sorrow or disappointment. When it was known that he was in the alley, there would assemble numbers of people to witness the fun which was anticipated by those who knew of his fund of anecdotes and jokes. When in the alley, surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners, he indulged with great freedom in the sport of narrative, some of which were very broad. His witticisms seemed for the most part to be impromptu, but he always told the anecdotes and jokes as if he wished to convey the impression that he had heard them from some one; but they appeared very many times as if they had been made for the immediate occasion."

Another place where he became at home and was much appreciated was in the post-office at the Capitol.

"During the Christmas holidays," says Ben. Perley Poore, "Mr. Lincoln found his way into the small room used as the post-office of the House, where a few jovial raconteurs used to meet almost every morning, after the mail had been distributed into the members' boxes, to exchange such new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless répertoire of them always ready, like the successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It was refresh

ing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences of the Black Hawk war."

But Lincoln had gone to Washington for work, and he at once interested himself in the Whig organization formed to elect the officers of the House. There was only a small Whig majority, and it took skill and energy to keep the offices in

the party. Lincoln's share in achieving this result was generally recognized. As late as 1860, twelve years after the struggle, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, who was elected speaker, said in a speech in Boston wherein he discussed Lincoln's nomination to the Presidency: "You will be sure that I remember him with interest, if I may be allowed to remind you that he helped to make me the speaker of the Thirtieth Congress, when the vote was a very close and strongly contested vote."

A week after Congress organized, Lincoln wrote to Springfield: "As you are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long;" and he did it but not exactly as his Springfield friends wished. The United States was then at war with Mexico, a war that the Whigs abhorred. Lincoln had used his influence against it; but, hostilities declared, he had publicly affirmed that every loyal man must stand by the army. Many of his friends, Hardin, Baker, and Shields, among others, were at that moment in Mexico. Lincoln had gone to Washington intending to say nothing in opposition to the war. But the administration wished to secure from the Whigs not only votes of supplies and men, but a resolution declaring that the war was just and right. Lincoln, with others of his party in Congress, refused his sanction and voted for a resolution offered by Mr. Ashburn, which declared that the war had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" begun. On December 22d he made his début in the House by the famous "Spot Resolutions," a series of searching questions so clearly put, so strong historically and logically, that they drove the administration from the "spot" where the war began, and showed that it had been the aggressor in the conquest. The resolution ran:

"Whereas, The President of the United States, in his message of May 11, 1846, has declared that the Mexican

Government not only refused to receive him (the envoy of the United States), or to listen to his propositions, but, after a long-continued series of menaces, has at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil.'

“And again, in his message of December 8, 1846, that we had ample cause of war against Mexico long before the breaking out of hostilities; but even then we forbore to take redress into our own hands until Mexico herself became the aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our citizens.'

"And yet again, in his message of December 7, 1847, that 'the Mexican Government refused even to hear the terms of adjustment which he (our minister of peace) was authorized to propose, and finally, under wholly unjustifiable pretexts, involved the two countries in war, by invading the territory of the State of Texas, striking the first blow, and shedding the blood of our citizens on our own soil.'

"And whereas, This House is desirous to obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was or was not at that time our own soil: therefore,

'Resolved, by the House of Representatives, that the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this House

"First.

Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his message declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution.

"Second. Whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government 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."

In January Lincoln followed up these resolutions with a speech in support of his position. His action was much criticised in Illinois, where the sound of the drum and the intoxication of victory had completely turned attention from the moral side of the question, and Lincoln found himself obliged to defend his position with even Mr. Herndon, his law partner, who, with many others, objected to Lincoln's voting for the Ashburn resolution.

"That vote," wrote Lincoln in answer to Mr. Herndon's letter, "affirms that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President; and I will stake my life that if you had been in my place you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would not. Would you have gone out of the House-skulked the vote? I expect not. If you had skulked one vote, you would have had to skulk many

more before the end of the session. Richardson's resolutions, introduced before I made any move or gave any vote upon the subject, make the direct question of the justice of the war; so that no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only alternative is to tell the truth or a lie. I cannot doubt which you would do.

"This vote has nothing to do in determining my votes on the questions of supplies. I have always intended, and still intend, to vote supplies; perhaps not in the precise form recommended by the President, but in a better form for all purposes, except Loco foco party purposes."

This determination to keep the wrong of the Mexican war before the people even while voting supplies for it Lincoln held to steadily. In May a pamphlet was sent him in which the author claimed that "in view of all the facts" the government of the United States had committed no aggression in Mexico.

"Not in view of all the facts," Lincoln wrote him. "There are facts which you have kept out of view. It is a fact that the United States army in marching to the Rio Grande marched into a peaceful Mexican settlement, and frightened the inhabitants away from their homes and their growing crops. It is a fact that Fort Brown, opposite Matamoras, was built by that army within a Mexican cotton-field, on which at the time the army reached it a young cotton crop was growing, and which crop was wholly destroyed and the field itself greatly and permanently injured by ditches, embankments, and the like. It is a fact that when the Mexicans captured Captain Thornton and his command, they found and captured them within another Mexican field.

"Now I wish to bring these facts to your notice, and to ascertain what is the result of your reflections upon them. If you deny that they are facts, I think I can furnish proofs which shall convince you that you are mistaken. If you admit that they are facts, then I shall be obliged for a reference to any law of language, law of States, law of nations, law of morals, law of religions, any law, human or divine, in which an authority can be found for saying those facts constitute 'No aggression.'