To gain now a clearer view of Lincoln’s mastery of this rhetoric, it will be useful to see how he used various arguments from definition within the scope of a single speech, and for this purpose we may choose the First Inaugural Address, surely from the standpoint of topical organization one of the most notable American state papers. The long political contest, in which he had displayed acumen along with tenacity, had ended in victory, and this was the juncture at which he had to lay down his policy for the American Union. For some men it would have been an occasion for description mainly; but Lincoln seems to have taken the advice he had given many years before to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield: “Passion has helped us but can do so no more.... Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason—must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense....”[92] Without being cold, the speech is severely logical, and much of the tone is contributed by the type of argument preferred. Of the fourteen distinguishable arguments in this address, eight are arguments from definition or genus. Of the six remaining, two are from consequences, two from circumstances, one from contraries, and one from similitude. The proportion tells its own story. Now let us see how the eight are employed: 1. _Argument from the nature of all government._ All governments have a fundamental duty of self-preservation. “Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.”[93] This means of course that whatever is recognized as a government has the obligation to defend itself from without and from within, and whatever menaces the government must be treated as a hostile force. This argument was offered to meet the contention of the secessionists that the Constitution nowhere authorized the Federal government to take forcible measures against the withdrawing states. Here Lincoln fell back upon the broader genus “all government.” 2. _Argument from the nature of contract._ Here Lincoln met the argument that the association of the states is “in the nature of a contract merely.” His answer was that the rescinding of a contract requires the assent of all parties to it. When one party alone ceases to observe it, the contract is merely violated, and violation affects the material interests of all parties. By this interpretation of the law of contract, the Southern states could not leave the Union without a general consent.