nt by commission is more
economical and efficient than municipal government with a mayor and two
chambers," is really a single assertion of the superiority of the
commission plan of government. In this case there is no danger of
getting into a split argument; but even here it is safer to reduce the
proposition to one which is grammatically single, "Municipal government
by commission has proved itself superior to municipal government with a
mayor and two chambers." A predicate wholly single is a safeguard
against meaning two assertions.

The proposition must not be so abstract or vague in terms that you do
not know whether you agree or disagree with it. Macaulay summed up this
difficulty in one of his speeches in Parliament:

* * * * *

Surely my honorable friend cannot but know that nothing is easier than
to write a theme for severity, for clemency, for order, for liberty, for
a contemplative life, for an active life, and so on. It was a common
exercise in the ancient schools of rhetoric to make an abstract
question, and to harangue first on one side and then on the other. The
question, Ought popular discontents to be quieted by concession or
coercion, would have been a very good subject for oratory of this kind.
There is no lack of commonplaces on either side. But when we come to the
real business of life, the value of these commonplaces depends entirely
on the particular circumstances of the case which we are discussing.
Nothing is easier than to write a treatise proving that it is lawful to
resist extreme tyranny. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise
setting forth the wickedness of wantonly bringing on a great society the
miseries inseparable from revolution, the bloodshed, the spoliation, the
anarchy. Both treatises may contain much that is true; but neither will
enable us to decide whether a particular insurrection is or is not
justifiable without a close examination of the facts.[4]

In other words, though the word "insurrection" seems to be plain in
meaning, yet when we make it one term of a judgment of which the other
term is "justifiable," we find that we do not know whether we agree or
not. The terms of the proposition are so vague that there can be no
meeting of minds. If we limit the subject to a specific case,
insurrection in Venezuela, or insurrection in Cuba, then we have made a
beginning toward making the proposition arguable. In these particular
cases, however, i