friends, and to keep the district from going to the enemy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that, if it should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could not refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself as a competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is what my word and honor forbid. I got some letters intimating a probability of so much difficulty amongst our friends as to lose us the district; but I remember such letters were written to Baker when my own case was under consideration, and I trust there is no more ground for such apprehension now than there was then. Remember I am always glad to receive a letter from you. Most truly your friend, A. LINCOLN. SPEECH IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, January 12, 18481 M' R. CHAIRMAN: Some if not all the gentlemen on the other side of the House who have addressed the committee within the last two days have spoken rather complainingly, if I have rightly understood them, of the vote given a week or ten days ago declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President. I admit that such a vote should not be given in mere party wantonness, and that the one given is justly censurable, if 1 It is well known that the Mexican War arose out of the question of the southern boundary of the newly acquired territory of Texas. In 1846 President Polk had sent an expedition under General Taylor to the Rio Grande and had there caused the erection of Fort Brown. The Mexicans claimed this to be within their border, and attacked the fort. Thereupon Polk sent a message to Congress stating that Mexico "had shed American blood upon American soil." Lincoln, then in his first congressional session, opposed the President and presented resolutions, demanding to be told the "particular spot" on which the American blood had been shed, claiming that the question of boundary was so unsettled that the President's act in sending the Fort Brown expedition amounted to aggression. These "spot resolutions" were widely discussed. it have no other or better foundation. I am one of those who joined in that vote; and I did so under my best impression of the truth of the case. How I got this impression, and how it may possibly be remedied, I will now try to show. When the war began, it was my opinion that all those who because of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously oppose the conduct of the President in the beginning of it should nevertheless, as good citizens and patriots, remain silent on that point, at least till the war should be ended. Some leading Democrats, including exPresident Van Buren, have taken this same view, as I understand them; and I adhered to it and acted upon it, until since I took my seat here; and I think I should still adhere to it were it not that the President and his friends will not allow it to be so. Besides the continual effort of the President to argue every silent vote given for supplies into an indorsement of the justice and wisdom of his conduct; besides that singularly candid paragraph in his late message in which he tells us that Congress with great unanimity had declared that "by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States,' when the same journals that informed him of this also informed him that when that declara |