"Fellow-citizens, here is Ficklin, who was at that time in Congress with me, and he knows it is a lie." He shook Ficklin until his teeth chattered. Fearing that he would shake Ficklin's head off, I grasped Mr. Lincoln's hand and broke his grip. Mr. Ficklin sat down, and Lincoln continued his address. [2] Page 24, line 2, after the word "Mexico." In a speech delivered in the House July 27, 1848, on General Politics, Mr. Lincoln said: "The declaration that we (the Whigs) have always opposed the Mexican War is true or false accordingly as one may understand the term 'opposing the war.' If to say 'the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President' be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all, they have said this; and they said it on what appeared good reasons to them: the marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure, but it does not appear so to us. So to call such an act to us appears no other than a naked, impudent absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had begun and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we have always opposed the war." On another occasion Mr. Lincoln said that the claim that the Mexican War was not aggressive reminded him of the farmer who asserted, "I ain't greedy 'bout land, I only just wants what jines mine." [F] For some time before this speech Mr. Lincoln had been receiving letters from friends inquiring as to the truth or falsity of Mr. Douglas's charge. Knowing that he had opposed the war with Mexico, while in Congress, they were in doubt whether or not the charge was true, and believed that if true it would be dangerous to his prospects. To one of these anxious friends he writes under date of June 24, 1858: "Give yourself no concern about my voting against the supplies, unless you are without faith that a lie can be successfully contradicted. There is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just considering a little as to the best shape to put a contradiction in. Show this to whom you please, but do not publish it in the papers." After the speaking was over, Mr. Ficklin, who had been opposed to Lincoln in politics, but was on terms of warm personal friendship with him, turned to him and said: "Lincoln, you nearly shook all the Democracy out of me to-day."