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Many scholars have argued that rhetorical theory and pedagogy should return to the neo-classical and agonistic theory and pedagogy of the antebellum era. The ability of proslavery ideology to dominate political and rhetorical practice, however, troubles any easy equation between that pedagogy and practice. This article argues that agonism was hindered by the rhetoric of the improbable cause, a tragic metanarrative of novels like Nick of the Woods, which served as a defense of slavery and slaveocracy, without even mentioning the word, through reinforcing a foundation for that system. This view served to rationalize a system that had a dreamy, noble, and tragic ethos that was actually protected and supported by a brutal practicality; left out is something in the middle, the practical but principled argument about long-term politics.
Antebellum American rhetorical practice presents an interesting challenge to current rhetorical theory. Many current theorists of public discourse, in both rhetorical and political theory, argue that American rhetorical pedagogy made a great mistake in the nineteenth century in its turn away from neo-classical and agonistic rhetoric toward a belletristic or technical model of rhetoric. Advocates of agonism argue that it is the best basis for effective and inclusive political discourse because it is an anti-foundational (Burke, Kastely, Mouffe, Walzer), pragmatic (Clark and Halloran, Roberts-Miller), and skeptical (Sloane) search for contingent solutions (Arendt, Booth). Because it looks for the "available means of persuasion" rather than universally valid premises (Aristotle) on public issues (T. Miller), rhetoric is the appropriate basis for policy discourse oriented toward a large and heterogeneous public. It thereby enables deliberation among people who, for various reasons, cannot agree on first principles, while simultaneously destabilizing dominant ideology:
What rhetoric transforms is the present operation of past persuasions (that we call ideology) into a receptive tentativeness that can allow us to explore the shape or form of our positionedness and to reform those positions to better deal with the injustice that is uncovered. (Kastely 254)
In such narratives, the highpoint of American rhetoric is the antebellum era, when neo-classical and agonistic rhetoric dominated (Clark and Halloran, Johnson, Miller). This dominance was particularly obvious in the Southern states (Braden, Gash). Merril Ghristophersen describes the typical speech education for boys of the South Carolina planter class:
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