The Mexican War Essay, Research Paper
Against The Mexican War
Through this essay Thomas Corwin is stating his opposition to President Polk?s
adamant propaganda of ?manifest destiny.? Corwin points out that stealing Mexican land
would only create domestic desputes back in the United States between slave-holding
states and non save-holding states. Corwin states that the acquisition of new land would
lead to desputes about weather of not the new land should be deemed slave territory or
free territory and weather or not slavery would be permitted in its boarders. These
statements act as a eerie forecast of the disputes which will lay the plot for the Civil War
that comes two decades latter. Corwin, being a republican was greatly disturbed by the
fact that with the acquisition of new land would bring about the option of carrying the
immoral and inhumane act of slavery into the newly acquired territories. Corwin states that
a proclamation of war on Mexico would be a direct act of treason against the United
States. Because the offspring would lead to much civil conflict and further risk blood shed
on the domestic home front. Corwin expresses a sympathetic view of Mexico, by stating
that the land is just a part of Mexican heritage as Washington D.C. or New York is to the
United States. Corwin points out that it is the invasion of U.S. troops into Mexico which
has caused war, and proposes that a retreat of all U.S. troops stationed on the Mexican
borders would restore peace to out nation and prevent further blood shed over this
pretenses of war.
Rhetorical Devices:
Rhetorical Question: ?Have you not room enough in your own county to bury your
dead??
Parallelisms: ?But this same America goes into a sister republic, and says to poor, weak
Mexico, ?Give up your territory, you are unworthy to possess it…? England might as
well, in the circumstances I have described, have come and demanded of us, ?Give up the
Atlantic slope-give up this trifling territory from the Allegheny Mountains to the sea…?
Ethos: ?The senator from Michigan says he must have this (more land). Why, my worthy
Christian brother; on what principle of justice??
Pathos: Invokes a sense of pity on behalf of Mexico: ?There I bled for liberty! and shall I
surrender that consecrated home of my affections to the Anglo-Saxon invaders? What do
they want with it? They have Texas already.?
Logos: ?Sir, look at this pretense of want of room. With twenty millions of people, you
have about one thousand millions of acres of land, inviting settlement by every conceivable
argument, bring them down to a quarter of a dollar an acre, and allowing every man to
squat where he pleases.?
The Case for Public Schools
This essay is an attempt by Horace Mann to enlighten the public on the fact that
the lack of public education is one of the greatest problems faced by the country at that
time. Mann points out the fact that the uneducated will suffer oppression both in society
and by economic stand points from the educated. He also points out that public education
would be beneficent to society in that the education of more people would instigate the
architecture of new technological inventions as well as the formations of new thoughts and
ideas. He also states that a man?s intellectual ability will not be put to use if it is deprived
of the essential tool of education. Another belief Mann holds is that with out better public
education our nation would descend on a downward gradient towards total barbarism and
lack of social and economic improvements. Mann feels that the greatest of all economic
concerns with the country is the lack of wide-spread public education which would change
consumers into producers which in-turn would greatly improve the worldly economic
status of the United States. Mann holds the view that every man should have the
opportunity to create his own wealth and become financially prosperous, but without the
essential tool of education this great status of wealth would be unattainable to the
common man.
Rhetorical Devices:
Analogy: ?Such fortunes would create a feudalism of a new kind; but one more
oppressive and unrelenting than that of the Middle Ages. The feudal lords in England, and
on the continent, never held their retainers in a more abject condition of servitude, than the
great majority of foreign manufacturers and capitalists hold their operatives and laborers at
the present day. The means employed are different, but the similarity in results is striking.
What force did then, money does now…?
Metaphor: If a savage will learn how to swim, he can fasten a dozen pounds? weight to
his back and transport it across a narrow river. If he will invent an axe he can use a tree
form a float and one of its limbs for a paddle. Fastening several trees together, he makes a
raft and thus increases the buoyant power of his embryo water-craft. But, even this does
not content the adventurous naval architect. he frames iron arms to his ship; and for oars,
affixes iron wheels. Into iron-walled cavities in her bosom, he puts iron organs of massive
structure and strength, and cohesion insoluble by fire. Now take away intelligence form
the ship-builder, and the steamship falls back and the savage swimmer, bearing his dozen
pounds on his back, alone remains.
Ethos: Establishes himself as an educated man by speaking of feudalism and Economic
theories and how they pertain to a lack in massive public education that the nation is
facing.
Pathos:
Logos: The metaphor stated above gives a real life situation of how education has helped
to evolve technology which has greatly improved humanity?s standards of living.
Quote: Now take away intelligence form the ship-builder, and the steamship,-that miracle
of human are,-falls back and the savage swimmer, bearing his dozen pounds on his back,
alone remains.
Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions
This is a document drafted, for the most part, by Elizabeth Stanton at the Seneca
Falls Convention for women?s rights, in Seneca Falls, New York. This document was
modeled around the Declaration of Independence and focuses mainly on the oppression of
women?s social, civil, and religious rights by their male counter parts. Elizabeth Stanton
states that women are subjected her to lead a life dependent upon males and are obligated
to submit to laws in which women have no say so in forming. She state that oppression
from males restrict women from gaining independent means of wealth and education as
well as declining them of any rights in holding positions in the church. She adds the point
that women are required by law to pay taxes to a government that only recognizes her
when tax revenue is sought out. The main thing partitioned for in this document is the
equal treatment of men and women, and further on that notion is the equal opportunity for
women to be allowed to vote. Stanton Adds that it is the duty of all women to speak out
against any deprivation of their natural rights, on account of the oppression bestowed
upon them by their male counterparts.
Rhetorical Devices:
Syntax: On page 84 Stanton uses one sentence paragraphs for the next 15 paragraph.
She does this with the intention of punctuating the evidence she gives to support her view
of the oppression by males on the female gender.
Repetition: The above mentioned paragraphs all begin with the phrase ?He has…? This
strategy is done so with the intention of providing readers with a simple straight forward
list of evidence compiled to support her thesis.
Ethos:
Pathos: Through the evidence in Paragraphs 5-20 readers are invoked upon a sense of
compassion for all the toil and strife the female gender has been forced to endure by the
hands of male oppression. Readers are put on a level in which they can truly understand
the pretenses of the predigest views males have for females.
Lathos: Paragraphs 5-20 list a innumerable amount of evidence to support the thesis. The
main evidence listed applies to the fact that women are deprived of creating legislation
which they are forced to abide by, as well as the fact that they are deprived of creating
avenues of financial wealth for them selves and are degraded to the point at which they are
subjected to live a life dependent upon males.
Quote: ?All experience hath shown that man kind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed.?
Address to the Ohio Women?s Rights Convention
This speech was delivered by Sojourner Truth at the Ohio Women?s Rights
Convention in Akron, Ohio. The message she set to her audience was a call to take action
against the oppression of the female gender. She states incidents in her life; everything
from having ploughed and planted better than men, to being lashed, and bearing thirteen
children, and then asks ?ain?t I a woman.? This was here way of saying arn?t my
accomplishments in life justified enough to be held in the same esteem with males. This is
a speech that is ment to provoke radical change and is one that is a cry for action. She
even draws a parallel between women?s rights advocates and eve stating ?If the first
woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these
women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!?
Rhetorical Devices:
Repetition: In the second and third paragraphs in this speech Sojourner Truth uses the
phrase ?ain?t I a woman? after every hardship she lists in order to emphasize her points.
The phrase ?ain?t I a woman? was used to remind her audience that even though she is a
woman, she has endured much hardship and pain in life; just as much as any male has.
Diction: Truth?s use of a common and plain diction was a device used to establish her
credibility with the audience. She spoke in common language in order to put herself on
the same level as her audience so that they identify with her and her torment in life.
Through her use of diction she was expressing that she was just as adamant about gaining
women?s as any other person in the audience.
Ethos: Her use of diction as well as her description of personal experiences helped to
establish her as a credible author. When she states that ?I have ploughed and planted, and
gathered into barns, and no man could head me,?? this is her way of stating that she is a
credible person, by the evidence of her long endurance of oppression from men.
Pathos: A sense of compassion and pity was invoked upon the audience through Truth?s
examples of how she has suffered many first hand accounts of oppression. The line ?I
have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and cried out with
my mother?s grief? is a statement which really lets the audience know of the great
suffering she has endured.
Logos: She uses many personal experiences as well as many broad statements in general
about the oppression of women and why there should be action taken against it. She
states that if women can do most if not all the things that men can do why do they deserve
to be treated as second class citizens? She uses the statement ?If the first woman God
ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women
togeather ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again? to form her thesis
statement.
Quote: ?If my cup won?t hold but a pint, and yours hold a quart, wouldn?t you be mean
not to let me have my little half-measure full??
Address to the Legislature of New York on Women?s
Rights
This was a speech given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in front of the New York legislature
in Albany New York. This is a pled to the law makers in the state of New York to take a
legal stand and do what is morally right, by passing laws granting women civil rights equal
to those of men. This speech takes on the legal stand point of women?s rights. Stanton
challenges the logistics of marriage contracts being issued in the states of New York. She
states that since it is a civil contract bound by constitutional law both parties entering into
the agreement have the full right to back out of the agreement as well. This was not the
case she stated for marriage contracts since women did not possess the right to dissolve a
marriage as a man did. She states that women are slaves of their husbands as long as they
are forced by the law, against their will to continue to be married to someone even if they
do not wish to be. She says that it is illegal to have a contract in which one party
possesses the privilege to dissolve a contract, and the other party doesn?t. Staton also
points out that women possess every Constitutional qualification as a native born citizen,
property holder, and tax payer required to vote, except the qualification of gender. She
states that even lunatics and crazy men are allowed to vote, but women who are scholars
and mathematicians are restricted not to. Her third point is to give women more civil
rights as widows. She points out that if a woman is to die then her husband, by law has
every right to ownership of any property or assets she left behind, but this is not the case
for women. Women are allowed only one third of the land and one half of all the
possessions left behind if she were widowed.