Post #5-Rhetorical Analysis Reflection:

The reason why I chose to write a rhetorical analysis on James Garfield's Inaugural Address was because I read a book called "Destiny of the Republic" about him over my summer vacation. Garfield was a representative and a Civil War general from Ohio. He was a very jolly and studious man, who excelled in college and as a general. He went to the 1880 Republican Convention to give a nominating speech for  John Sherman, but after a voting deadlock, he was nominated as a compromise candidate. The two factions in the Republican Party, the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds, viewed him as a compromise candidate. After gaining a slim margin of the popular vote and a fair margin of the electoral vote, James Garfield became the twentieth President of the United States. However, a delusional office-seeker, Charles Guiteau, shot Garfield at a train station in Washington, D.C. in the back and the arm. Garfield spent the next two months suffering on a bed as he lost a third of his body weight and as doctors introduced infection by probing the would. President Garfield died in September 1881, just six months after his inauguration. President Garfield stood up against the entrenched political philosophy of the spoils system (where those who helped a president get elected got desirable government jobs) by sponsoring civil service reform. He was also viewed as a unifier of North and South, and both sections mourned his loss dramatically.
Writing this rhetorical analysis has been somewhat hard for me. The most difficult task was summoning up the will power to sit down at my desk and work on the paper, and then staying on task while I was working. While I was writing the rough draft, I prayed to my Father in Heaven to help me to stay focused and to write well, and he blessed me to do those things while I wrote.