The Political Style of Conspiracy: Chase, Sumner, and Lincoln

Abstract

Michael William Pfau's goal in his study of the rhetoric of the slave power conspiracy theory is to “understand how conspiracy theories replicate themselves” and spread like viruses to “colonize” and change minds (p. 2). In particular, he is interested in explaining how conspiracy theories succeed in persuading those at the center of political discourse, just as Richard Hofstadter explained how conspiracy theories have succeeded in gaining support from those at the fringe of American political life. Pfau believes that the paranoid style of slave power conspiracy theory was characteristic of the rhetoric used at the extremes of antebellum American politics. He points to the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison as a practitioner of the paranoid style, employing sacred millennial ideologies to advance his conspiracy theories. In contrast, Pfau argues, the Republican party leaders Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, and Abraham Lincoln attracted many more supporters than Garrison by avoiding appeals...