The Fallacy of Tradition
In discussing the burden of proof it was said that such burden rests upon the advocate of change, or novel introductions, etc. This tendency of the people at large to be rather conservative in practice links with the fallacy of tradition, the belief that whatever is, is right. In many cases such a faith is worse than wrong, it is pernicious.
Many of the questions concerning relations of modern society—as capital and labor—are based upon this fallacy. Henry Clay was guilty of it when he announced, "Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." The successful way to dispose of such a fallacy is illustrated by William Ellery Channing's treatment of this statement.
But this property, we are told, is not to be questioned on account of its long duration. "Two hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as property." Nothing but respect for the speaker could repress criticism on this unhappy phraseology. We will trust it escaped him without thought. But to confine ourselves to the argument from duration; how obvious the reply! Is injustice changed into justice by the practice of the ages? Is my victim made a righteous prey because I have bowed him to the earth till he cannot rise?
For more than two hundred years heretics were burned, and not by mobs, not by lynch law, but by the decrees of the councils, at the instigation of theologians, and with the sanction of the laws and religions of nations; and was this a reason for keeping up the fires, that they had burned two hundred years?
In the Eastern world successive despots, not for two hundred years, but for twice two thousand have claimed the right of life and death over millions, and, with no law but their own will, have beheaded, bowstrung, starved, tortured unhappy men without number who have incurred their wrath; and does the lapse of so many centuries sanctify murder and ferocious power?