Dear William,--Your letter of Dec. 27 was received a day or two ago. I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken, and promise to take, in my little business there. As to speech-making, by way of getting the hang of the House, I made a little speech two or three days ago, on a post-office question of no general interest. I find speaking _here and elsewhere_ about the same thing. I was about as badly scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make one within a week or two, in which I hope to succeed well enough to wish you to see it. It is very pleasant to me to learn from you that there are some who desire that I should be re-elected. I most heartily thank them for the kind partiality; and I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas, that "_personally_ I would not object" to a re-election, although I thought at the time, and still think, it would be quite as well for me to return to the law at the end of a single term. I made the declaration, that I would not be a candidate again, more from a wish to deal fairly with others, to keep peace among our friends, and to keep the district from going to the enemy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that, if it should so happen _that nobody else wishes to be elected_, I could not refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself as a competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is what my word and honor forbid. I get some letters intimating a probability of so much difficulty amongst our friends as to lose us the district; but I remember such letters were written to Baker when my own case was under consideration, and I trust there is no more ground for such apprehension now than there was then. Remember I am always glad to receive a letter from you. Most truly your friend, A. Lincoln. Thoroughly hostile to Polk, and hotly opposed to the war, Mr. Lincoln took an active, although not a leading part in the discussions relating to the commencement and conduct of the latter. He was politician enough, however, to go with the majority of his party in voting supplies to the troops, and thanks to the generals, whilst censuring the President by solemnly declaring that the "war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." But his position, and the position of the Whigs, will be made sufficiently apparent by the productions of his own pen. On the 22d of December, 1847, Mr. Lincoln introduced a preamble and resolutions, which attained great celebrity in Illinois under the title of "Spot Resolutions," and in all probability lost the party a great many votes in the Springfield district. They were as follows:--