The Dialetic of Independence

By Carolyn Sheedy

I wish we’d done the rereading of the Declaration of Independence before submitting in our revisions to essay 2 because I think it is a good example of what we have been trying to accomplish in our papers! The Declaration is an excellent tool to justify the birth of a new nation because of its powerful persuasive voice and straightforward organization of the essay. The paper has a clear enthymeme (to paraphrase it “we are breaking our ties with you because the your actions infringe on our basic rights.”) and supports itself well with the list of injustices and crimes.

I would say the success of this document is due to Jefferson’s masterful use of the three appeals. He appeals to authority by speaking from experience, we should listen to these people because they have suffered and they know what they are talking about. He appeals to our emotions by his word choice, taking advantage of the dialectics he can. Words like ‘abuses’ and ‘usurpations’ have strong negative associations with them still today, two hundred years later, as do words like ‘Free and Independent’. And finally, he appeals to logic with his list, pointing out what happened to wrong the immigrants and why it was wrong before finally tying it back into what they plan to do because of it, making their reason for declaring independence easily understood and reasonable.

Frankly, I am impressed by how effective these tools are because I did not really have much faith in them until I tried dissecting the reasons why this document struck me so strongly and persuaded me easily. I believe there are still flaws with the work, such as the long winding sentences, long repetitive lists and the overly flowery language but I accept that these are simply stylistic tastes and probably stem from what was common during the period this was written. Kudos to Jefferson on creating a wonderful base for the birth of our country as well as a wonderful base for any persuasive paper.