Rhetorical Appeals in The Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg address is one of the most recognized speeches in American history. In it, President Lincoln addresses the American people as they are gathered to officially dedicate the Gettysburg Cemetery. Just months earlier, one of the most significant battles of the Civil War had taken place on these lands. As you read, notice how President Lincoln relied on rhetorical appeals to accomplish his purpose.

Purpose: President Lincoln is honoring the soldiers who lost their lives during battle at Gettysburg and offering the American people hope for what he sees as the future of America.

I have to say where ethos pathos and logos are used and why

​Ethos: an appeal to credibility, ethics, or moral principles
​Pathos: an appeal to emotion
Logos: an appeal to logic or reason



Directions: Read the speech below and highlight where you see examples of ethos, pathos, and logos. Be prepared to discuss how President Lincoln is applying these rhetorical appeals and the effects these may have on the audience.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Speech
The Gettysburg Address, 1863

Four score* 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.

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 battlefield 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.

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.