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Rhetorical Analysis Of John Webster's Speech By Daniel Webster

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In 1850, The United States seemed to be divided with the acquisition of territory following the US victory in the Mexican War and bring back concerns about the balance of free and slave states in the Union. There was a strong feeling in the North against allowing enslavement to spread to new territories and states. In the South, it was deeply offensive. So, the dispute played out in the US Senate. There were some important figures such as Henry Clay of Kentucky who would represent the West, Calhoun of South Carolina represented the South and finally Daniel Webster of Massachusetts who would speak for the North. On March 7th, Daniel Webster addresses the President in a call for compromise between the North and South over the issue of slavery …show more content…

He advised abolitionist Northerners to abandon anti-slavery measures, while simultaneously warning Southerners that disunion would inevitably lead to war.
- In fact, he communicates his concern on how the union should be and how it’s the nation’s job to unite, and enforce freedom, etc.… but he is clearly camouflaging his true feelings about slavery. He is simply making slavery a light issue: “But we must view things as they are. Slavery does exist in the United States. It did exist in the states before the adoption of this Constitution”
- Daniel Webster is not denying the differences between both parts and their complaints: “There are lists of grievances produced by each…”
- Webster urged strengthening of laws to capture runaway slaves and that led to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: “there has been found at the North, among individuals and among Legislators of the North, a disinclination to perform, fully, their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free …show more content…

Why, what would be the result? What states are to secede? What is to remain American? What I am to be?”
- Webster tries to see all sides of the slavery issue, even though as a northerner, he himself was personally opposed. He defends the South's push for stronger fugitive slave laws: “their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, it is my judgement that the South is right, and the North is

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