Rhetoric is a powerful tool of persuasion. It has a power to influence on people's attitudes, emotions and action. Because of those perks, politicians use it in their inaugural speeches in order to gain the audience's favor. Greek philosopher Aristotle thinks that audience is influenced by the speaker's character, his logical argumentation and emotional appeal. For Aristotle, the primary element of communication was logical argumentation, but in the present time, that role belongs to the speaker's character. When the audience evaluates a speaker, they examine his credibility and honesty first. The content of speech and his arguments are no longer in the first place - they are being replaced by the audience's personal assessment. Weissman (2010: 2) states that speaker's appearance and body language have the biggest impact on the audience (55 percent), his voice and the way he talks are on the second place (38 percent) while the content of the speech is completely behind (only 7 percent). This is the reason why nonverbal communication is an important part of every speech. Speaker can use it consciously to express what he really feels and thinks, or he can unconsciously reveal his emotions. The first part of paper covers theoretical view of rhetoric and its legalities, while the second, practical part covers the analysis of inaugural speeches of Croatian Presidents (Franjo Tuđman, Stjepan Mesić, Ivo Josipović and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović) on verbal and non-verbal level. Verbal level includes the analysis of speech structure, use of stylistic figures, modal expressions and terminology. The non-verbal level includes use of speech breaks, emphasizing words with voice intensity, gestures, mimicry and eye contact.