“Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?"
Patrick Henry uses the ad bacalum fallacy to create fear in the minds of American’s to serve a purposeful meaning. He uses this fear that he has created as a way of convincing his citizens that he is right and the cause is a legitimate one. It is a fallacy because he makes it seems like the British are the ones urging this to happen when really it is just his mind churning. His thoughts are fearful, and the Americans are driven by their fear of suppression into thoughts of Revolution.
Fallacy is so effective because most people are not paying attention to the manipulation going on when they are speaking. They are clinging to the words, and not looking for the falsehoods or misjudgments in a speech, but instead looking for what they want to hear. This is what makes a fallacy so effective, and why these speeches were so convincing.
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