Famous Speech Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Appeals In Famous Speeches Good speakers throughout history have used rhetorical appeals to convince their respective audiences of their cause. Patrick Henry, a Revolutionary period statesman, gave a speech on March 23, 1775 to convince the members of the Virginia Convention to go to war against the British. On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a similar speech to Congress and citizens of the United States concerning the attack on Pearl Harbor, persuading Congress to declare war. Both Patrick Henry and Franklin D. Roosevelt used the rhetorical appeals of pathos, logos, and ethos to convince their respective audiences that war was necessary. Pathos, the appeal to emotion, was used by both Henry and Roosevelt …show more content…
Henry employed logos when he posed and answered the question, “Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, Sir, she has none...They are meant for us” (Henry 90). Henry proved to the members of the Virginia Convention that war was unavoidable, Britain was coming with their army to attack the colonies and they must defend themselves. Henry also stated the reasoning behind his belief that the colonies must go to war when he said, “Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years” (Henry 90). Proving that they have avoided war for as long as they could through other options. The colonists are down to their last resort and have no choice but war against the British. Likewise, Roosevelt also used many facts and reasoning with his speech concerning Pearl Harbor. He proved to citizens and Congress that the attack was deliberately planned to harm the United States and, therefore, Japan deserves to be punished for their actions when he clarified “The distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago” (Roosevelt). Roosevelt goes on to list all the other places in the Pacific Ocean that were also attacked on December 7th and December 8th by Japan to really stress the fact that Japan hurt many …show more content…
The appeals must have been effective considering the colonies went on to fight the British in the Revolutionary war soon after Henry’s speech, and America joined the fight of World War II to attack Japan after Pearl harbor occurred and Roosevelt spoke of the attack asking Congress to fight