The word seminal comes from the Latin word for seed. A seed grows and eventually creates more seeds. In a similar way, seminal documents plant ideas that take hold and spread in society.

Here are some types of seminal U.S. documents:

• speeches

• legislation

• court rulings

• letters

They share these characteristics:

• They inspire.

• They remain relevant.

• They help define who we are.

The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 was one of the fiercest battles of the Civil War. Over 7,000 soldiers died in three days of fighting. It marked a turning point for the Union, which consisted of the Northern states. It also ended the push northward by the Confederacy, the Southern states.

President Abraham Lincoln’s appearance in Gettysburg several months after the battle was unexpected. After all, he was busy conducting a war, and his son was very ill.

The occasion for the visit was the dedication ceremony for a national cemetery for Union soldiers. Lincoln seized on the occasion to deliver an urgent message to his audience.

You’ve analyzed the message in the address—the “what” of Lincoln’s speech. Now, let’s determine the text’s purpose—the “why.” Recall that authors write for four general purposes: to entertain, to express emotions, to inform, and to persuade.

Understanding the purpose of a seminal document requires considering historical context and noticing the type of language used. Look for these types:

Persuasive Language

• words that convey strong emotions (freedom, love, death)

• value words (greatest, worst)

• calls to action, with imperatives (must, should, shall, will)

• rhetorical devices, such as parallel structure and figurative language

Informative Language

• facts and figures

• neutral vocabulary

• objective tone

Biography
Lucy Stanton was an African American who was born free in Cleveland Ohio in 1831. Her childhood home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. In 1849, Stanton graduated from Oberlin College and became the first African American woman to receive a college degree. 

Fugitive Slave Act
Stanton’s speech was a reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act, soon to be passed by Congress. This law forbid people who fled slavery, called fugitives, from giving testimony or have a trial by jury. It also imposed harsh penalties on people who helped fugitives, both in the North and the South. Outrage over the law gave a boost to the struggling movement to end slavery.

Abolitionist Movement
Between 1830 and 1865, antislavery activists in the United States formed a movement to abolish, or end, slavery. Known as abolitionists, many of these men and women also sought voting rights, or suffrage, for African Americans in Northern states, most of which barred non-whites from voting.

Other Reform Movements
The spirit of reform was everywhere in the mid-nineteenth century. The religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening inspired movements for peace, public education, voting rights, and temperance (relating to control of alcohol).  

Pathos is emotion. A speaker attempts to persuade an audience by appealing to pathos, or drawing on the audience’s emotions. An effective pathos appeal requires an understanding of what moves an audience. Through vivid imagery, repetition, or a touching anecdote, a speaker can appeal to an audience’s feelings of pride, shame, compassion, or any strong emotion.

For more information about Rhetorical Appeals, please see these notes from ENG 9B! 

A rhetorical device is a language technique or tool that authors use to engage or persuade an audience. Below are a few different types of rhetorical devices:

• Figurative language includes the use of comparisons such as metaphors and similes, as well as allusion.

• Rhetorical questions are questions that help the speaker advance a point of view. Speakers use these questions for many purposes, such as to express outrage, to confirm shared values, or to state the obvious. For example, someone who asks, “Why can’t we get along?” may be pleading for peace.

• Speakers often utilize brief stories about real people or experiences that illustrate a point. Anecdotes (true stories used as evidence) can appeal to ethos, pathos, logos, or all three. For example, in an anecdote with pathos appeal, Rep. John Lewis tells how his life changed when he  “met” Martin Luther King, Jr. for the first time through the radio. 

• Repetition isn’t just for words and phrases. Speakers such as Stanton also employ the repetition of grammatical structures, called parallelism. An example of parallelism is “The few, the proud, the Marines.”

• Another type of parallelism, antithesis, presents contrasting ideas in grammatically parallel forms: “My only love, sprung from my only hate!”--William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v

US President Theodore Roosevelt (pictured here) was determined to build a canal through the tiny Colombian province of Panama. Colombia, represented by the smaller figure in the cartoon, would not agree to the canal’s construction. So in 1903, Roosevelt sent US warships to aid Panama in its bid for independence from Colombia—a bid engineered by the canal’s financial backers. 

Published in 1885, The Squatter and the Don is the first English language novel by a Mexican American woman. It involves two families living in San Diego in 1873, 25 years after the Mexican-American War and the US annexation of California.

The Don is Don Mariano, who runs a large ranch in San Diego on land granted to him by Mexico before the war (in Spanish-speaking regions, Don is a title of honor for a powerful man). The treaty that ended the war reaffirmed the land rights of “Californios” like the Don. The term squatter refers to someone who hopes to gain ownership of land by occupying it. The squatter in the title is the head of a family of Anglo (white non-Spanish speaking) settlers who claim part of the Don’s lands. Many settlers took advantage of new laws that chipped away at Californios’ land rights.

Sometimes authors play with (change) plot structure (that means write the story in a different order) to add mystery, suspense, or tension. As a result, the plot feels more like a rollercoaster ride. Authors achieve this effect through several techniques: 

• returning to the past in a flashback, or hinting at the future with foreshadowing

• weaving two or more parallel plots together

• playing with pacing (for example, a writer might cover one year in a paragraph, or slow down to real time with dialogue)

Many persuasive messages target your emotions. For example, you may try a diet because you feel loyal to a friend.

Formal argument, however, relies not on emotion but on logic and evidence.

• Empirical evidence comes from observation or research. It can take the form or statistics, government records, historical documents, and even fossils and fingerprints.

• Logical evidence is the result of reasoning. When you draw a conclusion or make a generalization based on empirical evidence, you have created logical evidence.

• A third type of evidence is anecdotal evidence, a brief story that illustrates a point. Using an anecdote to draw a general conclusion is risky, since it applies to only one person’s experience.

Speakers sometimes make statements that sound convincing but in fact contain faulty reasoning. These are logical fallacies—they don't make sense or are not logical when you really think about what they're trying to say. Some are designed to deceive. Others appeal to emotions rather than logic. In fact, emotional appeals, although common in persuasion, are considered fallacies in formal argument.  

Logical fallacies act as evidence to convince the audience of an idea. However, they don't actually provide strong support for the speaker's argument.

In this fallacy, the author presents him- or herself as just like the average person. This strategy plays to the audience’s emotions and helps win them to the author’s side.

For example, instead of talking about policy issues, a wealthy candidate may go to great lengths to be photographed doing “chores,” such as chopping wood or cleaning a car.

The term “ad hominem” means “against the man” in Latin and refers to an attack on a person, not an argument.

Direct name-calling is a form of ad hominem (“My opponent is a liar!”). But ad hominem reasoning can also be a subtler personal attack that does not address the argument.

Here’s an example: ”My sister says that I should save money, but she is always broke.” Saying the sister is broke does not address her claim about saving money.