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The Political Power of the Irrational Rhetor 39 what matters is that this move works. Derek Rucker and Anthony Pratkanis have shown that people tend to believe that a person who makes an accusation is innocent of it. In their studies, they found that “Accusing others of a misdeed increased the blame placed on the target of the accusation and exonerated the accuser” (1505). In September 1835, various antiJacksonian southern newspapers called for a “Convention of Southern Merchants” which would boycott all northern products, engage in shipping direct to England, and use only southern factories—in short, what was conventionally called a “protective system.” These resolutions and favorable editorials from various papers were reprinted in the U.S.Telegraph on September 26. In the next issue, Green accused the North, with the aid of abolitionists, of planning “the establishment of a protection system, necessarily consequent in their opinion, on the abolition of slavery.”There is no evidence of such a plan on the part of northerners, but the evidence of such a plan on the part of southerners was present in the previous issue of the paper. This cunning strategy of rhetorical projection rationalizes the bad behavior of the rhetor, in that it makes the aggressive behavior seem, at worst, defensive. Since the North is planning a protection system, it’s acceptable for the South to do so; since the Indians slaughter women and children, it’s acceptable for the whites to do so. This is moral relativism: the concept that certain actions are not bad because everyone is doing them assumes that the morality of an act is not determined in absolute terms, but is relative to who does it, and whether the opposition does:“The virtues of a freeman would be the vices of slaves” (Harper 111). Proslavery ideology is inherently relativist (what is right for the owner is wrong for the slave), as is authoritarianism generally; yet, authoritarians often claim to be moral absolutists. Alexander Sims explains that the requirements of morality are “uniform”: “What is right at one time or in one place, is right at all times and in all places. Also, of things in themselves wrong, neither time nor circumstance can change their moral complexion ” (12). He later invokes a relativist argument to defend slave masters ’failure to honor slave marriages.These marriages are “a quasi-religious obligation, assumed with a perfect knowledge of all the contingencies on which the connexion formed, must rest” (29)—not the same attitude one has about marriages among whites (see also his argument as to why the “degraded” state of the slave should be compared to the state of slaves in Africa,30–31).9 Authoritarianism is always morally relativist (regardless of the claims to be foundationalist) because the ethics of an act are not inherent to the act, but determined by whether the act strengthens or threatens 40 Chapter 1 the authoritarian’s preferred hierarchy. Whether moral relativism is necessary for projection is an intriguing question; certainly, projection is extremely common among moral relativists who claim to be moral absolutists , like the proslavery rhetors. The kind of projection common to proslavery rhetor has another odd quality. In the fall after the pamphlet mailing, apparently, the Charleston Courier had written disparagingly of the State Rights Party. A State Rights party member had objected, and the Courier printed an explanation. The Charleston Mercury (nullifier) letter writer, after saying that the explanation “is satisfactory” (meaning a duel is not necessary), goes on to say,“I regard the introduction of party politics as little less than absolute treason to the South” and that the original article had “the most unfounded and injurious imputations upon the character and principles of a party, of which I am proud to be a member, and which I know to be actuated by as much purity of purpose, and true love of country, as ever inspired the bosoms, or directed the movements, of any men on earth” (August 18, 1835). Of all the various puzzling aspects of proslavery rhetoric, this quality—which is dif- ficult even to name usefully—has been the most muckling.The rhetor asserts something hyperbolic which is not literally true. Unlike mere hyperbole , however, the falsehood of the assertion is highlighted in the way the assertion is made. Clearly, the rhetor cannot actually know how his group compares to every other group of men on earth, as such a comparison is impossible to make. What we know, then, is that he...

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