Beginning of Essay
Persuasion is a form of speaking or writing that aims to move an audience to take action. The speaker must not only win the audience's agreement, but push them to execute the appropriate task. Patrick Henry's Speech to the Virginia Convention is one of the most ....

Middle of Essay
.... order to support his "call to action" to the learned group of men at the Virginia Convention, Henry had to provide substantial proof endorsing his position. While an appeal to their emotions would rouse them against the British for the moment, emotions are short-lived and their endurance would depend on proof. Henry asks, "are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?" "what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission?" By using the literary device of the rhetorical question, Henry attempts to pull his audience into his speech and show how obvious the need for the colonists to arm themselves ....