Persuasion is a technique that aims to move an audience and grab their attention. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and Patrick Henry’s Speech in the Virginia Convention are influential arguments about independence that gain America’s attention. The two pieces compare and contrast in persuasive techniques.
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson both provide the colonists with reasons to declare their independence. At the same time, Henry urges his audience to unite and join the war against Britain while Jefferson encourages more peaceful tactics to gain independence. Patrick Henry wants the colonists to stand up and fight for what they believe in in order to win their independence. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, does not believe it matters what …show more content…
This device is effective when Thomas Jefferson is listing the grievances that the colonists hold against the British king. He begins each sentence with “he has” when listing the various wrongdoings the king has committed. Jefferson states, “he has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.” (142) The repetition of phrases explains the struggle that the colonists suffered through. Thomas Jefferson also uses parallelism when he repeats ‘we have’ to emphasize how poorly the colonists were treated. Jefferson states, “we have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.” (144) Through parallelism, the colonists get their point across and are able to clearly express their