CLASH OF ARGUMENTS
After you have determined your starting point and defined your terms,
the next step—and an important one—is technically termed “the clash of
arguments.” This phrase means a careful balancing over against each other
of the leading arguments on both sides of the question.
Be sure you have both sides. It is even more important to know the strong
sides of your opponent’s case and to be prepared to meet them than to
know your own. It was frequently remarked of Lincoln in debate that he
summed up his opponent’s case better than the opponent himself did.
Lincoln could not have done so, had he not studied every side of his
case. He put the arguments opposed to his own in their strongest possible
light and prepared an exact answer. So you must do in your debate.
On your question, “Resolved: that the policy of the United States
government toward conservation of forests should be strengthened,” the
clash of arguments would follow some such form as this:
AFFIRMATIVE CONTENTIONS: NEGATIVE CONTENTIONS:
1. _Conservation is necessary_: 1. _Conservation is unnecessary_:
A. Without it the great lumber A. By an unlimited settlement
dealers would obtain upon and barter in timber
control of the timber of tracts, enterprise is
the country and thus encouraged, individuals and
increase the price of communities are financially
timber, and dictate as to benefited.
its use.
B. To secure an adequate B. Actual rainfall has been
rainfall, as a source of largely superseded by
supply for rivers, and for irrigation and other water
its effect on vegetation. control. The relation of
vegetation to rainfall is
uncertain anyway.
C. To insure an adequate C. Lumber may be imported
supply of lumber, without when there is lack in
wasting the growth of this country; the use
timber. of concrete, iron and
the like will supersede
it ultimately anyway.
2. _The present policy of 2. _The present policy of
conservation is insufficient conservation needs no
because_: additional strength because_:
A. The present penalties are A. Its present penalties are
not severe enough to secure oppressive and work
proper respect and hardships upon innocent
obedience. persons.
B. The territory now covered B. So much land is now
by the law is not withdrawn from settlement
sufficient to determine under these laws that
whether it worthy citizens are
should be generally unable to secure
applied. homesteads, and land is
more valuable to the United
States when farmed than
when devoted to timber.
C. The present officials C. These officials are now
charged with the often intolerant and
enforcement of the law have overbearing. To increase
insufficient funds and their authority would
authority and in some cases intensify this and tend
are negligent or corrupt or toward the creation of a
both. permanent official class,
which is opposed to the
spirit of democracy.
For another illustration, let us analyze the question popularly known
as the recall of judicial decisions. We will assume that in the first
place when your society and that rival society from Greenburg, after the
debate was agreed upon, decided to discuss the recall, you got together
to determine the exact question. You decided that you would not discuss
the recall generally, that you did not care to go into the question of
the wisdom of retiring legislators or executive officers before their
term had expired. You were simply interested in the question as far as it
affected judges. Very well.
When you discussed the matter further you found you were all unwilling
to advocate any system which might seem to encourage an attack on
the independence of the judiciary and so you agreed that the question
should concern not the recall of judges but only the recall of judicial
decisions. You felt that while the argument for and against the recall of
judges generally would largely center about the necessity of preserving
the independence of the judge, in the matter of submitting only his
decisions to popular verdict, other considerations could be urged with
equal effectiveness. You further felt that all his decisions should
not thus be subjected to the people’s vote, but only those tending to
construe the constitution, the fundamental law of the land. In this
preliminary meeting you therefore narrowed the question down to a form
something like this: “Resolved: that the decision of any judge affecting
the constitutionality of any civil statute may be reversed by vote of
the electors of the district affected by the statute.” Your clash of
arguments on this question might read as follows:
AFFIRMATIVE CONTENTIONS: NEGATIVE CONTENTIONS:
_It is wise because_ _It is unwise because_
1. The Constitution is the 1. The Constitution itself
expression of the people’s prescribes a method for
will and, in the last resort, its interpretation.
only the people should decide
what that will is or is not.
2. Only the collective wisdom 2. Only a man specially
of the people as a whole trained is competent to
is competent to judge of such judge of such fundamental
fundamentals as principles.
constitutional law.
3. It will cause the average 3. Because the average citizen
citizen to pay greater is not educated for public
attention to the important affairs, it would encourage
questions of public concern, control by the bosses, and
and thereby increase the other manifestations of
dignity of citizenship. demagogy.
4. To know that his action is 4. It will tend to lessen the
likely to be reviewed by the independence of the average
public in an authoritative judge—he will listen to
way, will increase the care every breath of public
and attention the average opinion and hence be unable
judge will give such to form an unbiased judgment
questions. based only on the law of the
case.
5. The method could be easily 5. It burdens the voters
applied, e.g., by the unnecessarily and imposes an
executive submitting the unwarranted expense upon the
question to vote upon a community.
petition signed largely
enough to show general
intent.
6. It presents an orderly 6. It would tend to substitute
method of correcting popular prejudice and clamor
interpretations of the for calm, dispassionate
organic law which are hostile reasoning.
to the moral sense of the
people, and would afford an
outlet for feeling which
might otherwise produce
revolution or civil war;
e.g.: The war between the
states, ’60-65, was largely
the result of the Dred Scott
decision. If a peaceful method
of recalling that decision had
been provided, the civil war
might have been prevented.
7. The public could inform 7. It would be impossible
itself of the facts in each properly to acquaint the
case through the press and public with the facts and
the forums for public arguments necessary to a
discussion now so common. proper understanding of each
case because of the partisan
nature of the public press.
8. While not interfering with 8. Judges are almost invariably
the tenure of office of the taken from the legal
judge, it would increase the profession, a body of men who
respect in which that office by special and constant study
is held, because the very and practice are peculiarly
study of such questions would fitted for the exercise of
convince the public of the this judicial function. It
delicate and arduous nature should be left to lawyers.
of his work.
=Exclusion of Unessential Matter.=—I do not pretend to have stated all
the arguments pro and con on the question before you. I have illustrated
simply to you a useful method of arranging them in your own preparation.
As you balance them one against the other, you will see that some
are important and vitally affect the main question, while others are
comparatively unimportant and may be admitted as true or dismissed as
trivial or entirely unrelated.
Almost every subject will suggest many arguments which must be admitted.
Don’t waste your time in seeking to refute that which you can’t refute
and which is not vital to your argument anyway. Your opponent will have
a decided advantage over you when he shows the weakness of your attempt,
and your main argument will surely suffer. A careful analysis will many
times prevent just that trouble and on the other hand your opponent
may carefully prepare himself to prove some proposition which you are
perfectly willing to admit if you have anticipated his position and are
prepared to show that it does not affect your main case.
=The Vital Issues.=—All these various steps in analysis are essential
to good debating and if you have taken each step, you have now come to
the last—the statement of the special issues. You have seen where the
question originated, you have defined its terms, you have put yourself
in the place of the other man and know about what he will say, you have
excluded from the argument all non-essential matter, and there should
now be left the real heart of the question, the actual proposition you
are to debate. You can be very sure all this preliminary work is most
important—if you have well considered all these steps, you have your
debate half won.
In your introductory statement, you will give enough of your analysis
to show why you present the points you select as essential. You need
not state every step; in fact, in your formal speech, you should not
let the machinery be too much in evidence, but in your preliminary work
you cannot safely omit one step. So far everything has been preliminary
to the argument itself, but you are now ready to build up your actual
constructive argument.
In your presentation of your side of the conservation question, for
instance, you will mass your facts and arguments about the few really
essential points which are left for debate. You will not simply talk
about the propositions. You will remember that each point must be proved.
You will get not simply the opinions of someone else upon the question;
you will get facts. For instance, in the question of the ownership of
timber tracts, a part of the conservation problem, it will not be enough
to cite what some one thinks about it, but get the actual number of acres
owned by corporations. Is that enough? No, show the facts as to the
relation of these corporations to one another, or the fact that there is
no such relationship, as bearing on the fact of an ownership of these
lands by one group. Not opinions, not theories, but _facts_ are what win
debates. After you have established your facts, then show how your facts
prove your case.
=Don’t Prove What Everybody Knows.=—When you are considering the
arrangement and proof, do not waste your time on proof of those facts
which are either self-evident or taken for granted. For example, in
your discussion of conservation you can take it as self-evident that the
policy of the United States government is to aid the people of the United
States. You can also take it for granted that the citizens of the United
States are moved by love of country and love of home. No doubt you could
indulge in some fine writing or fine speaking on these questions, but it
is entirely unnecessary to do so. So you need not take time to prove that
the government is not deliberately concocting a scheme to injure some
of its citizens, nor need you stop to prove that the individual settler
loves his forest home if “preëmpting” in good faith and that he should be
aided. The mere statement of these two facts proves them.