In 1847, when he took his seat in the thirtieth Congress, he saw there
the last of the giants of the old days,--Webster, Calhoun, Clay and old
John Quincy Adams, dying in his seat before the session ended. There
were also Andrew Johnson, Alexander H. Stephens and David Wilmot.
Douglas was there to take his new seat in the Senate. The Mexican War
was drawing to its close. The Whig party condemned the war as one that
had been brought on simply to expand slave territory. Generals Taylor
and Scott as well as many other prominent army officers were Whigs. This
fact aided materially in justifying the Whig policy of denouncing the
Democrats for entering into the war and at the same time voting adequate
supplies for the prosecution of the war. Lincoln entered heartily into
this party policy.

A few days after he had taken his seat in Congress he wrote back to
Herndon a letter which closed humorously: "As you are all so anxious for
me to distinguish myself I have concluded to do so before long."
Accordingly, soon after he introduced a series of resolutions which
became known as the "Spot Resolutions."

These resolutions referred to the President's message of May 11, 1846,
in which the President expressed the reasons of the administration for
beginning the war and said the Mexicans had "invaded our territory and
shed the blood of our own citizens on our own soil." Lincoln quoted
these lines and then asked the President to state the "exact spot" where
these and other alleged occurrences had taken place. While these
resolutions were never acted upon, they did afford him an opportunity to
make a speech; and he made a good speech; not of the florid and fervid
style that had characterized some of his early efforts; but a strong,
logical speech that brought out the facts and made a favorable
impression, thus saving him from being among the entirely unknown in the
House.

With reference to his future career a paragraph concerning Texas is here
quoted. He says: "Any people, anywhere being inclined and having the
power, have the right to raise 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 a case in which the whole people of
an existing government choose to exercise it. Any portion of such
people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of
the