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Rhetorical Devices In The American Crisis

Decent Essays

It’s Your Choice: Fight for Us or Suffer One of our greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln, once argued, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” (Letter to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859). As Lincoln was fighting for freedom for all, he believed that it was morally wrong for one human to own another. He also thought that it was wrong to take away a chance of freedom from others. This relates to Thomas Paine's beliefs: He believed that if someone supports freedom, then they must to join the fight, and if they don’t then their children will have to suffer the consequences. On November 20, 1776, the American forces retreated from Fort Lee because the colonist were struggling to fight against the British. After the American forces retreated, Paine, a political activist and governor of Virginia, wrote a series of sixteen pamphlets called The American Crisis to lift the colonist's sagging spirits due to the devastating loss. In The Crisis No. 1, Paine implements language, a hopeful tone, and diction, to convey his purpose of persuading the men in the colonies to enlist in the war in an effort to retaliate against Great Britain, and assist the army to victory so the future generations don’t have to suffer. Throughout The Crisis, Paine incorporates multiple uses of language to persuade the men to enlist in the war for freedom. Paine states, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” (1). He emphasizes that Britain's tyranny of the American colonies will be

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