it), but on revolution. Any people anywhere being inclined and having the
power have the right to rise 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 cases in which the whole people of
an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such
people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the
territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of
such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with
or near about them, who may oppose this movement. Such minority was
precisely the case of the 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