The Gettysburg Address: Rhetorical Analysis

The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln is one of the most decorated speeches in the history of the United States. In it, Lincoln uses an appeal to pathos to connect the sacrifice of Union soldiers in the U.S. Civil War to a national rebirth of the democratic founding principles of the country, which were antithetical to the slavery that they fought against. He relies on a range of repetitive rhetorical devices, such as epistrophe and anaphora to do so. 

The speech was delivered on November 19, 1863, and the occasion was the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in commemoration of Union soldiers who died fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg. This specific battle occurred between July 1 and July 3, 1863, and it was a turning point in the Civil War. Historians record it as one of the bloodiest battles in the conflict, with estimates of 51,000 casualties, including more than 7,000 soldiers killed, 33,000 wounded, and several captured or missing.

Lincoln, despite his high standing and privilege as a president, relies primarily on pathos and even explicitly rejects appeals to ethos or his reputation. In his rejection of ethos, he goes as far as saying:

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

In short, Lincoln portrays the soldiers as role models to observe in terms of upholding the democratic founding principle of the United States. In this article, we go in-depth to see how rhetorical devices work toward making this one of the more memorable speeches in history. 

The Gettysburg Address in full

Below, I have provided the full speech before I proceed to analyze it. It is a rather short speech made up of three paragraphs and about 270 words: 

[1] Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

[2] Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

[3] But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

The Gettysburg Address was never meant to be a key speech. In fact, the keynote speaker at the commemoration, which was the occasion of the speech in the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was Edward Everett. He was a renowned orator and the former governor of Massachusetts. Everett delivered a two-hour-long speech, whereas Lincoln's was only two minutes. It was only days after the speech was delivered that the newspapers realized the importance of the speech.

A rhetorical analysis of the speech

The president uses repetitive rhetorical devices to emphasize the sacredness of the contribution made by the soldiers. For example, he uses a combination of anaphora (repetition at the beginning) and asyndeton (a lack of conjunctions) in the following sentence: “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground.” The repetition and omission of conjunctions imbues the sentence with a certain level of power and energy. This is important as the opening sentences that precede it are somewhat low-key in terms of tone. 

The table below provides a summary of the major rhetorical devices used in the speech: 

Rhetorical Device	Definition	Example from the Gettysburg Address
Anaphora	Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences	“We can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.”
Asyndeton	Omitting the use of conjunctions where they are necessary.	‎“We can not dedicate, we can not ‎consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.” ‎
Symploce	Combination of anaphora and epistrophe (repetition at both beginning and end of clauses)	“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
Chiasmus	A reversal in the order of words in parallel phrases (ABBA structure)	The world will little note, nor long ‎remember what we say here, but it can ‎never forget what they did here.”‎
Polyptoton	Repetition of words derived from the same root, but in different forms	Lincoln moves from “dead” to “died” in one sentence: “these dead shall not have died in vain”
Juxtaposition	Placing contrasting ideas near each other to highlight difference	He places the relatively minor act of speaking (“what we say”) against the greater act of sacrifice (“what they did”) to emphasize the weight of action over words.
Metaphor	A figure of speech in which an idea is represented by something else without using “like” or “as”	The cemetery is referred to as a “portion of that field” and the “unfinished work” implies the nation’s mission as a battle or struggle.
Pathos	Rhetorical appeal to the audience’s emotions	Lincoln evokes the sacrifice of the soldiers and the idea of national rebirth to move his listeners emotionally.

Lincoln juxtaposes the contribution of the soldiers with that of ordinary civilians before introducing his larger point, namely: all citizens are obligated to play their part in the greater struggle of supporting and advancing Democratic values, even if it doesn’t include actual military combat. We can see this in the following excerpt: 

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

The rhetorical devices used in this sentence include symploce (i.e., repetition at the end with a small change in the middle) and chiasmus (repetition in reverse order). The symploce and chiasmus are employed to compare and contrast the major contribution and sacrifice of the soldiers who fought and died in battle with the relatively minor contribution made by civilians or non-combatants.

Lastly, Lincoln makes skillful use of an additional repetitive rhetorical device named polyptoton (i.e., repeating a variation of the root of a word). He used it in association with the death experienced by the soldiers to link his speech to the wider theme of a collective national rebirth, which he develops in Paragraph 2 of the speech. At the beginning of the speech, Lincoln uses a subtle metaphor to portray the cemetery as representing a portion of a great battlefield. This concept is extended to cast the cause that the soldiers fought for as a national struggle in which all should participate. Lincoln says as follows: 

we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.

The polyptoton involves various forms of the word “death”  to make  a subtle transition to the theme of rebirth. Lincoln first mentions the noun or inactive form of the word, “dead.” Then, this changes to the active verb form “died,” before ending with a reference to “a new birth of freedom.”

In the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln immortalizes the fallen soldiers and veterans of Gettysburg  by linking their deaths and sacrifice to the wider struggle for the democratic founding principle of the United States. He does so by relying on an appeal to pathos and connecting the values that the soldiers fought and died for as a democratic ethic that all citizens have a duty to support. 

Repetitive rhetorical devices are used to great effect to emphasize these points. It all comes to a climax in the last sentence where President Lincoln juxtaposes the death of the soldiers with the immortality of the national democratic principle that they fought for and he exhorts citizens to continue upholding to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, September 30). Rhetorical Devices | Definition & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/the-gettysburg-address-rhetorical-analysis