Lincoln attacks Polk's war policy. He defends his "spot resolutions" and attempts to disprove Polk's contention that Mexicans began war. "The President is, in no wise, satisfied with his own positions," he declares. ". . . He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show, there is not something about his conscience, more painful than all his mental perplexity!"Globe; Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico, 12 January 1848, CW, 1:431-42.