Logos

Logos

Lincoln’s argument in The Gettysburg Address is that the country will fall apart and democracy will end if the Union does not win the Civil War which is why the North has to keep fighting. He says, “We are now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure….This nation …shall not perish from the earth.”

He does not use a lot of logical appeal to support his argument, mainly because there is little logic behind what he is trying to say. It is very unlikely that democracy would have ended if the South had successfully seceded from the Union. The North did not need the South because it was completely self sufficient. It had good farming land, industries, and a strong economy whereas the South only had land for farming. The North would most likely have thrived after the war and consequentially democracy would too.

Do you think there is logic behind what Lincoln is saying?

By trying to stop the South from seceding, the North was actually acting undemocratically. The Southern states had the right to leave a government they were unhappy with.

Was the North acting hypocritically since it had rebelled against England?

Even though the North did not need the South, losing it would not have been good. It was in the interest of the North to preserve the Union which is why Lincoln was encouraging people to fight in the war. Using emotional appeal in his speech was a lot more effective in convincing people to fight than logical appeal would have been.

Is there any logical appeal in this speech?