After Lincoln had left the scene, the Republican Party, as we have noted, was unable to meet the test of victory. It turned quickly to the worship of Mammon, and with the exception of the ambiguous Theodore Roosevelt, it never found another leader. No one understood better than Lincoln that the party would have to succeed upon principle. He told his followers during the campaign of 1858: “nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has even seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are disadvantages all, taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle and upon principle alone.”[116] For two generations this party lived upon the moral capital amassed during the anti-slavery campaign, but after that had been expended, and terrible issues had to be faced, it possessed nothing. It was less successful than the British Tories because it was either ignorant or ashamed of the good things it had to offer. Today it shows in advanced form that affliction which has overcome the “good elements” in all modern nations in the face of the bold and enterprising bad ones. Let it be offered as a parting counsel that parties bethink themselves of how their chieftains speak. This is a world in which one often gets what one asks for more directly or more literally than one expects. If a leader asks only consequences, he will find himself involved in naked competition of forces. If he asks only circumstance, he will find himself intimidated against all vision. But if he asks for principle, he may get that, all tied up and complete, and though purchased at a price, paid for. Therefore it is of first importance whether a leader has the courage to define. Nowhere does a man’s rhetoric catch up with him more completely than in the topics he chooses to win other men’s assent. Chapter V SOME RHETORICAL ASPECTS OF GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES In an earlier part of this work we defined rhetoric as something which creates an informed appetition for the good. Such definition must recognize the rhetorical force of things existing outside the realm of speech; but since our concern is primarily with spoken rhetoric, which cannot be disengaged from certain patterns or regularities of language, we now turn our attention to the pressure of these formal patterns.