Lincoln's Second Inaugural STUDENT EXAMPLE #1: In Abraham ...

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
STUDENT EXAMPLE #1:
In Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln addresses a divided nation.
Towards the end of the Civil War, both sides of the nation are angry with each other. Lincoln’s
speech calls to both the North and the South to put aside the issues that divide them in order to
heal their broken nation. Lincoln uses a myriad of rhetorical strategies in his speech. Lincoln’s
diction, tone, and syntax help to achieve his purpose of uniting the nation.
Lincoln’s positive diction creates a feeling of unity and forgiveness with words like “bind
up” and “peace.” Lincoln uses the words “bind up” and “peace” to express the direction in
which he hopes the nation will go. A path of healing and reconciliation is what Lincoln wants
for the nation. “Bind up” expresses the emotion of healing not only the personal wounds
suffered by the American people, but also the wounds of the nation as a whole. Lincoln also
speaks of a “lasting peace,” which he hopes will come upon the nation. After the “bind[ing]” of
the nation’s wounds, then “lasting peace” will follow, as will the unity of the nation.
Lincoln’s optimistic tone encourages all American to finish the Civil War and progress as
a nation, calling the American people to action with sentences like, “[l]et us strive on to finish
the work we are in” and “to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace.”
Lincoln’s tone is cautiously optimistic: he wishes to finish the war and move past the issue of
slavery (among others) which has divided the country, and ensure the country’s reunification.
His tone also occurs in his use of the hortative sentence asking citizens to “let us strive.” He
calls upon the nation as a whole to a higher level in hopes that the American people rise to the
occasion, see past their differences, and come together as a single, unified country.
His balanced syntax evokes the idea of a balanced and united nation with a combination
of long and short sentences like “While the Inaugural Address was being delivered from this
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city
seeking to destroy it without war, seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by
negotiation” and “All dreaded it, all sought to avert it.” The differences in the sentence lengths
can represent the differences between North and South, and Lincoln’s will to combine them to
create a strong nation. This syntax helps emphasize Lincoln’s purpose of uniting a divided
nation by combining two different sentence lengths to create a powerful speech, showing that the
combining of both the Union and Confederacy will result in a powerful nation.
Lincoln’s use of diction, tone, and syntax help to create and emphasize his purpose to
unite a split nation. Lincoln’s optimistic tone and diction help to create the image and attitude
that Lincoln has towards the reconstruction of America and his syntax foreshadows his vision of
a reunited Union. The use of these rhetorical strategies allows Lincoln to achieve the purpose of
his speech in binding and healing a broken nation to create the United States of America, one
nation under God.
STUDENT SAMPLE #2:
As his second term as President of the United States began, Abraham Lincoln faced a
deeply divided country in the midst of a civil war. Americans were shocked as the war spiraled
into the bloodiest war in American history for both sides. As the war drew to a close, Lincoln’s
Union forces had slowly pushed the Confederate South into submission. Lincoln’s aim in
battling the South had been to hold the Union together, but a cultural chasm remained between
the Southern states as they were forced to reunify and Northern states as they increasingly
stumbled in their resolve to subjugate the Confederacy. How could Lincoln even hope to govern
these regions as one country? He reached out to the South as brothers, while still condemning
their actions and justifying war, through inclusive diction, allusions, and hortative sentences
appealing to both parties.
Lincoln’s inclusive diction appeals to pathos in an effort to spark public interest in
reunification. By repeatedly referring to the two distinct groups as one body with adjectives like
“all,” “both,” “each,” and “neither,” he hoped to remind Americans of the principles they all

shared. Lincoln’s passionate diction calls Americans together in defense of their ideals:
although both parties “dreaded” and “deprecated” war, each tried to “[wring] their bread from
the sweat of other men’s faces.” These emotional descriptions reflected the range of feelings
Americans felt towards the war which had torn so many lives. Lincoln personifies the Union,
characterizing the war as its struggle to “survive” or “perish.” This was an attempt to tie the war
to more than a petty battle over a culture clash, but a second trial for the fledgling democracy
mirroring the War of Independence.
Lincoln’s hortative sentences with parallel structure call on both sides to reunite as
brothers. Lincoln calls upon American citizens with phrases like, “Let us strive on to finish the
work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him …, to do all which may achieve
… peace.” The parallel structure of this suggestion (and others, such as “Let us judge not, that
we be not judged”), reflect Lincoln’s desire that the warring regions share responsibility equally
to rebuild the country. Antithesis such as the above quote and “one would rather make war than
let the nation survive, and the other would rather accept war than let it perish” create an image of
similarity in the face of the cultural and physical clashes between the North and South.
Lincoln alluded to the common ground the regions share, especially religiously.
Although he describes a “peculiar and powerful institution,” alluding to the common nickname
for slavery, Lincoln states that “[b]oth read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” He
elaborates using allusions to, and quotes from, the Bible, such as, “The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether” and “Woe unto the word because of offenses.” These religious
references linked the Union with the Confederacy, reminding them of their shared values and
spiritual goals, rather than deep divisions.
Lincoln attempted to create a spirit of national unity and forgiveness with his Second
Inaugural Address.
STUDENT EXAMPLE #3:
Lincoln first ascended to presidential office on the eve of the Civil War. However, the
state of the country upon his second election could not have been more different. After a long,
brutal war, which was finally drawing to a close, Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address, chose
instead of continuing the hatred and bitterness between the two sides, to call for unity. This
moving speech makes use of parallelism and inclusive diction, appeals to common Christian
values, and abounds with hortative syntax.
Lincoln, through use of parallelism and inclusive diction, tries to evoke a sense of unity
and of a common cause between the two bitterly conflicted parties. Lincoln uses parallelism to
categorize the two parties as very similar, if not the same, when he states that “all dreaded it, all
sought to avert it,” “one of [the parties] would make war rather than let the nation survive, and
the other would rather accept war rather than let it perish,” and every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.” All of these are examples of parallelism
and serve to balance the two parties, and thus draw them together in the minds of the audience.
Similarly, Lincoln uses inclusive diction, such as “both,” “all,” “neither party,” “each,” and “we”
to once again bring to the audience’s minds the idea of the nation as a whole, soon to be reunited.
Lincoln also appeals to common Christian values in order to demonstrate the values
which the northerners and southerners have in common. Lincoln’s claim that “both read the
same Bible and pray to the same God” demonstrates the shared ground of the two opposing
sides. Lincoln also uses faith to justify the Union’s victory, as when he says that “He now wills
to remove [slavery],” thus wiping away the need for bitterness and retribution, as God’s will has
been done.
Lastly, Lincoln uses hortative syntax to create a call for unity, especially as he concludes,
“let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” With this ringing conclusion,
Lincoln exhorts that the North, as victors, should no longer make war, but instead peace, and
should care for those who have been harmed in the war.

President Abraham Lincoln led the United States through its bitterest and most costly war
as Commander in Chief of the army. With a Union victory close at hand, he could have chosen
to rain malice on the South, as punishment for the war, but instead, Lincoln, with this speech,
chose to call for peace and “charity for all.”