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Emily
English Professor
English 250H
September 2015
Gaining the Trust
On July 15, 1979, Jimmy Carter gave the speech Crisis of Confidence to the American
nation (Carter). This speech was given in response to the United States energy crisis, where
they were not getting enough foreign oil to meet the demand of the people. With not getting their
demands met, the people started to lose trust for President Carter (Wikipedia Contributors). With
the next presidential election coming up Carter needed to win the people over in every chance he
got. He was given this opportunity and succeeds at it in his Crisis of Confidence speech. He
persuaded American citizens to want to end the energy crisis and to take action by employing the
rhetorical concepts of organization and substance: ethos, pathos, facts, anecdote, and quotations
in his speech. With the use of these rhetorical concepts, Carter was able to gain the trust of the
people, for a while at lease.
With a very organized speech, Carter kept his audiences attention throughout. He starts
his speech with an anecdote about how three years ago he was nominated to run for the
presidency by his party. He then goes into how he spent the last ten days at Camp David, where
he escaped the problems of the nation, quoting all the people that he met and talked to while he
was there (Wikipedia Contributors). Later in his speech, he talks of how the nation is no longer
what it once was. Carter goes on by stating his six points that he thinks will fix all these

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problems the nation is facing with the help of the people. He finally ends his speech with how he
wants to make an agenda for the 1980s to solve these problems. Also in Carters speech he puts
the thesis in the second paragraph about what he promises as president. Carter organized his
speech this way because he wanted his purpose to be fulfilled.
Carters purpose for organizing his speech this way was the needed to keep his audiences
attention since they had little trust in him. Starting the speech with his journey to election and
ending with reasoning for being re-elected caused the audience to become more attentive to
every claim he was making because there was a sequence to his speech. By having a beginning
and an ending, it caused the audience to have a feeling of completion after hearing what Carter
had to say. His audience felt as though they had all the information necessary to take action right
away. This was his purpose in his speech that the people would take action in helping end the
energy crisis and also re-elect him as president. Throughout the speech, Carter also goes back to
the fact that he was chosen to be president by the people whom were listening to him then. He
does this because he wants the people to remember why they chose him as president, which were
the promises that he made. By referring back to the promises he made as stated in the thesis in
the second paragraph, he is trying to gain trust from the people again. This then caused the
person to desire how he will keep those promises, which explains his purpose for organizing his
speech this way. Carters speech was not only successful because of his organization skills, but
also because of his use of meaningful substance.
Ethos, pathos, facts, anecdote, and quotations made Carters speech meaningful to
American citizens to have trust in him. Carter first gained his audience attention in the
beginning of the speech with the use of quotes from people he met while at Camp David. One of
these quotes was said by a young Chicano: Some of us have suffered from recession all our

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lives. Another quote mentioned was said from a woman who was the mayor of a small town in
Mississippi: The big-shots are not the only ones who are important (Carter). Quotes like these
from everyday people showed pathos because these people said things that the audience could
have related to. With these quotes, he was able to get his message across that this nation needed
change. Carter also used ethos after all these quotes saying I need your help [because I have]
listen[ed] to the voices of America (Carter). By Carter talking to the people whom he quoted
earlier in his speech then saying this, he is showing that he knows what the citizens of America
want. He is showing that he is credible which allowed him to be able to win over his audience,
convincing them that action needed to happen. Carter also decides to use stated facts rather than
numeric facts to get his purpose across. One fact that Carter utilized is how in the good old days
people worked hard and were idolized for that, but in present times people only idolized others
for their possessions. This fact appeals to the audience emotionally and logically because the
audience can relate and agree on this fact: people are changing to be more selfish. In turn,
people wanted to take action because they did not want to seem like selfish people. Another fact
that Carter used to really appeal to the audience is that the people are losing involve[ment] in
the search for freedom (Carter). This really hit the audience because they did not want to lose
their freedoms, so they will do anything to keep them. This fact can also be pathos because the
people did not want to lose their rights, so they will take action to insure they keep them. Carter
chose wisely the substances used to created emotions in American citizens because wanted to
make sure his audience was won over by the end of his speech.
Carters speech was just a huge persuasion for his audience to trust him and to take action
to end the crisis that was happening. He was able to succeed at persuading his audience with the
use of the rhetorical concepts of organization and substance: ethos, pathos, facts, anecdote, and

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quotations. Although it was lengthy and detail full, the rhetorical concepts used helped his
audience to stay tuned in from beginning to end. Even though Carters speech had an effect on
the audience to think more about ways to help end the energy crisis, it still got much criticism
weeks afterwards (Wikipedia Contributors). However, because of this criticism Carter was not
re-elected for a second term (Wikipedia Contributors). In the end, Carter was able to
communicate to his audience to take action with all the information given in his speech with the
help from the rhetorical concepts used.

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Work Cited
Carter, Jimmy. Primary Resources: Crisis of Confidence. American Experience. WGBH
Educational Foundation, 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.
Wikipedia Contributors. "Presidency of Jimmy Carter." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2 Sep. 2015. Web. 24 Sep. 2015.