โ๐ฝAP English Language
โ๐ฝAP English Language
FRQ 2 โ Rhetorical Analysis
Practice FRQ 1 of 1651/165
2. Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and politician who would later serve as the 16th president of the United States. In 1857, he delivered a speech addressing the Supreme Court's controversial ruling in the Dred Scott case. The following is an excerpt from that speech.
Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Lincoln makes to develop his argument about the interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.
In your response you should do the following:
- Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices.
- Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
- Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
- Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
Par.
1
Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration.
