The Declaration of Independence

Examination Overview
The final examination has two written parts.

The first question asks you to listen to (or read) President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address and compose a short (minimum of four paragraphs) rhetorical analysis outlining the features of his speech and discussing its content and place in American history.

The second question asks you to read the Declaration of Independence, one of America’s founding documents, and compose a fully developed short essay (minimum of eight paragraphs) outlining the piece’s features and commenting on its efficacy and place in American history.

Instructions
Please observe the deadline for this final examination in your course syllabus and plan accordingly to give yourself enough time to complete the assessment. Take some time to first critically analyze these source documents here in the learning module before opening up the final examination questions.

You will likely want to spend some time researching the contextual elements surrounding Kennedy’s speech and Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. For further information on the Declaration of Independence, you might want to read “The Declaration of Independence: A History,” which can be found on the digital pages of the National Archives.

After you have critically analyzed these documents and you are ready to respond to the examination questions,
As always, your work will be evaluated for clarity, punctuation, grammar, content, and incorporation of the course theories and concepts.

ANSWER

Rhetorical Analysis

The first question asks you to listen to (or read) President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address and compose a short (minimum of four paragraphs) rhetorical analysis outlining the features of his speech and discussing its content and place in American history.

Introduction

It is a requirement in America’s culture that a newly elected president gives a powerful address during his inauguration ceremony. This is usually an early opportunity for the president to prove himself to the citizens and gain the people’s trust that they did not go wrong voting him. JF Kennedy’s case was not any different (Cardinal, Sorensen & Cardinal, 2012). He must have been aware of what was needed of him because his speech lives in the Americans’ hearts several years later. He employs various techniques in his speech like repetition, parallelism to engage his audience. He tries to explain the type of nation he had in his vision and how he would help realize it through his power as president. In his address, he wins over his citizen’s emotions, and there is no doubt, at that moment, the citizens believed in him.

Former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy would be pleased to learn that his address is still admired and referred to 60 years later.

Although his speech was barely 15 minutes long, his words touched many American hearts. He must have been a person who took word-craft very seriously because every statement in his address was perfectly structured. It was an important speech for him, on an important day that he was assuming duty as the new head of the United States of America. A lot was expected from him, so he had to show that he was ready and up to the task by delivering this powerful address as his first speech as the president of America. At the age of 43, KFK became the youngest president and first-ever catholic president. The speech was a golden opportunity to show himself to the world like he wanted to be seen. It was at that time that America faced threats of nuclear attacks. Still, JFK bestowed a sense of safety in the Americans, promising them protection by all means necessary in his powers as president. The energy in his speech inspired real change and gave every American the responsibility to impact the change needed. He challenged the public to look at what they could do for the country more than what the government could do for them.

JF Kennedy starts his speech employing parallelism. He argues that his inauguration victory should be viewed more as a symbol of freedom to the nation than it was just his victory (Bostdorff & Ferris, 2014). He further explains that the victory represented an end as well as the beginning of a new era. From just this statement, JFK implied that he would affect renewal as well as change. Still, in his address’s early reports, he assures the citizens that he would do whatever it takes with or without other nations’ help to ensure there were survival and success of liberty. In this powerful statement, he mentioned what he and his country were willing to do to realize their dream. He says they were willing to pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, meet any hardships and oppose any foe, amongst other things America was ready to do to attain the success of liberty. This kind of parallelism has been employed before by other speakers and in articles. However, JFK used it persuasively, and he also used it repeatedly in his address. Another significant parallelism statement JFK used in his speech was when he urges the citizens to offer the country more than what the government offered them. In another statement, he also says that citizens should concentrate on what they could do for the nation than what the country could do for them. Paraphrasing other JFK statements inaugural address could make them lose meaning because, for JFK, it was more of how he said his words than what he said.

Far from parallelism, another practical and common rhetorical feature observed in JFK’s address is repetition. In this case, JFK does not necessarily repeat ideas in his speech, but he intentionally repeats some specific words. For instance, it is easy to notice that he begins most of his paragraphs with the exact words in his address. This feature tends to capture the attention of his audience. However, he also tries to repeat ideas and concepts. For instance, the views of peace and freedom are repeated throughout the address. At the end of the speech, it is most likely to stick in the audience’s minds that he values peace and freedom a lot. At some point in his address, JFK is observed to repeat the phrase ‘both sides, in most of his paragraphs. In this case, both sides refer to the nations opposing America and those that support America’s ideas. Using both sides, JFK implies that the country faces both sides, helping America’s views and those against.

Throughout the address, JFK employs the pathos mode of persuasion to appeal to his audience’s emotions. This strategy worked because his speech is described as touching to the American hearts. Although it can be viewed as a strategy, JFK is again seen as a charismatic being who naturally loves interacting with people. Having this to his advantage was of great help because, one way or the other, he knew what the Americans wanted to hear and talked about that. He talks about everything that needed to be discussed and addresses various groups of people in his speech. Some of the groups he addresses include new states, the poor and needy, the United Nations, Old allies, among other groups. by 1961, the majority of Americans could not be described as wealthy. JFK appeals to the poor and needy appealing to break the bonds of mass misery. In his address to the poor, he further says that a free society should strive to help the poor, or else it cannot save the few who are rich. From a statement like this, JFK addresses both the poor and rich, showing concern for both sides. Kennedy focused on matters affecting the majority of Americans, like bringing peace among other nations. He makes the idea of peace seem achievable, which sits very well with his audience, making them want to listen more. He utilizes pathos by ensuring he talked about matters that most Americans would relate to, which earned him trust from the audience.

Conclusion

As a person, John F. Kennedy was highly admired by his citizens for a short time he was their president. His inaugural address was much more respected and is still respected and referred to, to date. Among his achievements were establishing peace corps, getting the US out of recession, and avoiding nuclear attacks. In his address, JFK focused on specific rhetorical approaches that made his speech a success to date. He employs repetition, parallelism, and pathos majorly to come up with the address that lives on years later after his reign as president. His address commanded a lot of respect, and citizens were able to trust in him.
The second question asks you to read the Declaration of Independence, one of America’s founding documents, and compose a fully developed short essay (minimum of eight paragraphs) outlining the piece’s features and commenting on its efficacy and place in American history.

Introduction

The Fourth of July or Independence Day is a celebrated day in the United States. On this day, the Declaration of Independence document was adopted and approved by the continental congress. However, the United States was officially pronounced as an independent state separate from the North American British Colonies on the 2nd of July. The document is believed to be the United States’ founding document and is still preserved at the National exhibition hall. Thomas Jefferson drafted the initial draft of the declaration of independence. It was polished with a few changes suggested by the committee members to make the final copy. Jefferson engaged the document more on political theories outlined by John Locke in his book Civil Government. As he starts the record, he highlights a set of rights held by everybody and insists on the government’s responsibility to protect those rights. The founding document of United States is generally based on three basic concepts:

• All men are made equal by God and have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• The primary responsibility of a government is to protect the rights of its people.
• People are free to renounce the government and set up a new one if it attempts to withhold rights.

Jefferson Thomas wrote this declaration mainly to notify the British the colonists were about to set themselves free. It is also evident that he also wanted to disgrace the King of Britain and his governorship. First, to gain his audience’s trust and belief, Jefferson opens the declaration of independence document with some touch of ethos. Ethos appeals to ethics and is an approach of convincing the audience of the persuader’s credibility and potential. He wants his audience to know that the authors of the declaration of independence were just regular individuals who had the best interests for everyone. Further, in the document, Jefferson talks about the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, which nobody can dismiss because they are God-given rights. They wanted to break from England’s chains for the good of the people because the King and his governorship were failing to ensure the fundamental rights were fulfilled.

Parallelism is an approach used in the declaration of independence to keep the audience attentive and glued. It uses grammatically similar sentence patterns or grammatical forms in a sentence to capture the audience’s attention. For instance, Jefferson uses the phrase “we have” a lot in his document to make his audience feel like they were together in this endeavor. Far from making the expressions stronger, parallelism emphasized equal importance across all his complaints. The repeated use of the phrase ‘he has’ when listing the King’s failures stresses that the King has failed to observe the laws and primary responsibilities.

Thomas Jefferson employs logos for most of the declaration of independence document. Logos is an approach that appeals to logic and tends to convince the audience by giving them a reason (McCormack, 2014). In the form, Thomas Jefferson factors out the motives as to why the colonies chose to declare independence, giving out fine details like cause and effect explanations. He insists on the fact that governments should protect the rights of people. However, he also observes that the government was failing to protect the people’s rights and doing other evil deeds on top of that. For instance, the cause and effect explanation for declaring independence was: Cause- government failing to protect the rights as is supposed to, effect: declaring independence and snatching power away from that government. Jefferson uses logos to convince his audience that they did not have any better option than to take over from the British colonies’ government. According to Jefferson, the government got its powers from the people it governs. Therefore, it is within those people’s rights to change or terminate that government if it does not meet its requirements of protecting the people’s rights. Jefferson points out exactly how the British government had failed. He demonstrates the failures of the British government in a long list of specific pieces of evidence. Throughout the document, Jefferson is observed to back up all his claims and accusations. He was thorough with his research providing up to twenty-seven examples to back up his claims, and this was factual evidence. With his proficient use of logos, Jefferson leaves his audience with only one conclusion that doing away with Great Britain’s colonies was the only logical cause of action by the people.

Far from his logic and reason techniques, Jefferson also tries to bring in the aspect of emotions in his piece. Pathos is a technique aimed at creating an emotional appeal to the audience to convince power. He is observed to sneak in some pathos in the document from instances like those he claims all men are created equal. He tries to capture his audience’s emotional side when he uses phrases like how men are exposed to suffering while evils are sufferable. Mentioning that God endowed human beings with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness alone elicits his audience’s emotions. Getting that emotional response from the audience, in this case, did not require that they are on board with the idea of equal rights. For instance, in paragraph two, Jefferson tries to capture the people’s attention by playing with their emotions. From the document, he observes that the people did not receive adequate protection from the King. Colonists were being attacked severally by foreign enemies, and this disrupted normalcy and commerce. Thus, Jefferson terms the government of the King as failed and corrupt and therefore needed to be abolished.

Conclusion 

The main reason for drafting the founding document, the declaration of independence, was that the colonists wanted to let the entire world why they were cutting ties with England. They felt that it was the responsibility of the government to give an assurance of basic rights. According to them, the fundamental rights were life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, and it was their right to abolish a government that did not ensure that. The major complaints against the King in the declaration included:

1. He was refusing to pass necessary basic laws. The King refused to approve rules to establish courts and made the salaries and terms in the judges’ office uncertain.
2. He was refusing to withdraw standing armies from the colonies. The colonial legislatures had not agreed to their presence and considered them dangerous.
3. He was dissolving representative houses, not providing for fresh elections, and calling meetings at less convenient places.

Works Cited

Bostdorff, D. M., & Ferris, S. H. (2014). John F. Kennedy at American University: The rhetoric of the possible, epideictic progression, and the commencement of peace. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 100(4), 407-441. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630.2014.989895

Cardinal, B. J., Sorensen, S. D., & Cardinal, M. K. (2012). Historical perspective and current status of the physical education graduation requirement at American 4-year colleges and universities. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 83(4), 503-512. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02701367.2012.10599139

McCormack, K. C. (2014). Ethos, pathos, and logos: The benefits of Aristotelian rhetoric in the courtroom. Wash. U. Jurisprudence Rev., 7, 131.

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