arily and unconstitutionally commenced
by the President,' be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very
generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all they have said
this; and they have said it on what has appeared good reason to them.
The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement,
frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other
property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable,
peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us. So to
call such an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent
absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had
begun, and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money
and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is
not true that we have always opposed the war. With few individual
exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary
supplies. And, more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and
the lives of our political brethren in every trial and on every field.
The beardless boy and the mature man, the humble and the
distinguished--you have had them. Through suffering and death, by
disease and in battle, they have endured, and fought and fell with you.
Clay and Webster each gave a son, never to be returned. From the State
of my own residence, besides other worthy but less known Whig names, we
sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin; they all fought and one
fell, and in the fall of that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were
the Whigs few in number or laggard in the day of danger. In that
fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's
hard task was to beat back five foes or die himself, of the five high
officers who perished, four were Whigs. In speaking of this, I mean no
odious comparison between the lion-hearted Whigs and the Democrats who
fought there. On other occasions, and among the lower officers and
privates on that occasion, I doubt not the proportion was different. I
wish to do justice to all. I think of all those brave men as Americans,
in whose proud fame, as an American, I, too, have a share. Many of them,
Whigs and Democrats, are my constituents and personal friends; and I
thank them--more than thank them--one and all, for the high,
imperishable honor they have conferred on our common State."

During the second session of the Thirtieth Congress Mr. Lincoln made no
long speeche