Seminal document is a document that includes great historical and literary significance. Abraham Lincoln’s speech was a seminal document. Abraham Lincoln was a man of great honor. He protected escaped slaves and tried to outlaw slavery Martin Luther King Jr’s speech ended up becoming a seminal document MLK was a brilliant spokesperson. He ended up a public segregation and ensured racial equality.
Those two leaders had a goal; a goal to allow every race to have freedom.”Gettysburg Address” purpose was to show dedication to the soldiers that gave their lives to save ours. It talks about how the Civil War was not just a fight to save the Union but a fight to bring equality to every citizen. Lincoln articulates the idea of freedom by expressing in the first line in “Gettysburg Address” he says “…dedicated the preposition that all men are created equal.” (Lincoln lines 2-3). This one line commenced on how Lincoln felt about the freedom for anyone and everyone. Lincoln was dedicated and encouraged to have slavery abolished. To let people have their new reborn freedom a “new birth of freedom”. A rhetorical device Abraham Lincoln used would be anaphora. Lincoln uses anaphora by repeating a sequence of words at the beginning of neighboring clauses. An example would be “…we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate- we cannot hallow- this ground.” (Lincoln lines 10-11).
He repeats “we cannot” because Lincoln wants to pound the idea of his belief that the people cannot honor or disturb the battle ground of Gettysburg because they are unworthy of it.The speech “I have a dream” has a purpose to drive to get more equal treatment for all Americans. King calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. King articulates the idea of freedom all over his speech. He talks about letting freedom ring. He says if we let the freedom ring, that there will be a day of where all different races can join hands together. Rhetorical devices that king uses would be metaphors, allusion, and hyperbole.
An example of an allusion would be the first sentence in the second paragraph “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.” (Lincoln lines 1-3). The allusion is used to perfect his argument that Americans share a collective national ancestry.Both Lincoln and King address the theme of freedom using rhetorical devices in different ways. Both speeches target slavery, racism, slave owners. Their purpose was to convince everyone that the world would be a better place without racism and slavery.
They try to persuade the people and government that slavery should be banned. In “I have a dream” King’s speech impacted the world by allowing students to understand that slavery was not right. Lincoln’s speech redirected the world into thinking that slavery is not right. These both powerful speakers left a remarkable impact on the Americans rights.
