Into this scheme of his party Lincoln entered with hearty concurrence. A week after the House met he closed a letter to his partner with the remark: "As you are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long," and what he said humorously he probably meant seriously. Accordingly he soon afterward[58] introduced a series of resolutions, which, under the nickname of "The Spot Resolutions," attracted some attention. Quoting in his preamble sundry paragraphs of the President's message of May 11, 1846, to the purport that Mexico had "invaded _our territory_" and had "shed the blood of our citizens on _our own soil_" he then requested the President to state "_the spot_" where these and other alleged occurrences had taken place. His first "little speech" was on "a post-office question of no general interest;" and he found himself "about as badly scared and no worse" than when he spoke in court. So a little later, January 12, 1848, he ventured to call up his resolutions and to make an elaborate speech upon them.[59] It was not a very great or remarkable speech, but it was a good one, and not conceived in the fervid and florid style which defaced his youthful efforts; he spoke sensibly, clearly, and with precision of thought; he sought his strength in the facts, and went in straight pursuit of the truth; his best intellectual qualities were plainly visible. The resolutions were not acted upon, and doubtless their actual passage had never been expected; but they were a good shot well placed; and they were sufficiently noteworthy to save Lincoln from being left among the herd of the nobodies of the House. In view of his future career, but for no other reason, a brief paragraph is worth quoting. He says:-- "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the _right_ to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right,--a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that _can_, may revolutionize, and make their _own_ of so much of the territory as they inhabit." This doctrine, so comfortably applied to Texas in 1848, seemed unsuitable for the Confederate States in 1861. But possibly the point lay in the words, "having the power," and "can," for the Texans "had the power" and "could," and the South had it not and could not; and so Lincoln's practical proviso saved his theoretical consistency; though he must still have explained how either Texas or the South could know whether they "had the power," and "could," except by trial.