Anaphora In Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, the third shortest inaugural address in US history, was delivered on March 4, 1865 in front of the US Capitol. In just over a month, the Civil War would be over. Already the Thirteenth Amendment has abolished slavery, and only Generals Lee and Johnston with a small force stand against a Union army 280,000 strong. Despite an inevitably victorious North, President Lincoln’s speech is somber and speaks only of the wounds rendered in this great nation, suggesting that slavery had offended God and that the war acted as a form of divine retribution. Through rhetoric, Lincoln heeds the American people to reunite and move past their disagreements. In the clause, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right . . .” Lincoln uses an anaphora, the repetition of the same words at the start of consecutive clauses. In the beginning of each clause in our

. . shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?,” and then himself answers, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” The question-answer form of rhetoric, a hypophora, allows Lincoln to put forth his point of divine retribution. By allowing the audience to silently mull over the question and then affirming their thoughts, he successfully drives home his points against slavery and for unity. In the third paragraph of Lincoln’s speech, we find an anastrophe in the example “That of neither has been answered fully,” when referring to the prayers of the Union and Confederacy. An anastrophe breaks from the usual word order; in this case the sentence departs from the usual subject-verb-object syntax. Changing the order of the sentence creates a dramatic in that the audience is forced to give more thought interpreting, and in passing this lends more weight to the