it, is in these words: "But there are those who, conceding all
this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of Texas
is the Nueces, instead of the Rio Grande; and that, therefore, in marching
our army to the east bank of the latter river, we passed the Texas line
and invaded the territory of Mexico." Now this issue is made up of two
affirmatives and no negative. The main deception of it is that it assumes
as true that one river or the other is necessarily the boundary; and
cheats the superficial thinker entirely out of the idea that possibly
the boundary is somewhere between the two, and not actually at either. A
further deception is that it will let in evidence which a true issue would
exclude. A true issue made by the President would be about as follows: "I
say the soil was ours, on which the first blood was shed; there are those
who say it was not."

I now proceed to examine the President's evidence as applicable to such an
issue. When that evidence is analyzed, it is all included in the following
propositions:

(1) That the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Louisiana as we
purchased it of France in 1803.

(2) That the Republic of Texas always claimed the Rio Grande as her
eastern boundary.

(3) That by various acts she had claimed it on paper.

(4) That Santa Anna in his treaty with Texas recognized the Rio Grande as
her boundary.

(5) That Texas before, and the United States after, annexation had
exercised jurisdiction beyond the Nueces--between the two rivers.

(6) That our Congress understood the boundary of Texas to extend beyond
the Nueces.

Now for each of these in its turn. His first item is that the Rio Grande
was the western boundary of Louisiana, as we purchased it of France in
1803; and seeming to expect this to be disputed, he argues over the amount
of nearly a page to prove it true, at the end of which he lets us know
that by the treaty of 1803 we sold to Spain the whole country from the Rio
Grande eastward to the Sabine. Now, admitting for the present that the
Rio Grande was the boundary of Louisiana, what under heaven had that to
do with the present boundary between us and Mexico? How, Mr. Chairman,
the line that once divided your land from mine can still be the
boundary between us after I have sold my land to you is to me beyond all
comprehension. And how any man, with an honest purpose only of proving the
truth, could ever have thought of introducing such a fact t