“Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwest Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free states.
“Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since risen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect the warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it.”
We have now considered the important methods of refutation. Their successful use depends upon the conscientious effort of the student. Just as a boy cannot hope to learn to swim by sitting on the bank of a stream and reading a book containing directions on how to swim, so can no student hope to become successful in refutation by a study of the methods explained and illustrated in this chapter. He must master the theory of refutation, but it does not become an effective instrument in his hands until he has applied it in actual practice. Moreover, just as the boy can better profit by the instructions regarding swimming after he has actually tried to swim, so can the debater better profit by the theory of refutation after he has engaged in some real debates.
EXERCISES IN REFUTATION
I. Point out the different methods of refutation employed in the arguments in Appendix A; Appendix B; Appendix C.
II. Refute the following statements and name the method of refutation employed in each case.
1. High school courses should be wholly prescribed. No electives should be offered.
2. So far as political rights are concerned all citizens should have equal privileges. Therefore women should have the right to vote.
3. The term of office of the President of the United States should be extended to eight years because we should not run the risk of losing the services of an efficient president at the end of four years.
4. Our government should annex Cuba because we must gain possession of all territory adjacent to, or not separated by foreign possessions from, the United States.