Political Argumentation in the United States: Historical and contemporary studies. Selected essays by David Zarefsky

397 Pages·2014·1.77 MB·English

by  David Zarefsky

Political Argumentation in the United States
Argumentation in Context (AIC)
This new book series highlights the variety of argumentative practices that have
become established in modern society by focusing on the study of context-dependent
characteristics of argumentative discourse that vary according to the demands of the
more or less institutionalized communicative activity type in which the discourse
takes place. Examples of such activity types are parliamentary debates and political
interviews, medical consultations and health brochures, legal annotations and judicial
sentences, editorials and advertorials in newspapers, and scholarly reviews and essays.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
http://benjamins.com/catalog/aic
Editors
Frans van Eemeren Bart Garssen
University of Amsterdam University of Amsterdam
Editorial Board
Mark Aakhus Eddo Rigotti
Rutgers University University of Lugano
Marianne Doury Sara Rubinelli
CNRS Paris ILIAS, Swiss Paraplegic Research &
University of Lucerne
Eveline Feteris
University of Amsterdam Takeshi Suzuki
Meiji University
G. Thomas Goodnight
University of Southern California Giovanni Tuzet
Bocconi University
Cornelia Ilie
Zayed University, Abu Dhabi David Zarefsky
Northwestern University
Sally Jackson
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gábor Zemplén
Budapest University of Technology and
Manfred Kienpointner
Economic
University of Innsbrueck
Volume 7
Political Argumentation in the United States
Historical and contemporary studies
Selected essays by David Zarefsky
Political Argumentation
in the United States
Historical and contemporary studies
Selected essays by
David Zarefsky
Northwestern University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zarefsky, David.
Political Argumentation in the United States : Historical and contemporary studies /
Selected essays by David Zarefsky / David Zarefsky.
p. cm. (Argumentation in Context, issn 1877-6884 ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Persuasion (Rhetoric)--Political aspects--United States. 2. Communication--
Political aspects--United States. 3. Rhetoric--Political aspects--United States.
4. Interviewing--United States. 5. Conversation analysis--United States.
6.  Reasoning--United States. I. Title.
P301.5.P47Z37 2014
320.97301’4--dc23 2014012491
isbn 978 90 272 1124 8 (Hb ; alk. paper)
isbn 978 90 272 6990 4 (Eb)
© 2014 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
For Beth and Danny, Marc and Emily
the promise of the next generation

Table of contents
introduction
The field of political argumentation 1
Part I. Early American political argumentation
chapter 1
From “conflict” to “Constitutional question”:
Transformations in early American public discourse 11
(with Victoria J. Gallagher)
chapter 2
John Tyler and the rhetoric of the accidental presidency 31
chapter 3
Debating slavery by proxy: The Texas annexation controversy 51
chapter 4
Henry Clay and the election of 1844: The limits of a rhetoric of compromise 63
Part II. Abraham Lincoln’s political argumentation
chapter 5
Consistency and change in Lincoln’s rhetoric about equality 85
chapter 6
“Public sentiment is everything”: Lincoln’s view of political persuasion 109
chapter 7
Lincoln and the House Divided: Launching a national political career 125
chapter 8
The Lincoln-Douglas debates revisited: The evolution of public argument 155
chapter 9
Philosophy and rhetoric in Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address 185
viii Political Argumentation in the United States
Part III. Argumentation and American foreign policy
chapter 10
The self-sealing rhetoric of John Foster Dulles 209
(with Frank E. Tutzauer and Carol Miller-Tutzauer)
chapter 11
Foreign policy as persuasion: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam 221
chapter 12
George W. Bush discovers rhetoric: September 20, 2001
and the U.S. response to terrorism 233
chapter 13
Making the case for war: Colin Powell at the United Nations 255
chapter 14
The U.S. and the world: The rhetorical dimensions of Obama’s foreign policy 281
Part IV. American political argumentation since the 1960s
chapter 15
The Great Society as a rhetorical proposition 303
chapter 16
Lyndon Johnson redefines “equal opportunity”:
The beginnings of affirmative action 323
chapter 17
Civil rights and civil conflict: Presidential communication in crisis 337
chapter 18
Martin Luther King, the American Dream, and Vietnam:
A collision of rhetorical trajectories 347
(with George N. Dionisopoulos, Victoria J. Gallagher,
and Steven R. Goldzwig)
chapter 19
Reagan’s safety net for the truly needy: The rhetorical uses of definition 365
(with Carol Miller-Tutzauer and Frank E. Tutzauer)
chapter 20
Obama’s Lincoln: Uses of the argument from historical analogy 375
Index 383
Permissions
Chapter 1 originally appeared as an article in Quarterly Journal of Speech, 76: 247–261
(August, 1990). Reprinted with permission of Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group,
www.tandfonline.com, and with the approval of Victoria J. Gallagher, coauthor.
Chapter 2 originally appeared as a chapter in Before the Rhetorical Presidency (Martin
J. Medhurst, Ed.), pp. 63–82 (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2008).
Reprinted with permission of Texas A&M University Press.
Chapter 3 originally appeared as a chapter in In the Shadow of Freedom (Paul Finkelman
and Donald R. Kennon, Ed.), pp. 125–137 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio Uni versity Press, 2011),
© Ohio University Press. Reprinted with permission of Ohio University Press, www.
ohioswallow.com.
Chapter 4 originally appeared as an article in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 6: 79–96 (Spring
2003). Reprinted with permission of Michigan State University Press.
Chapter 5 originally appeared as an article in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 1: 21–44 (Spring
1998). Reprinted with permission of Michigan State University Press.
Chapter 6 originally appeared as an article in Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association,
15: 23–40 (Summer 1994). © 1994 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
Reprinted with permission of University of Illinois Press.
Chapter 7 originally appeared as an article in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 13: 421–453
(Fall 2010). Reprinted with permission of Michigan State University Press.
Chapter 8 originally appeared as an article in Quarterly Journal of Speech, 72: 162–184
(May 1986). Reprinted with permission of Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, www.
tandfonline.com.
Chapter 9 originally appeared as an article in Philosophy & Rhetoric, 45: 165–188
(2012). Reprinted with permission of Penn State University Press.
Chapters 10 and 11 have not been previously published. Chapter 10 appears here with
the approval of Frank E. Tutzauer and Carol Miller-Tutzauer, coauthors.
Chapter 12 originally appeared as a chapter in The Ethos of Rhetoric (Michael J. Hyde,
Ed.), pp. 136–155 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004). Reprinted
with permission of the University of South Carolina Press.