Rhetorical Analysis Of Alfred M. Green's Inspirational Speech

Alfred M. Green uses persuasive techniques that are based solely on the emotions of the audience. Due to the fact that this was a speech, it is more influential to listeners that he chose using emotions of the audience to persuade the audience instead of using other persuasive techniques. The emotions of the audience is more commonly known as Pathos, within the Ethos, Pathos, Logos persuasive techniques that the greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle created. Green was presenting an inspirational speech and speeches are different than regular persuasive texts because they have to appeal to their audience more and if they do not, the audience would lose interest and not pay attention to the speech. Green can perfectly craft his words into appealing with the emotions of the

audience by making them feel bad but then returning the back by making them feel like they should do a certain action and they would feel better about themself. Green uses these techniques to persuade his fellow African Americans to join against the struggle with the Confederacy by giving this speech and his persuasive techniques have to be very effectively or they would not join the Union, this is very crucial to understanding the speech and if Green used Ethos or Logos, he would have not efficiently changed the minds of the many African Americans.
The speech is used to persuade African Americans to join the side of the Union during the Civil war in America.

He first starts out the speech with making the African Americans feel as though fighting with the Union is the only logical thing to do and if they do not side with the Union, they are making an illogical decision. Green constructs the idea that all of his opinions is the only logical thing to do and it feels like agreeing with his opinion is the common thing to do and it would be very irrational and unreasonable to not agree with his opinion. Throughout the speech, he shows his audience what the correct thing to do in each situation such as the Dred Scott decisions or rethinking about George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Green makes the end result of all of these situations is to take arms and assist the Union in defeating the confederacy. This is further proven in the point with the final paragraph where Green concludes the speech with an inspirational tangent saying that fighting alongside with the Union is not only the only logical thing to do but each and every individual that helps fight against the Confederacy is able to impact the whole war and decide who the victor

is.
In the end, Alfred M. Green uses the persuasive technique of making the audience feel like the opinion that Green has is a popular opinion and those who do not agree must be insane. Due to this fact, he is able to persuade his fellow African Americans into joining Union forces against the fight with the Confederate forces. Green used persuasive techniques very effectively with his speech and that is benefactory to the Union forces because he did choose diction to make the audience feel as though joining the war was not the only logical thing to choose, but also an important necessity they all have to join the war. To conclude, Green used the persuasion technique of Pathos to influence his fellow African Americans to fight for the only reasonable thing, for the Union and not for the Confederacy.