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.