ABSTRACT
What qualifies one to speak in a democratic culture, and what makes our words worthy of attention? What institutions and forms of discourse invest our words with moral authority? This paper addresses these questions by analyzing Frederick Douglass' rhetorical career. By analyzing three moments early in this career, this paper explores the ways in which Douglass helped to pioneer a new kind of civic discourse, embodied in the credibility of the personal experience dramatized in public. By negotiating competing Christian and classical models of rhetorical ethos, Douglass's work as a reformer suggests more broadly how the conditions of moral witness in a democratic culture are shaped by the institutional and material contexts of mass media.
