Abraham Lincoln confidently addresses the people of America in an attempt to unify and reconstruct The United States after the Civil War through his second Inaugural Address. Lincoln creatively and tactfully assaults the topics of reunification and reconstruction by selectively introducing new ideas and claims then providing large amounts of reason to support them. He uses his specific, detailed, unique strategy in order to create an effective and powerful speech for the public. Lincoln uses a vast variety of sentence structure to maximize the effectiveness of his claims throughout his argument. His syntax differs between simple, compound, and a fairly large amount of complex sentences. He creatively inserts numerous simple sentences in unexpected places throughout his speech to provide extra emphasis on the point of reunification. …show more content…
This tone is so important to the effectiveness of his speech because it portrays him as being strong, outspoken, and powerful. These are very important qualities of a leader and are positively recognized by the people. One example of anaphora in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is “All dreaded it, all sought to avert it.” (Lines 18-19) Another being “Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.” (Lines 37-41) Both of these quotes are relating to the Civil War. Lincoln is explaining to the public in his own words how neither side wanted war, and both sides dreaded the war, but the conflict had become too large for it to cease itself. This gains support for Lincoln and helps his argument overall because the people already see him as a wise leader and they look to him, listen to, and believe what he says as the nation’s