may one State, nevertheless, continue the war? And
yet, if she can nullify a law, she may quite as well nullify
a treaty.

DANIEL WEBSTER: _The Constitution Not a Compact
between Sovereign States_, 1833

Lincoln could always use this method of _reductio ad absurdum_ most
effectively because he seldom failed to accentuate the absurdity by
some instance which made clear to the least learned the force of his
argument. Many of his best remembered quaint and picturesque phrases
were embodied in his serious demolition of some high-handed
presumption of a political leader.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
justified to break up this government unless such a court
decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a
conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will
not abide the election of a Republican President! In that
supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and
then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will
be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my
ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I
shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Cooper Union Speech_, 1860

Amplifying and Diminishing. Finally a good method of refuting the
claim of importance made for an opposing proposition is by amplifying
and diminishing. In plain terms this depends upon contrast in which
you reduce the value of the opposing idea and emphasize the value of
your own. An excellent use for this is as a rapid summary at the end
of your speech, where it will leave in the hearer's mind an impression
of the comparative value of the two views he has heard discussed, with
an inevitable sense of the unquestioned worth of one above the other.
Burke sums up his extended refutations of Lord North's plan for
dealing with America in these telling contrasts.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and
simple; the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes.
This is mild; that harsh. This found by experience effectual
for its purposes; the other is a new project. This is
universal; the other calculated for certain colonies only.
This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other
remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the
dignity of a ruling people--gratuitous, unconditional--and