"We the People:" The "Modern" Rhetorical Popular Address of the Presidents During the Founding Period.

According to many scholars of the presidency, the initiative to speak to, as one of, and for the people of the United States is a 20th century development. "Popular address" and "popular rhetoric" as they have been coined, are used by the president in his addresses to appeal to Congress and the people. According to the tenets of the "traditional/modern paradigm, those presidents of the "traditional" presidency were, by the reverence of their position or the limited powers directly granted in the Constitution, prevented from utilizing popular rhetoric in their addresses that would attempt to move or speak to the greater populous of the country. However, as seen in this study, this type of public-address rhetoric was not necessarily foreign to even those who predate the official formation of government in the United States. The focus of this paper is to examine the usage of public address rhetoric within the State of the Union Addresses in order to identify trends and determine whether presidents since the founding of the United States have used popular appeal and rhetoric in their address, or whether the introduction of going public is indeed a "modern" development that was little used in the rhetorical past of the presidency. Specifically, I look at instances in which the president attempts to address his audience as one of them, attempts to use his presidential position as justification for his arguments, and those instances in which the president actually makes a command or request in his State of the Union Address. Although rhetoric by its very nature is diverse, I will classify, and focus on, three types of popular address rhetoric in general and note their occurrences within the State of the Union Addresses. These are: identification rhetoric, authority rhetoric, and directive rhetoric. The labels given to the types of rhetoric are for parsimony more than anything else, but accurately reflect the type of rhetoric that is examined under the given label. Each label effectively measures a different attempt of the president to speak as one of the people, to the people, in reference to the people, or as the president using different pronouns. "Politicians make use of pronouns to good effect: to indicate, accept, deny, or distance themselves from responsibility for political action; to reveal ideological bias; to encourage solidarity; to designate those who are supporters (with "us") as well as those who are enemies (against "us") and to present specific idiosyncratic aspects of the individuals and personality" (Wilson, 1990, 76). In addition, the four typologies of rhetoric above seek to delineate presidential purpose in policy proposal and popular address. The current sentiment in the discipline is that there is a significant change that occurs with the "modern" presidents (usually beginning with Wilson) in which popular address rhetoric begins to be used. My study suggests that founding presidents were as active as their contemporary counterparts in their inclusion of popular address in the State of the Union. It also takes issue with claims of easily utilized paradigms of presidential history, and demonstrates the importance of re-examining the oft dismissed "traditional" presidents for their contributions to presidential rhetorical development. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]