"Spot" Resolutions in the United States House of Representatives [1] December 22, 1847
First: Whether the spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was, or was not, within the teritories of Spain, at least from the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution
Second: Whether that spot is, or is not, within the teritory which was wrested from Spain, by the Mexican revolution.
Third: Whether that spot is, or is not, within a settlement of people, which settlement had existed ever since long before the Texas revolution, until it's inhabitants fled from the approach of the U.S. Army.
Fourth: Whether that settlement is, or is not, isolated from any and all other settlements, by the Gulf of Mexico, and the Rio Grande, on the South and West, and by wide uninhabited regions on the North and East.
Fifth: Whether the People of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, had ever, previous to the bloodshed, mentioned in his messages, submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas, or of the United States, by consent, or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying taxes, or serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way.
Sixth: 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 his messages stated; and whether the first blood so shed, was, or was not shed, within the inclosure of the People, or some of them, who had thus fled from it.
Seventh: Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, as in his
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messages 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---and
Eighth: Whether the military force of the United States, including those citizens, was, or was not, so sent into that settlement, after Genl. 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.
Annotation
[1] AD, DNA RG 233 HR 30 A B 3 (1); Congressional Globe, Thirtieth Congress, First Session, 1848, p. 64. The resolutions were read and laid on the table. The text of the resolutions as printed in the Globe was considerably altered from Lincoln's original, which is here followed in detail.
Reprinted in Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company, 1946), 199—201.
