tion. Lincoln wished to make the
consequences of this doctrine as glaringly evident as possible. He did
so as follows:

I think it follows, and I submit to the consideration of men capable
of arguing, whether as I state it, in syllogistic form, the argument
has any fault in it.

Nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can destroy a right
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the United
States.

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly
affirmed in the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore, nothing in the Constitution or laws of any State can
destroy the right of property in a slave.

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument;
assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I have
capacity at all to understand it, follows inevitably.[43]

Lincoln knew that this doctrine that no state could interfere with
slavery would be intolerable to the people of Illinois, before whom he
was carrying on his campaign; and this syllogism made clear to them the
consequences of the decision of the Supreme Court.

Or you can use a syllogism to make obvious a flaw in the reasoning of
your opponent, as in the following example:

In view of the history of commission government in this country so far
as it has been made, the burden of proof rests with those who attempt to
show that a government which has been so successful in cities of
moderate size will not be successful in our largest cities. The
syllogism they are required to prove runs briefly thus:

Commission government is acknowledged to have been successful in cities
as large as one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, but

It has not been tried in cities containing more than one hundred and
thirty thousand inhabitants;

Therefore, it will not be successful in cities of four hundred thousand
or larger, which is a _reductio ad absurdum_.

The folly of the attempt is shown by the very statement of the
conclusion.[44]

44. The Dilemma. One special form of the syllogism is at times so
strong an argument that it deserves special mention here, namely, the
dilemma. This is a syllogism in which the major premise consists of two
or more hypothetical propositions (that is, propositions with an "if"
clause) and the minor of a disjunctive proposition (a proposition with
two or more clauses connected by "or").

In the course of the Lincoln-