Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Rhetorical Analysis

1485 Words6 Pages

Abraham Lincoln’s Establishment of Impartiality During the Civil War Abraham Lincoln served his presidency to the United States (U.S.) during one of the most decisive and divisive time periods in the nation’s history. Lincoln began his presidency shortly after the official formation of the Confederacy in the Southern states of the U.S. President Lincoln delivered his first Inaugural Address in 1861 to an already divided nation with the knowledge that the potential for a civil war was growing and that conflict was imminent. Taking the reins of a nation that was seemingly at irreconcilable odds, Lincoln served his first four-year term as president from 1861-1865; a time period that saw the violence of the American Civil War engulf and divide an entire nation. Near the end of the Civil War in 1865, Lincoln was elected for a second presidential term. It was during Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address in March of 1865 that he was tasked with again speaking before a divided …show more content…

“There were many cheers and many tears as this noble address was concluded” (White, 2014). The indication that the speech had a powerful impact on Lincoln’s audience is important to the assertion that he was moderate and neutral in his demeanor and actions toward the South as is shows the reaction that the audience had to what was being said and how it was said. It would have been easy to take the podium and point fingers where may would have agreed blame belonged. However, Lincoln took the opportunity to deliver a graceful yet direct address that seems to had drawn many people in his audience back to a state of consideration and emotion. If nothing else was accomplished by Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address, it gave the American public a glimpse of the sort of strength that Lincoln strove for America to achieve during his