FRQ 2: The Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example (College Board AP® English Language & Composition): Revision Note

Example rhetorical analysis prompt

In November 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony voted in the presidential election despite New York laws restricting voting to men. She was arrested and charged with voting illegally. Before her June 1873 trial, Anthony delivered versions of the following address throughout the region, arguing that voting was already a constitutional right of American women.

The following is a substantially edited excerpt from Anthony’s 1873 address, often titled Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?

Read the passage carefully.

• Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Anthony makes to develop her argument that her vote was an exercise of citizenship rather than a crime

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices

• Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning

• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning

• Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation

• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument

Friends and fellow-citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment* for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but instead simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny. 

Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws. We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their unalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma* that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, each individual possessed the right to protect life, liberty and property. When people enter into a free government, they do not barter away their natural rights; they pledge themselves to protect each other in the enjoyment of them. 

The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal", that they are endowed with unalienable rights, and that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed". How can the consent of the governed be given if the right to vote is denied? 

One-half of the people of this nation today are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law or to write there a new and just one. Women are taxed without representation, compelled to obey laws to which they have never given their consent and left politically at the mercy of the other half of the people. Such a system violates the principles upon which the government claims to rest. 

The preamble of the Federal Constitution begins with “We, the people of the United States.” It was we, the people – not merely white male citizens, nor merely male citizens – but the whole people who formed the Union. The Constitution was created to secure the blessings of liberty not to one-half of the people but to the whole people, women as well as men. It is mockery to speak of women enjoying liberty while denying them the ballot, the means by which citizens protect that liberty. 

The Fourteenth Amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens and prohibits states from abridging the privileges of citizens or denying any person equal protection of the laws. 

The question left to be settled, then, is simple: Are women persons? Few opponents would have the hardihood* to say they are not. Being persons, women are citizens. If women are citizens, no state should be permitted to enforce laws that abridge the privileges of their citizenship.

*indictment: a formal charge of a serious crime

*dogma: a belief presented as unquestionably true
*hardihood: boldness or nerve

For more on method, see Unit 9: FRQ 2: The Rhetorical Analysis Essay.

Example rhetorical analysis essay

After being indicted for voting in the 1872 presidential election and while addressing fellow citizens before her 1873 trial, Susan B. Anthony confronts the question of whether women, as American citizens, possess the constitutional right to vote. Prompted by her prosecution, Anthony seeks to persuade her audience that her ballot was not a crime but an exercise of citizenship, ultimately arguing that denying women the vote contradicts the nation’s stated principles of representative government and equal citizenship. She develops this argument by first redefining her vote as the exercise of a natural and constitutional right, then exposing the contradiction between representative government and women’s political powerlessness, and finally applying the Constitution’s own definition of citizenship to women. 

Anthony begins by refusing the government’s definition of her action as a crime. She announces that she “committed no crime” but exercised a “citizen’s right,” immediately placing two competing interpretations of the same act before her audience. By contrasting “crime” with “citizen’s right,” Anthony frames her vote as an exercise of an existing freedom rather than an unlawful demand for a new privilege. She then broadens the issue beyond herself by arguing that the government does not create rights, but exists to secure the rights people already possess. Because her audience recognizes "consent of the governed" as a foundational American principle, this choice encourages them to view women’s exclusion from voting as a contradiction within representative government itself. Her question about how consent can exist when the vote is denied, therefore, forces the audience to measure the government's treatment of women against its own ideals. In doing so, Anthony advances the larger argument that the legitimacy of government becomes questionable when half of those governed have no meaningful way to give their consent. 

Anthony then turns to the Constitution’s declaration of “We, the people,” emphasizing that it does not identify the nation only with “white male citizens” or “male citizens.” The shift from discussing women’s political powerlessness to examining the Constitution’s own language changes the audience’s understanding of the dispute: the question is no longer simply whether women should be allowed to vote, but whether the government is applying its definition of citizenship consistently. By contrasting the people with narrower categories of male citizens, Anthony makes exclusion appear to require limitations that the Constitution itself does not state. This moment strengthens her larger claim that women are not asking the nation to invent a new political principle because Anthony presents their inclusion as a logical application of principles the nation already claims to hold. 

Finally, Anthony narrows the constitutional dispute to the question “Are women persons?”  She knows her opponents are unlikely to deny its premise. Once women are accepted as persons, Anthony can move immediately to citizenship and then to the rights attached to citizenship. What begins as a defense against one criminal charge develops into a challenge to the government’s interpretation of citizenship itself. Her progression makes it increasingly difficult for the audience to separate women from the constitutional principles Anthony has established. By simultaneously affirming the authority of American democratic principles and challenging the way the government applies them, Anthony creates a tension between the nation’s ideals and its political practice. Either its language about citizenship and representative government applies to women, or those principles are less universal than Anthony’s opponents claim. 

Anthony’s argument ultimately turns the accusation against her outward. Although she stands charged with violating the law, she repeatedly uses the nation's own political language to question whether the government is violating the principle that gives that law legitimacy. By moving from individual prosecution, to political exclusion, to constitutional citizenship, Anthony culminates her argument by repositioning the central question: not simply whether she had the right to cast one ballot, but whether a government can claim to represent its citizens while denying women the political power through which representation operates.

Why this response works

• It establishes all six MSCAPE elements in the introduction while moving efficiently toward a defensible thesis

• Its line of reasoning follows the scope and progression of the passage:

  • Beginning: Anthony reframes voting from criminal behavior to the exercise of a right

  • Middle: she exposes the contradiction between the inclusion of both men and women as "the people" and women's respective political powerlessness

  • End: she applies constitutional definitions of personhood and citizenship to women

• Commentary starters carry the analysis (as shown in the bolded sentences):

  • There are not multiple versions of "this shows that..."

  • Instead, each performs a different analytical function

• The essay is selective:

  • A student writing in approximately 40 minutes does not need to analyze every choice

  • What matters more is selecting evidence that supports a coherent line of reasoning and consistently explaining it

• It develops a meaningful tension throughout:

  • Anthony challenges American political practice by appealing to American political principles, thereby earning the sophistication point

How this response would likely score

For more on the sophistication point, see Unit 9: Earning the Sophistication Point.