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Fanatical Schemes

Fanatical Schemes

Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus

by Patricia Roberts-Miller

286 Pages

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9780817381257
Published: July 2010

$34.95

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9780817356538
Published: July 2010

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What was the relationship between rhetoric and slavery, and how did rhetoric fail as an alternative to violence, becoming instead its precursor?

Fanatical Schemes is a study of proslavery rhetoric in the 1830s. A common understanding of the antebellum slavery debate is that the increased stridency of abolitionists in the 1830s, particularly the abolitionist pamphlet campaign of 1835, provoked proslavery politicians into greater intransigence and inflammatory rhetoric. Patricia Roberts-Miller argues that, on the contrary, inflammatory rhetoric was inherent to proslavery ideology and predated any shift in abolitionist practices.

She examines novels, speeches, and defenses of slavery written after the pamphlet controversy to underscore the tenets of proslavery ideology and the qualities that made proslavery rhetoric effective. She also examines anti-abolitionist rhetoric in newspapers from the spring of 1835 and the history of slave codes (especially anti-literacy laws) to show that anti-abolitionism and extremist rhetoric long preceded more strident abolitionist activity in the 1830s.

The consensus that was achieved by proslavery advocates, argues Roberts-Miller, was not just about slavery, nor even simply about race. It was also about manhood, honor, authority, education, and political action. In the end, proslavery activists worked to keep the realm of public discourse from being a place in which dominant points of view could be criticized--an achievement that was, paradoxically, both a rhetorical success and a tragedy.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: "Industrious in scattering the seeds
of insurrection"  i
"1. "Slavery shall not be discussed": The Political Power of the
Irrational Rhetor   18
2.  "With firm, undaunted resolution": The Rhetoric of Doom      46
3. "A deep conviction, settled on every bosom": Alarmism,
Conspiracy, and Unification 72
4. "For the sake of your wives, children and their posterity":
Manly Politics   103
5. "Careless of the Consequences": Extended Defenses
of Slavery   127
6. "Our laws to regulate slaves are entirely founded on terror":
The Political Theory of Slave Codes   i59
7. "The Sweet Waters of Concord and Union": Proslavery Rhetoric in
a Deliberative Setting  187
Conclusion: "Any rational plan": The Responsibilities
of Rhetoric   211

Patricia Roberts-Miller is the author of Voices in the Wilderness: Public Discourse and the Paradox of Puritan Rhetoric and Deliberate Conflict: Argument, Political Theory, and Composition Classes.

"Roberts-Miller (rhetoric and writing, Univ. of Texas, Austin) presents incisive critical analyses, firmly based in theory, of the communication of southern proslavery rhetors during the 30 years prior to the Civil War. She provides extensive examples of a variety of forms of communication to support her conclusion that the South became trapped in its own extremist rhetoric. Systematic suppression of any discussion of slavery both in the South and, thanks to gag rules, in Congress magnified the difficulty; as a result, decisions were made without deliberation. The author points out that an underlying feeling of moral ambiguity about slavery may have led to the alarmist, hyperbolic, and irrational pronouncements about (nonexistent) threats to the 'Southern way of life.' And she even suggests that the mind-set produced by these excesses led to secession and the Civil War. Rational thought would have led to the conclusion that Lincoln was a weak, lame-duck president, with little support in Congress, who could be ignored for four years. The book includes extensive in-text annotation and substantive endnotes. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers."

—CHOICE

"Fanatical Schemes makes a vital contribution to rhetoric studies. This book will certainly change how rhetoric scholars and Americanists look at abolition as a cultural and rhetorical movement. The command that Roberts-Miller has over this material is authoritative and absolutely convincing."

--Nan Johnson, Professor of English, The Ohio State University

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Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus

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Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus

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