Comparing Patrick Henry's Speech To The Virginia Convention

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Since the fifth century BC, lecturers, public speakers, and writers have been using rhetoric to empower their words. In 1775, Patrick Henry gave a speech, “Speech to the Virginia Convention,” with the goal of convincing the colonists to fight to break free of Great Britain’s merciless control. In 2002, President Bush gave a speech, “President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat,” to persuade the American people and Congress to rise against the threat Iraq posed to the world. Although there is a 227 year difference between the two speeches, there are many rhetorical similarities, such as the use of strong loaded language, antithesis, and pathos. Both Henry and Bush use similarly powerful, loaded language. Bush identifies the enemy, Saddam Hussein, as “a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.” Henry describes the enemy as “the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.” Bush goes into a lengthy description of Iraq, “the merciless nature of its regime,” and the “most serious dangers of our age in one place.” Henry villainizes Great Britain by stating that the colonists’ “petitions have been slighted;” their “remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult;” their “supplications have been disregarded;” and they “have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.” These …show more content…
There are many distinctions in the speeches, such as, Henry’s intense passion, the slight difference in the antitheses, and the difference in the way the speakers’ described their enemies, but overall, these speeches are more similar than different. Bush and Henry both had many examples of similar loaded language, antithesis, and pathos. Both speakers used very similar rhetorical methods in the writing and presenting of their speeches. President Bush and Patrick Henry lived over two centuries apart, but gave speeches on different topics with highly similar
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