Civil War Rhetorical Analysis

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The Civil War was revolutionary in political, social, and economic ways. We should define “revolution” as the overthrow of the current social and political order by the means of internal violence. ---- Lincoln moved from a conservative to a radical position during the war when he threatened the existence of slavery in order to sustain the Union. This shift was related to a military shift from “limited” to “total” war by involving the abolition of slavery as a military strategy. With the president embracing the revolution, the war must overthrow slavery by force in order for fighting to cease. The Civil War altered the relationship between liberty and property. Before the Civil War, liberty meant owning property, but afterwards, property was not a “qualification.” A shift from negative to positive freedom occurred due to racial equality because liberty was thought of as freedom without interference of other people, such as slave masters. The positive concept of freedom after the Civil War, where slaves and slave masters no longer exists, is the freedom to act on one’s free will−something all people, regardless of race, now have.…show more content…
The relation between his national and his military strategy is that his military strategy, which is emancipation, is the means by which Lincoln hopes to achieve his national strategy, to preserve the union. Lincoln decides to issue the Emancipation Proclamation to be consistent in his national and military strategies. To fight a war with the military strategy of emancipation and end the war with a union which still had slavery would not seem sensible. Therefore, Lincoln would declare the freedom of all
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