The rhetorical construction of white supremacy in Alabama's 1901 Constitution: A critical-historical study

Using primary discursive artifacts from the mid nineteenth to early twentieth centuries (1861-1901), this study has sought to broaden the historical understanding of Alabama's 1901 Constitution Convention and the rhetorical implications of the state document it produced. Specifically, the study examines public discourse from the 1901 convention itself, such as the presidential installation address of John B. Knox and the congressional enactments of the Civil War and Reconstruction, as well as consulting prior state constitutions and discourse from the subsequent ratification campaign, including suffrage articles from other Southern states, court decisions, and editorial commentaries. The critical focus addresses three questions: (1) To what public issues or key arguments were the state delegates responding in 1901? (2) What cultural and political influences made the legal establishment of white supremacy significant to the state delegation? (3) How was the concept of white supremacy constructed rhetorically within the text of the constitution? As a result, this study helps reveal how key reformers were able to use the rhetorical situation surrounding the constitutional convention as an opportunity to form a type of constitutive rhetoric that supported white supremacy by law for the state of Alabama.;Chapter 1 provides the justification and plan, identifies critical probes addressed and methods applied, reviews how rhetoric has been examined historically, and explicates the critical framework for this study. Chapter 2 provides the historical context from which the rhetorical problem of the new constitution emanated. Chapter 3 reviews Alabama's 1901 Constitutional Convention as a rhetorical situation. Chapter 4 examines Alabama's 1901 Constitution as a rhetorical text. Chapter 5 assesses the public context and media response as constitutive rhetoric. Finally, chapter 6 draws conclusions and significance of the study for future research.