In his message of December, 1846, it seems to have occurred to
him, as is certainly true, that title-ownership-to soil or anything else
is not a simple fact, but is a conclusion following on one or more simple
facts; and that it was incumbent upon him to present the facts from which
he concluded the soil was ours on which the first blood of the war was
shed.
Accordingly, a little below the middle of page twelve in the message last
referred to, he enters upon that task; forming an issue and introducing
testimony, extending the whole to a little below the middle of page
fourteen. Now, I propose to try to show that the whole of this--issue and
evidence--is from beginning to end the sheerest deception. The issue, as
he presents it, is in these words: "But there are those who, conceding
all this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of
Texas is the Nueces, instead of the Rio Grande; and that, therefore, in
marching our army to the east bank of the latter river, we passed the
Texas line and invaded the territory of Mexico." Now this issue is made
up of two affirmatives and no negative. The main deception of it is that
it assumes as true that one river or the other is necessarily the
boundary; and cheats the superficial thinker entirely out of the idea
that possibly the boundary is somewhere between the two, and not actually
at either.
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