ABSTRACT African-American rhetoric of the early Republic has been largely unexplored by rhetorical scholars. Addressing this gap in the scholarship, this study analyzes two intricately related forms of discourse: late eighteenth-century petitions and speeches celebrating the 1808 abolition of the international slave trade to the United States. Both sets of texts contribute to the expression of an African-American public voice, build upon and critique American ideals while retaining a proud sense of African heritage, exploit the available generic conventions, develop increasingly radical appeals, and feature arguments that transcend local issues to engage general questions of identity and history. Notes 1. Exceptions include Bacon, “Rhetoric”; Condit and Lucaites; Gordon; Ray. 2. Historical and/or literary treatments of the texts of this period include Bethel; Brooks; Bruce; Davis; Kachun; Saillant; Waldstreicher. 3. A petition of January 30, 1797, from four free African Americans living in Philadelphia is the first extant petition from African Americans to Congress (CitationAptheker 39–44; CitationKaplan and Kaplan 267–72). 4. Rosavich indicates that this petition, which was signed by slaves Prime and Prince (about whom little is known) and which describes itself as “The Petition of the Negroes in the Towns of Stratford and Fairfield,” was written in the hand of attorney Jonathan Sturges (80–82). Yet Rosavich remarks that the existence of other petitions of Connecticut African Americans “should caution us against overestimating the role of Sturges and underestimating that of Prime and Prince in drafting this document” (81–82). 5. This law gave rise to kidnappings of African Americans by allowing a master to seize a alleged fugitive slave anywhere in the country without a warrant, present him or her to a judge, and—if the master could “prove” that the person in question had escaped—take him or her into custody. The texts of the petitions are published in the following sources and will be hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as follows: the 1777 petition to the Massachusetts General Court is found in Collections and will be cited parenthetically as P1; the 1779 petition of slaves of Fairfield County, Connecticut, is found in Rosavich and will be cited as P2; the 1779 New Hampshire petition is found in Hammond and will be cited as P3; the 1780 Connecticut petition is found in Rosavich and will be cited as P4; the 1780 Dartmouth petition is found in Nell and will be cited as P5; the 1799 petition to the President and the United States Congress is found in Kaplan and Kaplan and will be cited parenthetically as P6. Readers interested in historical information beyond that we provide here should consult the sources cited in this note. 6. Rosavich's transcriptions of the 1779 petition of slaves of Fairfield County, Connecticut (P2), and the 1780 Connecticut petition (P4) include words that were erased or crossed out and indicate where words were added to the text. We omit these editorial notations in our quotes from the petitions. 7. Gates notes that the use of such rhetorical strategies is not “the exclusive province of black people” (Signifying 90). However, it assumes particular importance for African Americans, who often must use “double-voiced words,” create “double-voiced discourse,” and rely on “formal revision” and “intertextual relation[s]” (Signifying 50–51). For further discussion, see Bacon, “Taking Liberty,” 273–74. 8. On the general resonance of natural law for eighteenth-and nineteenth-century African Americans, see also Finseth 350; Gordon 93. 9. Scholars have established that African-American discourse often takes place within black counterpublics or alternative public spheres that are fundamentally connected to community civic, educational, and religious institutions; see Bacon, Humblest 10; Baker 13–26; Dawson 210–11; McClish 60. 10. The texts of the speeches featured in this section are published in Porter and will be hereafter cited parenthetically in the text as follows: Absalom Jones's sermon as S1; Peter Williams's oration as S2; Joseph Sidney's speech as S3; William Hamilton's 1809 oration as S4, Henry Sipkins's speech as S5; George Lawrence's address as S6; Russell Parrott's oration as S7; and William Hamilton's 1815 speech as S8. Several other speeches from this period celebrating the abolition of the slave trade are extant, including orations by William Miller, Adam Carman, and Henry Johnson. These significant texts include many of the same elements prevalent in the other eight; space limitations, however, do not permit us to feature them here. Finally, we note that although speeches celebrating the abolition of the slave trade were delivered for decades, we have featured orations written before 1816 in order to demonstrate the early manifestation of key components of African-American rhetoric. 11. For further discussion of Hamilton's signifying, see Bacon, “Taking Liberty” 278–79. 12. Miller in his 1810 address (8) and Carman in his 1811 speech (14) also marshal biblical parallels between African Americans and ancient Israel to suggest black nationhood.

Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies by Elizabeth McHenry. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. xiv + 423 pp. Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing by J. Blake Scott Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. xii + 281 pp. Authority and Reform: Religious and Educational Discourses in Nineteenth‐Century New England Literature by Mark G. Vasquez. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003. xxii + 393 pp.

Spoken and Written Discourse: A Multi‐disciplinary Perspective by Khosrow Jahandarie. Stamford, Conn.: Ablex Publishing Company, 1999. 446 pp. Mattingly's “Telling Evidence”;: Re‐Seeing Nineteenth‐Century Women's Rhetorics Water Drops from Women Writers: A Temperance Reader edited by Carol Mattingly. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001. 292 + xii. Appropriate[ing] Dress: Women's Rhetorical Style in Nineteenth‐Century America by Carol Mattingly. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uniersity Press, 2002. 175 + xv. Seeking the Words of Women: Two Recent Anthologies Rhetorical Theory by Women before 1900: An Anthology edited by Jane Donawerth. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. 337 + xlii pp. Available Means: An Anthology of Women's Rhetoric(s) edited by Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. 521 + xxxi pp.

Abstract As the discourse of traditionally marginalized voices becomes increasingly salient in rhetorical studies, standpoint theory—which emphasizes the epistemological importance of the perspectives of oppressed groups—could play a significant role in textual analysis. This essay first outlines the central tenets of standpoint theory and the debate they have generated. We then suggest how standpoint theory, with some significant modifications and expansions, may function as a productive methodology for rhetorical analysis. We demonstrate this potential contribution to our field through analyses of two nineteenth‐century texts: Jane Austen's Persuasion and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Abstract Antebellum African‐American literary societies in Philadelphia promoted rhetorical education and gave members the opportunity to craft powerful arguments. This study investigates the presence of the Anglo‐American rhetorical tradition—particularly eighteenth‐century Scots principles of Blair, Smith, and Campbell—in six representative speeches delivered at literary society meetings. Our analysis focuses on two major issues: 1) the influence of traditional principles of nineteenth‐century university rhetorical education on theory and practice in these societies; and 2) the ways in which traditional principles were infused with new purposes; deployed for radical ends; and appropriated, reshaped, and reinvented in ways that transform and redefine nineteenth‐century rhetorical practice.

Reception Histories: Rhetoric, Pragmatism, and American Cultural Politics by Steven Mailloux. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. 206 + xv pp. Kenneth Burke and the 21st Century, edited by Bernard L. Brock. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. 292 pp. “We Are Coming”: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth‐Century Black Women by Shirley Wilson Logan. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. 255 + xvi pp. Pandora's Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, by Bruno Latour. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. 324 + x. The Rhetoric of Science in the Evolution of American Ornithological Discourse by John T. Battalio. Bayshore, TX: Ablex, 1998. 264 + xix pp. Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse: Methods, Practice, and Pedagogy, edited by John T. Battalio. Stanford, Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1998. 264 pp.

In his 1829 Appeal to Coloured Citizens of World, a militant condemnation of evils of slavery and a prophetic call for a potentially violent end to institution, African-American abolitionist David Walker demands, See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your own language? (75). Walker's question highlights a fundamental and enduring paradox: in spite of centrality of Declaration of Independence to our nation's founding and to America's self-definition, continual reinterpretation of text and controversies over its meaning and significance are endemic to national discourse. Antebellum Americans faced a particular theoretical and exegetical problem with respect to Declaration of Independence. Nineteenth-century rhetoric often elevates document to a religious significance in mythologizing founding of America, idealizing creation of a completely new nation dedicated to liberty and (Wills, Inventing xvi-xxii; Wills, Lincoln 86-89, 100-03, 10910). Yet many antebellum Americans supported slavery and opposed full civil rights for free African Americans. Supporters of slavery engaged in complicated gymnastics in order to support ideals of American Revolution as well as nation's peculiar institution. Many proslavery rhetors argued that, based on Founding Fathers' intentions, Declaration's promises of freedom and did not include African Americans. Another argument suggested that term equality did not connote that all Americans should have same rights. Some supporters of slavery even downplayed significance of articulation of certain rights in Declaration of Independence.' Within this context, African-American abolitionists who wished to feature Declaration of Independence and related themes of American Revolution in their antislavery rhetoric could not rely on conventional interpretations. They needed to appropriate these topoi, redefining them in service of abolition. Celeste Michelle Condit and John Louis Lucaites demonstrate that antebellum AfricanAmerican men crafted a concept of that countered proslavery formulations, using rhetorical revision of Declaration of Independence to extend scope of terms such as equality, liberty, and human rights (69-98). Condit and Lucaites emphasize rhetoric that is, in Gary Woodward's terms, primarily adaptory-appealing to common ground with an audience and aiming to reduce dissonant messages that clash with their beliefs (28-30). In adaptory rhetoric, the expectations of others form basis of a persuasive situation, and rhetor attempts to adapt message to avoid a clash with audience's

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