SOURCE: "The Scopes Trial: 'Darrow vs. Bryan' vs. 'Bryan vs. Darrow'," in Oratorical Encounters: Selected Studies and Sources of Twentieth-Century Political Accusations and Apologies, edited by Halford Ross Ryan, Greenwood Press, 1988, pp. 17-27.

In the following essay, Lessi analyzes the styles of argument used by Darrow and his opponent William Jennings Bryan in the famous Scopes trial

The concept of the speech set offers the critic a systemic understanding of public discourse, an understanding that focuses the critic's attention not only upon the rhetorical texts of concern, but also upon one or more additional messages that are their progenitors. From this perspective apologies are by definition tied to some other message(s) of accusation already extant within a common persuasive field.

Reflecting on a speech set, it immediately becomes clear that accusation and apology can be thought of in two ways—as types of utterances but also as...