Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Summary

President Abraham Lincoln is one of the most eloquent and effective speech writers to have ever taken office. Ronald C. White Jr. presents Lincoln's Greatest Speech as an argument that Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is in fact Lincoln's greatest speech. Through Lincoln's Greatest Speech, White applies several literary techniques to his writing in order to present an effective argument to his audience. The arguments he presents in his book uncover a deeper meaning of Lincoln's speech in a captivating way. White uses the techniques of dramatization, parallelism, and format to convince his audience of the importance and significance of Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address that make it Lincoln's "greatest speech". White embodies the hopes, emotions, and anticipation of the American people during the day of Lincoln's Second Inauguration while dissecting Lincoln's speech line by line. White goes beyond the facts and explains the social and emotional characteristics of the American people at that time while giving a dramatization of the day of Lincoln's inauguration. He writes that on the day of the …show more content…
These excerpts mirror what White focuses on in that chapter. The excerpt is presented in a different type than the rest of the chapter and stands out against the remaining uniformed paragraphs. White uses this format not only to make it easier for the reader to know what that chapter will focus on, but also in order to place emphasis on each separate part of Lincoln's speech. As a reader, the words "every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword" (150) resonated with me due to the specific attention placed on a line that I might have likely skimmed over if it had not been presented in the way it had. White's method proves to be effective in making the reader feel the weight and magnitude of the words used Lincoln's