more often on individual, independent judgements. By motivating people to act on their emotions and using strong language, Roosevelt reaches the feelings of his

Roosevelt lays out how politics should run logically, then proposes why he believes they do not run that way and finally suggests how he feels it would best be fixed. He begins by telling the citizen that would like to participate in politics to, “begin with the little thing, and do not expect to accomplish anything without an effort”(Roosevelt 3). Roosevelt creates a logical procession of events for a citizen to follow, laying it out in a simple and easy way that his audience can understand. Then, Roosevelt deduces that, ”people who say that they have not time to attend to politics are simply saying that they are unfit to live in a free community”. In order to make this bold statement, he uses the idea that those who do not participate in politics do not support the American system. Finally, he proposes a solution to the issue he perceives. Roosevelt urges citizens to ”joins with other people, who think as he does, to form a club where abstract political virtue will be discussed”. The rationale of this plan is that many people of a similar mindset will achieve more real change together than they would separated. Through reasoning and logic, Roosevelt crafts a defendable argument to support his