CHAPTER VICLASH 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:
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 systemwhich 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:
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 presentthe 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, butfactsare 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 whichare 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.