What We Can Learn About the Art of Persuasion from Candidate Abraham Lincoln: a Rhetorical Analysis of the Three Speeches That Propelled Lincoln Into the Presidency

• Publication year: 2013

What We Can Learn About the Art of Persuasion from Candidate Abraham Lincoln: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Three Speeches That Propelled Lincoln into the Presidency

Michael W. Loudenslager

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What We Can Learn About the Art of Persuasion from Candidate Abraham Lincoln: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Three Speeches That Propelled Lincoln into the Presidency

by Michael W. Loudenslager^*

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance."¹

I. Introduction

Abraham Lincoln is renowned as an impressive orator and writer. Historians have long studied his life and writings, some dedicating their whole careers to this task. However, few commentators have focused upon how studying the persuasive techniques utilized by Lincoln in his speeches can help lawyers to improve their own persuasive writing and speaking. Lincoln was an experienced litigator, and over the course of his legal career, he tried a voluminous number of cases, was involved in several appeals before the United States Supreme Court, and argued

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numerous times before the Illinois Supreme Court.² These experiences helped Lincoln to cultivate various manners of persuading judges and juries. Similarly, one major goal of Lincoln's speeches, as with any politician, was to persuade listeners to agree with the positions that he took on important issues of the day. Upon close examination and deconstruction, one can discern several persuasive techniques that Lincoln used effectively in his speeches. These techniques include repetition, alliteration, metaphor, theme, and affirmatively dealing with adverse arguments, to name a few. Therefore, Lincoln's speeches provide attorneys with excellent examples of persuasive techniques that attorneys can use to improve their legal arguments.

In particular, the period from 1854 to 1860, which began with Lincoln re-entering the political arena to speak against the expansion of slavery into United States territories and ended with Lincoln being elected president, is especially interesting. This was the time in which Lincoln developed, articulated, and repeated basic themes concerning the institution of slavery that, ultimately, would propel him into the presidency. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed these territories to vote on whether to have slavery.³ This legislation repealed the agreement between "free" Northern states and slave-holding Southern states that slavery would not exist in new states north of Missouri arrived at through the Missouri Compromise.⁴ After the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln argued that the expansion of slavery, if not slavery itself, violated the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.⁵ Lincoln then went on, immediately prior to becoming the Republican presidential candidate in 1860, to

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argue that the stance that the federal government could not prohibit slavery in United States territories was contrary to the views of America's founding fathers.⁶

This Article examines three major speeches made by Lincoln during this time period: (1) Lincoln's October 16, 1854 speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act at Peoria, Illinois; (2) Lincoln's June 16, 1858 "House Divided" speech at the Illinois Republican State Convention; and (3) Lincoln's February 27, 1860 Cooper Union, New York speech, which he gave a few months prior to his nomination as the Republican presidential candidate. Through these speeches, Lincoln articulated and developed his arguments against the expansion of slavery, which ultimately established him as the Republican presidential candidate in 1860.

In Section II, this Article briefly discusses Lincoln's legal career, in which he learned and mastered the persuasive techniques used in his speeches. Section III of this Article gives an overview of some of the techniques identified in Lincoln's speeches. In Section IV, the Article deconstructs key passages from the three speeches mentioned above and demonstrates exactly how Lincoln used specific rhetorical devices to good effect to persuade audiences of the correctness of his position on the slavery issue. Section V of this Article sets out several lessons from these speeches that attorneys can use to improve their own persuasive writing and speaking.

II. Lincoln's Legal Career

Lincoln practiced law for almost twenty-five years.⁷ He received his license in 1836 and practiced until the summer of 1860 when he suspended his practice to focus on his campaign for the United States presidency.⁸ Lincoln was a prodigious litigator, being involved in as

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many as five thousand cases during his career,⁹ which averages out to about two hundred cases a year.¹⁰

Lincoln was a part of three different legal partnerships during his career. He started practicing law with John Todd Stuart, the cousin of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.¹¹ After four years, Lincoln left the partnership and formed a partnership with Stephen Logan, a former state circuit judge.¹² Lincoln practiced with Logan for almost four years.¹³ Then, Lincoln formed another partnership, this time with Lincoln as the senior partner, with William Herndon, who at the time had recently become a member of the bar and had studied law with the Logan and Lincoln partnership.¹⁴ Lincoln practiced law with Herndon for almost seventeen years before focusing on his presidential campaign.¹⁵

Throughout his career, Lincoln represented people from all walks of life as well as different companies. "[Lincoln] represented plaintiffs and defendants, the guilty and the innocent, the rich and the poor, and nearly all of the various possible sides in divorce cases, contract disputes, property disputes, and so forth."¹⁶ However, "[t]he Illinois Central Railroad was Lincoln's biggest and most frequent client during his entire career: he litigated over fifty cases on [its] behalf."¹⁷ One commentator asserts that Lincoln's representation of various railroads, such as the Illinois Central, "catapulted [Lincoln] from local to much wider prominence . . . and created his ultimate standing as a leading attorney of the American West."¹⁸ Despite this, Lincoln ended up opposing railroads in cases about as often as he represented them.¹⁹

Lincoln engaged in the general practice of law with cases involving debt collection, bankruptcy, wills and trusts, mortgage foreclosure, divorce, slander, medical malpractice, railroads, and criminal law,²⁰ including some murder trials.²¹ However, the majority of his cases

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dealt with debtor-creditor law.²² Moreover, Lincoln appeared at all levels of the state and federal court systems.²³

Lincoln would spend as much as six months out of the year traveling "the circuit" as part of his law practice.²⁴ This involved traveling from county to county along with a judge and other attorneys to try whatever controversies existed in a particular locale in state court.²⁵ Attorneys and judges could spend up to three weeks in one locale before disposing of all of the litigation in the area.²⁶ Lincoln rode the Eighth Circuit in Illinois, which was comprised of differing counties throughout the central portion of Illinois, including Sangamon County where Lincoln's office was located.²⁷ The Eighth Circuit "was known as the 'mud circuit' because of its awful roads and rural conditions."²⁸ Lincoln usually would stay at small town taverns, eat at common tables with other traveling attorneys, and often have to share beds with those same attorneys "because of the meager accommodations that were available."²⁹

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Lincoln also had a significant federal practice. After Lincoln had practiced for several years and developed his reputation, out-of-state creditors began to seek him out to bring debt collection cases in federal court against Illinois residents.³⁰ Moreover, at this point in his legal career, other attorneys often sought out Lincoln for advice on conducting cases in federal court.³¹

In addition to handling numerous trials, Lincoln developed an extensive appellate practice. "In whole, work before the Illinois [Supreme Court] represented 10 percent of Lincoln's legal work."³² During the course of his partnership with Herndon, the firm "averaged fifteen cases per year on appeal to the [Illinois Supreme Court],"³³ and Lincoln and his partners appeared in over four hundred cases before the Illinois high court.³⁴ "Lincoln was also the attorney of record for at least six cases that were before the United States Supreme Court," and he even argued one case before the Supreme Court in 1849 while he was a United States congressman.³⁵ One commentator describes the Lincoln and Herndon partnership as having "one of the largest appellate practices in the state [of Illinois]."³⁶ Lincoln was known as a "lawyer's lawyer" because many lawyers picked Lincoln to handle the appeals of their cases.³⁷ Lincoln's involvement dealt solely with handling the

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appeal, and not as trial counsel, in close to half of the cases in which Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court.³⁸ Lincoln's longtime partner William Herndon "claimed that when it came to appellate work, Lincoln was at his best because he had time to ponder the facts of a case and thoroughly prepare his arguments."³⁹

By the time that Lincoln left the practice of law in 1860, he had reached the top of the profession in Illinois.⁴⁰ Lincoln's success in the legal profession, as well as in his political endeavors, was built on his ability to think critically and logically, to persuade a decision maker, to engage in extensive research of the issues involved in a particular situation, to write and speak in simple and clear language, and to work hard day in and day out.⁴¹ Out of all of these skills, Lincoln's abilities as a persuasive speaker may stand out the most. "[Lincoln] had the uncanny ability to win over a jury, a judge, and the audience in a courtroom."⁴² In this respect, Lincoln provides an excellent example of a persuasive public speaker, and...