" than when he
spoke in court. So a little later, January 12, 1848, he ventured to call
up his resolutions and to make an elaborate speech upon them.[59] It was
not a very great or remarkable speech, but it was a good one, and not
conceived in the fervid and florid style which defaced his youthful
efforts; he spoke sensibly, clearly, and with precision of thought; he
sought his strength in the facts, and went in straight pursuit of the
truth; his best intellectual qualities were plainly visible. The
resolutions were not acted upon, and doubtless their actual passage had
never been expected; but they were a good shot well placed; and they
were sufficiently noteworthy to save Lincoln from being left among the
herd of the nobodies of the House.

In view of his future career, but for no other reason, a brief paragraph
is worth quoting. He says:--

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
_right_ to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new
one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred
right,--a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an
existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such
people, that _can_, may revolutionize, and make their _own_ of so much
of the territory as they inhabit." This doctrine, so comfortably
applied to Texas in 1848, seemed unsuitable for the Confederate States
in 1861. But possibly the point lay in the words, "having the power,"
and "can," for the Texans "had the power" and "could," and the South had
it not and could not; and so Lincoln's practical proviso saved his
theoretical consistency; though he must still have explained how either
Texas or the South could know whether they "had the power," and "could,"
except by trial.

Lincoln's course concerning the war and the administration did not
please his constituents. With most of the Whigs he voted for Ashmun's
amendment, which declared that the war had been "unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally commenced by the President." But soon he heard that
the people in Springfield were offended at a step which might weaken the
administration in time of stress; and even if the President had
transcended the Constitution, they preferred to deny rather than to
admit the fact. When Douglas afterward charged Lincoln with lack of
patriotism, Lincoln replied that he had not chosen to "skulk,"