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CHAPTER VI.

STATING THE PROPOSITION TO BE DISCUSSED.-NECESSITY FOR CLEARNESS AND PRECISION.-INTERROGATION.

In all public speaking, whether religious or secular, the first matter of importance to receive the attention of the orator is to comprehend fully the proposition he is about to advocate, and to state it with clearness, accuracy and precision. When he has done this, his next care should be to adhere to it, to apply himself to its exposition, with fidelity and ability. This latter qualification may be described by using a term borrowed from religious discourses, and that is, "sticking to the text."

The proposition text or theme which the speaker lays down in his opening statement is the guide or finger post which points the way he is about to travel, and if he turns aside from the route thus indicated and follows every by-way not in the direct line of his march, he, among other faults, wastes those efforts which the audience has a right to expect will be devoted to the elucidation of matters upon which they desire to be informed. No orator has a lien on the attention of his hearers. On the other hand, in times of political agitation and commotion, there are certain subjects in which most intelligent

men have an interest and to the proper discussion of which they will lend an attentive ear, subjects upon which they are even eager to be enlightened by those who are able to discourse upon them with intelligence and ability. In deliberative legislative bodies this may be said to be always the case, and the speaker, if well prepared and qualified, will obtain a careful hearing, until he shows himself unfitted to cope with the subject or is overwhelmed by an opposing adversary.

It is of prime importance, therefore, that he should have a clear idea of the subject he wishes to discuss, the cause he desires to advance, and know beforehand what propositions, affecting either foreign or domestic policy, he is prepared to maintain. When he has a clear conception of this subject matter, its statement should be equally so.

There is a wide field here for a discriminating judgment. A speaker may make his language so general as to cover an infinite variety of subjects, thus creating for himself an unbounded license to speak on almost everything. However useful this plan might be in affording him an opportunity to "air his eloquence," as the term is, it is attended with the disadvantage of leaving the minds of his hearers in a confused and uncertain state, with a smattering of a variety of topics without a welldefined notion of any.

The reverse of this is much better, to confine the argument to one well-cut proposition, and bring to

bear upon it all the accessories of oratory that it is capable of receiving. To use an optical illustration, he should rather make it the focus of his intellectual telescope, and concentrate upon it all the rays of his intelligence that he can collect. He can thus produce a magnified image of one object instead of a blurred and faint picture of many.

This is well illustrated in the celebrated debate between Mr. Hayne and Mr. Webster, to which we have frequently had occasion to refer. The discussion started upon what is usually one of the least exciting subjects connected with the government, the sale of the public land. Mr. Foote, a senator from Connecticut, had introduced a resolution in the Senate in the following language:—

"Resolved, That the committee on public lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold within each state and territory, and whether it be expedient to limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price, and also whether the office of surveyor-general, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands.'

With only this slender plank to stand on, Mr. Hayne launched forth into the question of State Rights, the relative patriotism of different sections

of the Union, and, in fact, almost every question which has been of burning interest in American politics from that day to this.

Mr. Webster, therefore, called for the reading of this resolution to find his bearings, so to speak, and then said:

"We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is which is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the speech running through two days, by which the Senate has been now entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present, everything general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics, seems to have, attracted more or less of the honorable member's attention save only the rseolution before us. He has spoken about everything but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not even paid the cold respect of a passing glance."

All through this debate Mr. Webster is peculiarly careful to lay down with exactness the relative positions occupied by himself and his opponent on each subject of controversy. Thus, on the question of the attitude of the East and the South towards the settlement of the West, as indicated by the land policy of the general government, he said:

"The real question between me and him is, Where has the doctrine been advanced at the South or the East that the population of the West should be retarded, or,

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at least, need not be hastened on account of its effect to drain off the people from the Atlantic states? Is this doctrine, as has been alleged, of Eastern origin? That is the question."

This is a very excellent and instructive example of what every speaker should do, constantly ask himself what is the question in dispute, for if there be no difference between himself and his adversary arising out of any subject, then there is no ground of controversy, and any time spent in raising imaginary or illusory contentions is a waste of time and energy. It is setting up a "man of straw," the demolishing of which brings no credit to the debater.

In the course of the discussion, Mr. Webster takes up another branch of the subject, first laying down clearly the lines which divide himself and Mr. Hayne, and then proceeding to present his arguments for his side, thus:

"We approach at length, sir, to a more important part of the honorable gentleman's observations. Since it does not accord with my views of justice and policy to vote away the public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground it is that I consent to give them away in particular instances. How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of education in the West? This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference in political opinions between the

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