On Certain Abuses in Language [pp. 248-272]

0THE PRINCE TONV RE VIE W.
Those who speak in this way would hardly, if pressed, maintain
the abstract proposition that no act of confiscation can ever be
justified. Such an argument would simply upset all civil government. But they do not scruple to drag in the word "confiscation" in order to raise an irrelevant prejudice against a certain
measure. They first take a colorless word; they misapply it
so as to give it a bad sound, so as to make the word carry a
taint with it. They then take the word which they have misapplied, and use it in its misapplied sense as an argument against
a measure to which it may or may not be applicable in its true
sense. When anything is meant by the word "confiscation" beyond the mere love of using a fine word, what is meant is to imply
that the measure is a measure of robbery, without directly saying so. Robbery is the uglier word; but confiscation is the more
effectual word; just because robbery is a plain word about whose
meaning there is no doubt, while confiscation is one of the
words which are used to conceal thought or lack of thought.
Again, no act of the state can in strictness be an act of robbery,
while confiscation cannot in strictness be the act of any power
except the state. Hence to call a measure a measure of rob-!
bery is at once open to the answer that no act of the state can
be an act of robbery. But an act of the state may be an act of
confiscation; indeed nothing but an act of the state or its officers can be an act of confiscation. And the word, in common
use, has come to have so bad a meaning that to apply it to any
act is at once to condemn that act. When such a confusion of
meanings is afloat, to call a measure a measure of confiscation is
far more telling than to call it a measure of robbery. "Confiscation" is a fine word; as used, it is a vague word; it sounds less
hard than robbery, while, as used, it is meant to imply almost
more. It is a word which in its true sense may be perfectly
applicable to the measure in question; but it is used in a false
sense, in order to create an unfavorable impression before the
real arguments for and against the measure have been heard.
The lawyers tell us that no man can take advantage of his own
wrong. But those who argue in this way do take advantage of
their own wrong. They first abuse a word in a vulgar and misleading way, and then they found an argument on their own
abuse of the word.
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