DAILY NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, Washington, D.C., Dec. 22, 1847  

* Early Abraham Lincoln
* Spot Resolutions in Congress

Page 2 has an uncommonly lengthy report from [Abraham] Lincoln in the House of Representatives. This was his "spot resolution" and speech condemning the reasons for starting the Mexican War. He requests proof from President Polk that American blood was shed on American soil and that the enemy provoked the Americans, and he asks if those Americans present were ordered there by the United States Army.

The text begins, under the heading: "Resolutions", with: "Mr. LINCOLN moved the following preamble and resolutions, which were read and laid over under the rule:..." and what follows is the lengthy text of his report.

Portions include (see full text in the photos): "...1st. Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican Revolution.

            2d. Whether that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico.  

            3d. 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.

            4th. 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..." and much more.

At the time a freshman Whig Congressman from Illinois, Lincoln's was one of several congressional resolutions opposing the war but it was never acted upon by the full Congress. Lincoln's action temporarily earned him a derisive nickname, "spotty Lincoln," coined by an Illinois newspaper.

Quite uncommon to find such a lengthy report on Lincoln from early in his political career. He was 38 years old at the time.

Four pages, nice condition.