ABSTRACT
Forensic rhetoric is distinguished from deliberative rhetoric, which is found in the legislature and directed toward determining the expediency of measures to realize a future goal. The actual rhetorical practices of advocates in empirical republics, such as the United States or France, do not necessarily instantiate republican rhetoric. Republicanism calls for a language game of dispute resolution based in the idea of society as a community or polis of responsible citizens. The republican concept confers status on rhetoric by reducing it to "litige" and so rendering it quasi-forensic and politically legitimate. Rhetoric would no longer be simply the artificer of persuasion; it would the genre of discourse productive of democratic ethical knowledge. The Constitution of the United States specifies that boundary disputes between states are to be resolved by the Supreme Court. In such cases, the Court serves as a trial rather than appellate court, and rules on substantive rather than only procedural issues.
