Propositions of Fact
Propositions fall into the two classes already illustrated by the statements about missionaries in China and the killing of Simon Lee. The second—John Doe killed Simon Lee—is a proposition of fact. All argument about it would tend to prove either the affirmative or the negative.
One argument would strive to prove the statement a fact. The other argument would try to prove its opposite the actual fact. Facts are accomplished results or finished events. Therefore propositions of fact refer to the past.
They are the material of argument in all cases at law, before investigation committees, and in similar proceedings. Lincoln argued a proposition of fact when he took Douglas's statement, "Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," and then proved by telling exactly how they voted upon every measure dealing with slavery exactly what the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution did believe about national control of the practice. Courts of law demand that pleadings "shall set forth with certainty and with truth the matters of fact or of law, the truth or falsity of which must be decided to decide the case."