Read the excerpt from President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Then, respond to the prompt that follows.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln's central idea was that the sacrifice of those who died in the Civil War made it possible to protect the rights that were guaranteed to all men in the Declaration of Independence.
In a well-written paragraph of 5-7 sentences, explain how Lincoln used rhetoric to support and develop his central idea. Your response should:
- State the central idea of The Gettysburg Address.
- Identify and explain at least one rhetorical appeal Lincoln used to support his central idea.
- Identify and explain at least one rhetorical device Lincoln used to support his central idea.