Political Rhetoric

            The Gadsden Flag was named after Col. Gadsden and was first presented to Congress on Feb 9, 1776. This political artifact relates to the country, and was created to show Britain that we were willing to fight for our freedom from them. It is actually considered one of our first flags for the United States of America. The reasoning behind the snake of the flag is that rattlesnakes were native to all of the original 13 colonies and since they were trying to secede from Britain, anything that was unique to America was something they wanted to use. Col. Gadsden’s original plan for his flag when he presented it to Congress was to be used by the commander in chief of the Navy, who ended up using the flag. All of these fit a rhetorical situation. You have the writer, Col. Gadsden, and America creating this flag to evoke emotion out of someone. The reader, (audience), is Britain. The flag served its purpose. They wanted something to represent America and show that they were willing to fight and it did so. It let Britain know of the things that soon followed in the American Revolution.

            The flag has on it “Don’t Tread On Me.” This was referring to Britain and how for many years they had been in control of North America and did not want the people living there to create their own government and exist separate from them. Britain wanted the country all to themselves, but many of the people living in the 13 colonies at that time wanted to be separate from them, and they were willing to fight for it. The oppressive language in this flag was designed to make a bold statement to Britain, don’t mess with us. The flag has an overall aggressive feel to it. It has a snake on it that represents the people that want separation from Britain and will “bite” if they mess with them and fight so they never do it again. Oppression helped in the case of the flag because it showed how serious we were and made it clear who it was about. To do what they were doing back then, and to get what they wanted, there was really no nice way to go about it. I feel the flag had a simple message on it that was very meaningful to the people trying to secede from Britain and it served its purpose as being a representation of our willingness to fight for what we want. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d8/Gadsden_flag.svg/250px-Gadsden_flag.svg.png(420 words)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag