Speeches of the American Revolution

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Speeches of theAmerican Revolution

• The Crisis, Number 1
• Speech in the Virginia Convention
• Common Sense

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The Crisis, Number 1

• Thomas Paine

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Thomas Paine

• Arrived in America at age 37
• His passage was paid by Ben Franklin, who called
  Paine and ingenious, worthy young man.
• Only resided in America for 13 years yet wrote
  some of the most persuasive texts of the American
  Revolution
• Paine proposed the name United States of America
  for the new nation.

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Thomas Paine

• Paine's strength lay in his ability to present
  complex ideas in clear and concise form, as
  opposed to the more philosophical approaches of
  his Enlightenment contemporaries in Europe.

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Thomas Paine

• Significant Works
• Common Sense (1776) pamphlet that advocated
  war against Britain (sold 120,000 copies in three
  months) the most important pamphlet in American
  history.
• The Crisis, Number One urged war against
  England the first of 16 Crisis papers written
  between 1776-83.

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The Crisis, Number One

• Paine composed the speech using a drum for a
  desk.
• It was read aloud to discouraged soldiers during
  a retreat early in the war.
• Morale was so restored that most soldiers
  reenlisted and six days later, the army had its
  first victory at Trenton
• The essay was printed and given to every new
  recruit.

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The Crisis, Number One

• Paine compares the colonists situation to being
  enslaved.
• Paine uses metaphor, aphorism, argument by
  analogy, anecdote, rhetorical questions, to
  argue that the colonists have no choice but to
  wage war against Britain.

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The Appeals

• Paine uses the three appeals
• Logos logical appeal
• Pathos emotional appeal
• Ethos ethical appeal

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The Three Appeals

• Logos (logical appeal)
• the text
• Pathos (emotional appeal)
• the audience
• Ethos (ethical appeal)
• the author

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Rhetorical Devices

• Aphorism/Proverb a brief statement (sometimes
  witty), usually only one sentence long, that
  expresses a general truth or clever observation
  about life.
• Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. John
  Wooden
• Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees
  it. Confucius
• The best way out is always through Robert
  Frost
• You cant steal second base and keep you r foot
  on first. - anonymous
• An honest man can feel no pleasure in the
  exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
  Thomas Jefferson

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Rhetorical Devices

• Parallel Structure/Parallelism
• Anaphora the repetition of a word or words at
  the beginning of successive lines, clauses, or
  sentences.
• Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
  the disputer of this world?
• Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!
• for everything there is a season, and a time or
  matter under heaven a time to plant, a time to
  pluck up what is planted
• a time to be born, and a time to
  die(Ecclesiastes (31-2)

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Rhetorical Devices

• Epistrophe the repetition of a word or words at
  the end of successive lines, clauses, or
  sentences.
• The cars do not sell because the engineering is
  inferior, the quality of materials is inferior,
  and the workmanship is inferior.
• Hourly joys be still upon you!Juno sings her
  blessings on you. . . .Scarcity and want shall
  shun you,Ceres' blessing so is on you.
  Shakespeare, The Tempest (4.1.108-109 116-17)
• We are born to sorrow, pass our time in sorrow,
  end our days in sorrow.

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Rhetorical Devices

• Parallel Structure/Parallelism
• Asyndeton the deliberate omission between a
  series of related clauses
• I came, I saw, I Conquered.
• I went to the store, I grabbed the phone, I
  dialed.
• the storm, stress, sound, fury.
• They spent the day wondering, searching,
  thinking, understanding.

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Rhetorical Devices

• Parallel Structure/Parallelism
• Polysyndeton the use of a conjunction between
  each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus
  structurally the opposite of asyndeton.
• The storm, and the stress, and the sound, and
  the fury.
• The water, like a witch's oils, / Burnt green,
  and blue, and white. --S. T. Coleridge
• He pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or
  wades, or creeps, or flies. --John Milton

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Rhetorical Devices

• Analogy a point by point comparison between two
  things for the purpose of clarifying the less
  familiar of the two subjects.
• You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write
  one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a
  bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is
  not your trade to make tables. --Samuel Johnson
• . . . For answers successfully arrived at are
  solutions to difficulties previously discussed,
  and one cannot untie a knot if he is ignorant of
  it. --Aristotle

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Rhetorical Devices

• understatement deliberately expresses an idea as
  less important than it actually is, either for
  ironic emphasis or for politeness and tact.
• The 1906 San Francisco earthquake interrupted
  business somewhat in the downtown area.
• Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang,
  and everybody smiled . . . . To begin perfect
  happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six
  and eighteen is to do pretty well . . . . --Jane
  Austen
• Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will
  hardly believe how much it altered her person for
  the worse. --Jonathan Swift
• Hitting that telephone pole certainly didn't do
  your car any good.

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Rhetorical Devices

• epithet an adjective or adjective phrase
  appropriately qualifying a subject (noun) by
  naming a key or important characteristic of the
  subject can be an abusive insulting word or
  phrase
• "laughing happiness," "sneering contempt,"
  "untroubled sleep," "peaceful dawn, "lifegiving
  water."

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The Crisis, Number One

• Aphorisms Paine uses
• These are the times that try mens souls.
• The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot
  will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of
  his country. (also alliteration, epithet)

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The Crisis, Number One

• Aphorisms Paine uses
• Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.
  (also a simile)
• the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
  triumph what we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
  lightly.

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• A noted one Torie, who kept a tavern at
  Amboyfinished with this unfatherly expression,
  Well! Give me peace in my day. Not a man lives
  on the continent but fully believes that a
  separation must some time or other finally take
  place, and a generous parent should have said,
  If there must be trouble, let it be in my day
  that my child may have peace and this single
  reflectionis sufficient to awaken every man to
  duty.
• (anecdote emotional appeal/pathos)

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• though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease
  to shine, the coal never can expire. (metaphor)
• The heart that feels not now, is dead.
  (metaphor)

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• The blood of his children will curse his
  cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a
  little might have saved the whole, and made them
  happy.
• (metaphor emotional appeal pathos)

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• Tis the business of little minds to shrink
• (aphorism)
• My own line of reasoning is to myself as strait
  and clear as a ray of light.
• (simile)

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• Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I
  believe, could have induced me to support an
  offensive war, for I think it murder but if a
  thief break into my house, burn and destroy my
  property, and kill or threaten to kill me, or
  those that are in it, and to bind me in all
  cases whatsoever, to his absolute will, am I to
  suffer it?
• (ethos metaphor argument by analogy pathos
  rhetorical question allusion)
• (Note on the Allusion 1766 a Declaratory Act
  was introduced, asserting the authority of the
  King and Parliament to make laws which should
  "bind the colonies and people of America in all
  cases whatsoever!" )

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• What signifies it to me, whether he who does it,
  is a king or a common man my countryman or not
  my countryman? Whether it is done by an
  individual villain or an army of them? If we
  reason to the root of things we shall find no
  difference neither can any just cause be
  assigned where we should punish in the one case
  and pardon in the other.
• (rhetorical question argument by analogy logos
  parallel structure)

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• but I should suffer the misery of devils, were
  I to make a whore of my soul by swearing
  allegiance to one whose character is that of a
  sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish
  man.
• (metaphor, alliteration, allusion)
• drunken

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• The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the
  violence of the wolf and we ought to guard
  equally against both.
• (simile emotional appeal pathos)

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Speech in theVirginia Convention

• Patrick Henry

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Speech in the Virginia Convention

• Patrick Henry was the most famous orator of the
  American Revolution.
• He delivered this speech in March 1775 to the
  Second Virginia Provincial Convention.
• The battles of Lexington Concord took place
  less than a month after the speech.

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Patrick Henry

• Call it oratory or what you will, but I never
  heard anything like it. He had more command over
  the passions than any man I ever knew. Thomas
  Jefferson
• Henry opposed the Stamp Act
• He helped draw up Virginias first state
  constitution was elected Virginias first
  governor.

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Speech in the Virginia Convention

• Henry uses various tropes (mainly metaphors),
  rhetorical questions, allusions (classical
  Biblical) and parallel structure in the speech.
• He uses the extended metaphor of slavery.

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Speech in the Virginia Convention

• He uses the appeals of logos pathos and
  establishes ethos
• He acknowledges the opposing viewpoint (that a
  war against Britain is unwinnable) and refutes it
  effectively

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Rhetorical Devices

• Allusion an indirect reference to a person,
  place, event, or literary work with which the
  author believes the reader will be familiar.
• The implied comparisons are intended to
  strengthen the writers argument.

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Rhetorical Devices

• Rhetorical Question a question to which no
  answer is expected because the answer is obvious.
• Often used to emphasize a point or create an
  emotional effect.

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Acknowledgement Refutation

• Mr. President No man thinks more highly than I
  do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of
  the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed
  the House. But different men often see the same
  subject in different lights.
• (metaphor ethos)

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• For my own part I consider it as nothing less
  than a question of freedom or slavery.
• (simile) (pathos)

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• Should I keep back my opinions at such a time,
  through fear of giving offense, I should consider
  myself as guilty of treason towards my country,
  and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty
  of heaven, which I revere above all earthly
  kings. (ethos)

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• We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful
  truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till
  she transforms us into beasts.
• (allusion The Odyssey)

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• Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great
  and arduous struggle for liberty?
• (rhetorical question pathos)

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• Are we disposed to be of the number of those
  who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear
  not, the things which so nearly concern their
  temporal salvation? (rhetorical question
  parallel structure)

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• For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may
  cost, I am willing to know the whole truthto
  know the worst and to provide for it.
• (parallel structure anaphora)

42

• I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided
  and that is the lamp of experience. (metaphor)

43

• Is it that insidious smile with which our
  petition has been lately received? (rhetorical
  question oxymoron)
• Trust it not, sir it will prove a snare to your
  feet.
• (metaphor)

44

• Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a
  kiss.
• (allusion - Bible)
• Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of
  love and reconciliation?
• (rhetorical question/logical appeal)

45

• Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
  the world, to call for all of this accumulation
  of navies and armies? (rhetorical
  question/logical appeal)

46

• They are meant for us they can be meant for no
  other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon
  us those chains which the British ministry have
  been so long forging. (parallel structure
  anaphora metaphor logical appeal)

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• We have held the subject up in every light of
  which it is capable but it has been all in vain.
  Shall we resort to humble supplication?
• (metaphor rhetorical question)

48

• Sir, we have done everything that could be done
  to avert the storm which is now coming on.
• (metaphor)
• We have petitioned we have remonstrated we
  have supplicated we have prostrated ourselves
  before the throne(parallel structure anaphora)

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• Our petitions have been slighted our
  remonstrances have produced additional violence
  and insult our supplications have been
  disregarded and we have been spurned, with
  contempt, from the foot of the throne.
• (parallel structure anaphora metaphor)
• protests or complaints

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• If we wish to be freeif we mean to preserve
  inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
  we have been so long contendingif we mean not
  basely to abandon until the glorious object of
  our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I
  repeat it sir, we must fight! (parallel
  structure anaphora)

51

• They tell us, sir, that we are weakunable to
  cope with so formidable an adversary. But when
  shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
  or the next year? (acknowledgement of opposing
  viewpoint refutation ethos rhetorical
  question logos)

52

• Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and
  when a British guard shall be stationed in every
  home?
• (rhetorical question emotional appeal pathos)

53

• Shall we acquire the means of effectual
  resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and
  hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our
  enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
• (rhetorical question metaphor pathos, logos)

54

• Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use
  of those means which the God of nature hath
  placed in our power. Three millions of people,
  armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
  country as that which we possess, are invincible
  by any force which our enemy can send against us.
  Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles
  alone. There is a just God who presides over the
  destinies of nations, and who will raise up
  friends to fight our battles for us.
• (metaphor logos pathos refutation)

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• The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it
  is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
• (parallel structure)
• There is no retreat but in submission and
  slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking
  may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is
  inevitableand let it come! I repeat it, sir, let
  it come!
• (metaphor emotional appeal pathos parallel
  structure)

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• The next gale that sweeps from the north will
  bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
• (metaphor)
• Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be
  purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
• (rhetorical question metaphor)

57

• Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
  others may take but as for me, give me liberty,
  or give me death!
• (parallel structure emotional appeal pathos)

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from Common Sense

• Thomas Paine

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from Common Sense

• In the following pages I offer nothing more than
  simple facts, plain arguments and common sense
  (understatement)
• The sun never shined on a cause of greater
  worth.

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from Common Sense

• Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a
  province, or a kingdom, but of a continentof at
  least one eighth part of the habitable globe.
  Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an
  age

61

• The least fracture now will be like a name
  engraved with the point of a pin on the tender
  rind of a young oak the wound will enlarge with
  the tree, and posterity read in in full grown
  characters.

62

• I have heard it asserted by some, that as
  America hath flourished under her former
  connection with Great Britain, that the same
  connection is necessary towards her future
  happiness, and will always have the same effect.
  Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of
  argument. We may as well assert that because a
  child has thrived on milk, that it is never to
  have meat, or that the first twenty years of our
  lives is to become a precedent for the next
  twenty.
• erroneous or misleading

63

• But Britain is the parent country, say some.
  Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes
  do not devour their young, nor savages make war
  upon their families

64

• This new world hath been the asylum for the
  persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty
  from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled,
  not from the tender embraces of the mother, but
  from the cruelty of the monster.

65

• Every thing that is right or natural pleads for
  separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping
  voice of nature cries, TIS TIME TO PART.

66

• Even the distance at which the Almighty hath
  placed England and America, is a strong and
  natural proof, that the authority of the one,
  over the other, was never the design of Heaven.