Lincoln's Speech

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Lincoln’s Memorable Speech Lincoln delivered his second Inaugural Address on March 3, 1965 during the time of his second term as president of the United States. In Lincolns Second Inaugural Addressed, he addressed the causes and the meaning of why the Civil War had begun between the Northerners and the Southerners. He pointed out that that whole conflicts of slavery was one of the main reasons why God was at shame with this. And it was because of this, that He allowed the conflicts to happen. Once the Civil War was over, Lincoln says that now that everyone is at ease, they should start behaving gently with each other. In his speech, he used a lot of rhetorical devices that helped make his thoughts about the war and the country’s future more clear. Although, Lincoln’s speech was the second shortest inaugural address in American history, it is considered one of the most memorable and ubiquitous based on its content and rhetorical devices. To begin with, one of the rhetorical devices that Lincoln used in his second inaugural speech were allusions. Most of the plethora of allusions he used were of divine providence and the Bible. This means that he used the Bible to show the audience what the scriptures had said about the issue on slavery and the war. For example, when Lincoln was talking about the separation of the northerners and southerners, he said,” Both read the same bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against each other.” He wanted to show the people how the bible shows no barrier between different states of a country because God looks at them all the same way; hence why he says that both Northerners and Southerners pray to the same god. Biblical illusions made his view on the whole problem not prosaic. Not only that, but he wanted to remind the people that “The Almighty has his own purposes” (line 36) and if it were not for Him, then He
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