12th of August following. The other prisoners were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in Perote."6

A few months previous to Raousset's invasion of Sonora, William Walker, who some years later became the famous adventurer of Nicaragua, landed, on the 28th of November, 1853, with a piratical expedition from San Francisco, at San Lúcas, in Lower California, with the intent, as was said, of annexing that country to the United States. The invaders marched to La Paz, which they plundered, committing also other lawless acts; after which they reëmbarked for La Ensenada, 100 miles from San Diego, at which place, as well as at Todos Santos, they encamped, repeating in that region their acts of plunder. On the news reaching Santo Tomás, armed forces were despatched after them. Walker and his men did not wait to be attacked, but abandoned the country and returned to California.47

All remonstrances and conciliatory efforts on the part of the government availed naught to keep the bishop of Puebla from attempting to rouse the hostility of the masses against it; whereupon the president resolved on the 12th of May to send him into exile." The bishop tried to give satisfactory explanations, and in a letter to Comonfort denied the expressions attributed to him, offering to prove his assertion with witnesses, and respectfully asking for a rescission of the order; but his petition was not granted, and he was taken to Habana in a national ship expressly fitted out for his comfortable transportation.49 This

46

16 An account of Raousset's invasions of Sonora is given in Hist. North Mexican States, vol. ii., this series.

Particulars of this episode appear in Hist. North Mexican States, vol. ii., this series.

48 He was accused of reproaching the people for allowing the seizure of church property. In circulars he advised resistance to the authorities. His sermons caused great alarm to the friends of the government, and rejoicing to its enemies. He truly believed he was doing his duty. Rivera, Gob. de Méx., ii. 500; Portilla, Méj. en 1856-7, 32-4; Arrangoiz, Méj., ii. 349, calls that banishment 'otra de las infinitas tropelias.'

"Bishop Labastida, on June 16th at Habana, declared that he never by

OPPOSITION TO THE CHURCH.

687

was not the only measure adopted against members of the clergy. Čongress revoked Santa Anna's decree of September 19, 1853, permitting the restoration of the society of Jesus.60 This may be called an infringement of the principles of unlimited liberty so much boasted of.

Comonfort went to reside at Tacubaya, where he had a garrison under General Parrodi. General Juan Soto succeeded Yañez in the war department, and the latter was given the command of the troops in Sonora, Sinaloa, and Lower California. The treasury portfolio resigned by Payno was first given to Muñoz Ledo, and finally, on the 20th of May, to Miguel Lerdo de Tejada.

Just at this time another difficulty came to annoy Comonfort and the liberal party, threatening dissension, which was the resignation of the presidency, and of his rank as general of division, by Alvarez at La Providencia. Congress got over the matter by accepting the report of the committee to which the resignation had been referred, that it was not of its cognizance.

The government had besides to cope with that greatest of difficulties, scarcity of resources; for it had removed all the taxes established by the dictator Santa Anna. The only sources of revenue left were the excise, which Vidaurri objected to, and the duties from customs, quite small at this time, owing to the want of confidence among the merchants caused by the presence at Vera Cruz of a Spanish squadron which brought the Spanish minister Miguel de los Santos Álvarez. It looked like a hostile demonstration, and as long as it continued, Mexico could lend herself to no negotiations with him. The situation was made. more stringent by the harsh tone of the Madrid semi

word or deed manifested, or authorized in his clergy, hostility to the constituted authorities; he had only upheld the interests of the church, as in duty bound by the oath taken at his consecration. Bordanova, Conducta del Ob. de Puebla, 60-8.

50 Passed June 6th. Archivo Mex., Col. Ley., ii. 168–9; Zarco, Hist. Cong, Constituy., i. 378-410.

official press. There were also pending questions with Great Britain and the United States which distracted the president's attention.

Serious disagreements having broken out between the constituent congress and Comonfort, fears were for a time entertained that the latter would disperse that body and assume the dictatorial powers conferred on him by the plan de Ayutla, ignoring the fact that the same plan gave congress authority to revise the acts of the government. To arrive at an understanding of this state of affairs, I must revert to the adoption by the president, with the sanction of his ministers, of the estatuto orgánico, which was published after the draught of a constitution had been framed, on the 15th of May." That statute had a tendency to the centralization of the government, by extending the action of the executive over everything, not excepting even the municipalities, in exchange for the renunciation he voluntarily made of the full powers the revolution had vested in him. It did, however, confine his authority within legal bounds, and for this reason might be termed a constitution, embracing as it did many of the clauses to be discussed by the constituent congress. Some governors and deputies showed their disapproval in formal protests, doubtless because the former were deprived of the unlimited powers they had been exercising; the fact that the law terminated the existing anarchy went for nothing in the estimation of these protestants. This was likewise the cause of dissension between the executive and congress, imbittered by the former claiming a direct participation in the proceedings of the latter, with the avowed purpose of tempering the action of the deputies, who, carried away by the excitement under which they had been elected, deemed it their duty to set up a government diametrically opposed in

51 Under the ninth section of this instrument, the governors of states and jefes políticos of territories were to be appointed by the president; it set forth their powers and duties, making of them real dictators. Archivo Mex., Col. Ley., ii. 110-49.

principle to that of the tyrant so effectively overthrown.52

The draught of the new constitution had its first reading on the 16th of June, and the consideration of its clauses was begun at once. It embodied many principles borrowed from the organic code of the northern United States.53 The declaration of the rights of man rested on the opinions of the most approved publicists, and on principles recognized in the codes of the most enlightened nations. Equality before the law was accepted as a fundamental right, and therefore all special privileges and prerogatives were rejected.

With the adoption of such principles, the idea of monarchical institutions for the country was out of the question, and the fueros hitherto claimed by the military and the ecclesiastics were effectually abolished.

52 The point was warmly discussed in the chamber several days, but no final action seems to have been taken. Zarco, Hist. Cong. Constituy., i. 41920, 425, 517-20, 543-5, 571-6, 617–35; Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, iv. 665–8, 672– 5, 687; Id., Gob. de Méx., ii. 501–4.

33 The authors and others who subscribed to it, while recognizing the merits of the old one of 1824 for the time it was enacted, qualified it as incomplete and non-progressive, not such a one as the exigencies of the present and fu ture generations required.

HIST. MEX., VOL. V. 44

CHAPTER XXVII.

CONSTITUTION AND REFORMS.

COMONFORT SUSPECTED

1856-1857.

ARCHBISHOP LA GARZA'S COURSE-LEY LERDO - COMONFORT AND CONGRESS RECONCILED-CONSTITUTION OF 1857REBELLIOUS CLERGY-SECOND PUEBLA CAMPAIGN-MORE SEDITIOUS ACTS -NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE POPE FAIL-MORE SUSPICIONS AGAINST CoMONFORT- - POLITICAL CONFUSION-LAWS AFFECTING THE CLERGYCONSERVATIVE MANŒUVRES-LIBERAL DEMANDS-COMONFORT'S VACIL

LATION.

THE delay in promulgating the constitution, and the bickerings in the liberal party, filled the minds of its best men with fear that the reactionists might regain the ascendancy, renew past horrors, and even dismember the country. The chief points at issue in the party were: the organization of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon as one state;1 the reinstallation of the government council decreed by the president; and Álvarez' resignation of the presidency. The conservatives and the clergy were bent on making of every political question a religious one, and the radicals were disclosing socialistic views. The allied foes of the ruling party had, for a while, pretended to side with the president, highly commending his conciliatory spirit and his energetic measures to preserve public order; they had actually advocated his striking a blow at the congress. Their purpose, as was

1 Governor Vidaurri having attempted to annex the greater part of Coahuila's towns to Nuevo Leon, the president, on the 15th of April, 1856, declared his act null. This decree was confirmed by the constituent congress on the 25th of Sept. Archivo Mex., Col. Ley., ii. 371-2.