Motte And Bailey

The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[1] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position.[2][3] Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte)[1] or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte)... Philosopher Nicholas Shackel, who coined the term,[1] prefers to speak of a motte-and-bailey doctrine instead of a fallacy... Shackel's original impetus was to criticize what he considered duplicitous processes of argumentation in works of academics such as Michel Foucault, David Bloor, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Richard Rorty, and Berger and Luckmann, and in postmodernist discourses in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Bailey claim: "Slavery was a side issue! The south seceded to defend states rights!" https://www.lambsreign.com/blog/mottes-baileys-and-moscow-mules