Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to
go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both, and make new ones.

As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 1803, and
sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President's statements. After
this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still
later Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as
she carried her resolution by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling,
submission of the people, so far the country was hers, and no farther.
Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to
whether Texas had actually carried her revolution to the place where the
hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the
interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, or some other similar
ones. Let him answer fully, fairly, and candidly. Let him answer with
facts and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington
sat, and so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer. As
a nation should not, and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him
attempt no evasion--no equivocation. And if, so answering, he can show
that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed,--that
it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the
inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil authority of Texas or
of the United States, and that the same is true of the site of Fort Brown,
then I am with him for his justification. In that case I shall be most
happy to reverse the vote I gave the other day. I have a selfish motive
for desiring that the President may do this--I expect to gain some votes,
in connection with the war, which, without his so doing, will be of
doubtful propriety in my own judgment, but which will be free from the
doubt if he does so. But if he can not or will not do this,--if on any
pretence or no pretence he shall refuse or omit it then I shall be fully
convinced of what I more than suspect already that he is deeply conscious
of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood
of Abel, is crying to heaven against him; that originally having some
strong motive--what, I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning
to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny
by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military
glory,--that attractive rainbow that r