Lincoln could always use this method of reductio ad absurdum most effectively because he seldom failed to accentuate the absurdity by some instance which made clear to the least learned the force of his argument.  Many of his best remembered quaint and picturesque phrases were embodied in his serious demolition of some high-handed presumption of a political leader.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this government unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?  But you will not abide the election of a Republican President!  In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us!  That is cool.  A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

     ABRAHAM LINCOLN:  Cooper Union Speech, 1860

Amplifying and Diminishing.  Finally a good method of refuting the claim of importance made for an opposing proposition is by amplifying and diminishing.  In plain terms this depends upon contrast in which you reduce the value of the opposing idea and emphasize the value of your own.  An excellent use for this is as a rapid summary at the end of your speech, where it will leave in the hearer’s mind an impression of the comparative value of the two views he has heard discussed, with an inevitable sense of the unquestioned worth of one above the other.  Burke sums up his extended refutations of Lord North’s plan for dealing with America in these telling contrasts.

Compare the two.  This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes.  This is mild; that harsh.  This found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project.  This is universal; the other calculated for certain colonies only.  This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard.  Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people—­gratuitous, unconditional—­and not held out as a matter of bargain and sale.

     EDMUND BURKE:  Conciliation with America, 1775

Position of Refutation in the Speech.  The position of refutation in the finished speech will depend always upon the nature of the proposition, the exact method of the refutation, and the audience.  If you are making the only speech upon the proposition and you feel that the audience may have a slight prejudice against what you are about to urge, you may gain adherents at once by refuting at the beginning the possible arguments in their minds.  By this procedure you will clear the field for your own operations.  To change the figure of speech, you erase from the slate what is already written there, so that you may place upon it your own speech and its convictions.