What were Abraham Lincoln''s Spot Resolutions?

In December 1847, during his only term in the House of Representatives, a gangly 38-year-old Abraham Lincoln stepped briefly into the national spotlight by questioning whether President James K. Polk had told the truth when he said that the Mexican-American War was necessary because Mexico had “shed American blood on American soil.” At issue was the location of a detachment of American soldiers when they skirmished with Mexican troops in April 1846. At the time, the United States claimed that the Rio Grande was the border between Mexico and Texas. Mexico said it was farther north and east, at the Nueces River. The American troops were across the Rio Grande from the Mexican city of Matamoros when they engaged the Mexican forces, meaning that they had actually been in disputed territory. Lincoln introduced eight resolutions with which he sought to “establish whether the particular spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was, or was not, our own soil, at that time.”