Logos, pathos and ethos
In his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” speech, Patrick Henry mainly uses pathos and logos to increase the impact of his message. He uses ethos only briefly at the beginning.
Logos
Henry mainly appeals to logos when he points out the logical inconsistencies of the members of the Convention who held an opposing opinion to his. For example, Henry points out that the hopes for the future of the Thirteen Colonies other speakers have expressed do not match Britain’s current and past behavior:
I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves, and the House?
Here, Henry challenges previous speakers and asks them wh...