Abraham Lincoln,
"Spot Resolutions"
Speech Before the United States House of Representatives,
22 December 1847
Whereas the President of the United States, in his message
of May 11, 1846, has declared that "the Mexican Government not only refused to
receive him, [the envoy of the United States,] or listen to his propositions,
but, after a long-continued series of menaces, has at last invaded
our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil:"
And again, in his message of December 8, 1846,
that "we had ample cause of war against Mexico long before the breaking
out of hostilities; but even then we forbore to take redress into
our own hands until Mexico herself became the aggressor, by invading our
soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our citizens:"
And yet again, in his message of December 7, 1847,
that "the Mexican Government refused even to hear the terms of adjustment
which he [our minister of peace] was authorized to propose, and finally,
under wholly unjustifiable pretexts, involved the two countries in war,
by invading the territory of the State of Texas, striking the first blow,
and shedding the blood of our citizens on our own soil."
And whereas this House is desirous to obtain a
full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular
spot on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was or was not at
that time our own soil: Therefore,
Resolved By the House of Representatives,
That the President of the United States be respectfully requested to
inform this House --
1st. Whether the spot on which the blood of our
citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within
the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819, until the
Mexican revolution.
2d. Whether that spot is or is not within
the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary
Government of Mexico.
3d. Whether that spot is or is not within a
settlement of people, which settlement has existed ever since long before
the Texas revolution, and until its inhabitants fled before the approach
of the United States army.
4th. Whether that settlement is or is not
isolated from any and all other settlements by the Gulf and the Rio Grande
on the south and west, and by wide uninhabited regions on the north and east.
5th. Whether the people of that settlement, or a
majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the
government or laws of Texas or the United States, by consent or compulsion,
either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or serving
on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way.
6th. Whether the people of that settlement did
or did not flee from the approach of the United States army, leaving
unprotected their homes and their growing crops, before the blood was shed,
as in the messages stated; and whether the first blood, so shed, was or was
not shed within the enclosure of one of the people who had thus fled from it.
7th. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed,
as in his message declared, were or were not, at that time, armed officers
and soldiers, sent into that settlement by the military order of the
President, through the Secretary of War.
8th. Whether the military force of the United States
was or was not sent into that settlement after General Taylor had more than
once intimated to the War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement
was necessary to the defence or protection of Texas.
SOURCE: Reprinted in Roy P. Basler, editor,
Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (Cleveland:
World Publishing Company, 1946), pages 199-201.
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