Abstract

A lawyer and a rhetorician pose and endeavor to answer from two perspectives the following question: How has the United States Supreme Court managed to endure and to maintain legitimacy for over two hundred years, given the potentially destabilizing cases it has had to decide? In this exploratory, interdisciplinary essay, the lawyer first examines the way the Court has been grounded, historically, in a common-law tradition and how its reliance on stare decisis seems to be amenable to most Americans. The rhetorician continues the exploration by linking the Court's common-law practice to issues of interpretive power, ethos, dialogism, and pragmatic philosophy and practice.