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Rhetoric Appeal in the Declaration of Independence

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Rhetoric Appeal in the Declaration of Independence
Rhetoric appeal in the Declaration of independence

On July 4, 1776 a famous world changing document was written by Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence. In Jefferson’s Declaration he used a variety of writing styles and word choice to effectively state why the colonies were leaving Britain. The strongest points in Jefferson’s paper were when he used Ethos and Pathos to appeal emotionally and authoritatively.
The format of the document begins with the Preamble followed by the Declaration of Rights and then Jefferson’s list of grievances. His strongest paragraph is the Declaration of Rights. He uses many Ethos and Logos in this part of the document to get his point across successfully. He started off the paragraph rallying together using ethos such as: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” From there he continued to intensify the document and capture his audience even more so using Pathos. A great sentence that appealed to the readers emotionally was: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principals and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Jefferson was able to write a world changing Declaration and succeeded greatly. The document itself changed the world and was the key to the 13 colonies separating from Britain. Jefferson was able to write such a powerful document by using Ethos and Pathos to appeal to his audience emotionally and authoritatively. Not only that but the diverse word choice and sentence structure added that much more to the

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