4. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the general Government, and on the equal rights of other States; a plain violation of the Constitution, a proceeding essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency.
Daniel Webster: The Constitution Not a Compact between
Sovereign States, 1833
Such a statement to the audience is especially helpful when the speaker is dealing with technical subjects, or material with which most people are not usually and widely conversant. Scientific considerations always become clearer when such plans are simply constructed, clearly announced, and plainly followed.
So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history of Nature. I will, in the first place, state the hypotheses, and then I will consider what evidence bearing upon them is in our possession, and by what light of criticism that evidence is to be interpreted. Upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, that phenomena of Nature similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed; in other words, that the universe has existed from all eternity in what may be broadly termed its present condition.
The second hypothesis is, that the present state of things has had only a limited duration; and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally proceeded. The assumption that successive states of Nature have arisen, each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is a mere modification of this second hypothesis.
The third hypothesis also assumes that the present state of things has had but a limited duration; but it supposes that this state has been evolved by a natural process from an antecedent state, and that from another, and so on; and, on this hypothesis, the attempt to assign any limit to the series of past changes is, usually, given up.
Thomas H. Huxley: Lectures on Evolution, 1876
EXERCISES
1. According to what methods are the foregoing plans arranged? Which division in Sumner's speech was the most important? Was he trying to get his listeners to do anything? What do you think that object was?
2. In Lincoln's speech do you think he planned the material chronologically? Historically? What reasons have you for your answer?