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Allusions In Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

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President Abraham Lincoln, in his speech, the Second Inaugural Address talks about the effects of the Civil War and his views for the future of the nation. President Lincoln supports his claims for a better future by promising the nation unity and peace among its people. Lincoln’s purpose is to heal the wounds of the Civil War and reunite the North and South within the United States. He adopts a righteous and erudite tone for his audience, and others interested in Abraham Lincoln and his speech about the Civil War. Throughout his speech, Abraham Lincoln uses three main literary tools to capture his audience: Biblical allusions, personification of the war, and addresses both the Northerners and Southerners in hopes of reunifying the nation. Through Abraham Lincoln’s use of Biblical allusions, he was able to bring the north and south together by telling them about how God has a plan and the war was a part of his plan. Both sides, the north and south, had Christian values that they followed and each had been praying to God that they win. In paragraph three, …show more content…
Lincoln states that the war and nation are parallel to each other, but one is evil while the other is friendly. In paragraph two, it states “…but one of them would make war… the other would accept war… the war came” (24-27) and by saying this, Lincoln is bringing to light, the separate sides of the war and how the two side are the nation and the war. As a nation, the people of the United States accepted the war when they could have tried to stop it, and the war made itself by separating the north and the south. The quote also tells of how the nation was threatened and decided to accept its fate of a war and defend itself against the evils. In the third and fourth paragraphs, Abraham Lincoln talks about how as a whole the country needed to come together and he expressed hope of the United States to be one

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