of Mexico.

Third. 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.

Fourth. 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.

Fifth. 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 of the United States, by consent or by 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.

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 the message stated;
and whether the first blood, so shed, was or was not shed within the
inclosure of one of the people who had thus fled from it.

Seventh. 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.

Eighth. Whether the military force of the United States was or was not
so 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.

REMARKS IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

JANUARY 5, 1848.

Mr. Lincoln said he had made an effort, some few days since, to obtain the
floor in relation to this measure [resolution to direct Postmaster-General
to make arrangements with railroad for carrying the mails--in Committee of
the Whole], but had failed. One of the objects he had then had in view was
now in a great measure superseded by what had fallen from the gentleman
from Virginia who had just taken his seat. He begged to assure his friends
on the other side of the House that no assault whatever was meant upon the
Postmaster-General, and he was glad that what the gentleman had now said
modified to a great extent the impression which might have been created
by the language he had used on a previous occasion. He wanted to state