anybody particularly, before, are since taking ground, some for Scott and
some for McLean. Who will be nominated neither I nor any one else can
tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is that you let nothing
discourage or baffle you, but that, in spite of every difficulty, you
send us a good Taylor delegate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now
with you, I suppose, help about it. He is a good hand to raise a breeze.

General Ashley, in the Senate from Arkansas, died yesterday. Nothing else
new beyond what you see in the papers.

Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN




DEFENSE OF MEXICAN WAR POSITION

TO REV. J. M. PECK

WASHINGTON, May 21, 1848.
DEAR SIR:

....Not in view of all the facts. 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