A further deception is that it will let in evidence which a
true issue would exclude. A true issue made by the President would be
about as follows: "I say the soil was ours, on which the first blood was
shed; there are those who say it was not."
I now proceed to examine the President's evidence as applicable to such
an issue. When that evidence is analyzed, it is all included in the
following propositions:
(1) That the Rio Grande was the western boundary of Louisiana as we
purchased it of France in 1803.
(2) That the Republic of Texas always claimed the Rio Grande as her
eastern boundary.
(3) That by various acts she had claimed it on paper.
(4) That Santa Anna in his treaty with Texas recognized the Rio Grande as
her boundary.
(5) That Texas before, and the United States after, annexation had
exercised jurisdiction beyond the Nueces--between the two rivers.
(6) That our Congress understood the boundary of Texas to extend beyond
the Nueces.
Now for each of these in its turn. His first item is that the Rio Grande
was the western boundary of Louisiana, as we purchased it of France in
1803; and seeming to expect this to be disputed, he argues over the
amount of nearly a page to prove it true, at the end of which he lets us
know that by the treaty of 1803 we sold to Spain the whole country from
the Rio Grande eastward to the Sabine.
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