battle when they were removed from the protecting shelter of walls and houses. At length, the intervention of Mexican citizens. who were most interested in the cessation of hostilities, produced an arrangement between the belligerants at Estanzuela near the capital, and, finally, the PLAN OF TACUBAYA was agreed on by the chiefs as a substitute for the constitution of 1836. By the seventh article of this document, Santa Anna was effectually invested with dictatorial powers until a new constitution was formed.

The Plan of Tacubaya provided that a congress should be convened, in 1842, to form a new constitution, and in June, a body of patriotic citizens, chosen by the people, assembled for that purpose in the metropolis. Santa Anna opened the session with a speech in which he announced his predilection for a strong central government, but he professed perfect willingness to yield to whatever might be the decision of congress. Nevertheless, in December of the same year, after the assembly had made two efforts to form a constitution suitable to the country and the cabinet, president Santa Anna, in spite of his professed submission to the national will expressed through the representatives, suddenly and unauthorizedly, dissolved the congress. It was a daring act; but Santa Anna knew that he could rely upon his troops, his officers, and the mercantile classes for support. The capital wanted quietness for a while; and the interests of trade as well as the army united in confidence in the strong will of one who was disposed to maintain order by force.

After congress had been dissolved by Santa Anna, there was, of course, no further necessity of an appeal to the people. The nation had spoken, but its voice was disregarded. Nothing therefore remained, save to allow the dictator, himself, to frame the organic laws; and for this purpose he appointed a Junta of Notables, who proclaimed, on the 13th of June, 1843, an instrument which never took the name of a constitution, but bore the mongrel itle of "Bases of the Political Organization of the Mexican Repubic." It is essentially central, in its provisions; and whilst it is as intolerant upon the subject of religion, as the two former fundamental systems, it is even less popular in its general provisions than the constitution of 1836.

CHAPTER VII.

1843- 1846.

RECONQUEST OF TEXAS PROPOSED. — CANALIZO PRESIDENT AD REVOLUTION UNDER PAREDES IN 1844. SANTA - TEXAN REVOLT.

INTERIM.

ANNA FALLS

HERRERA PRESIDENT

GIN OF WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES.

THE

ORITEXAN WAR FOR

CONSTITUTION OF 1824-NATIONALITY RECOGNIZED ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES.- -PROPOSITION TO MEXICO. HERRERA OVERTHROWN

ISTER REJECTED.

OUR MIN

PAREDES PRESIDENT
CHARACTER OF GENERAL PAREDES.

AFTER the foundation of the new system in 1843, the country continued quiet for a while, and when the Mexican Congress met, in January 1844, propositions were made by the executive department to carry out Santa Anna's favorite project of re-conquering Texas. It is probable that there was not much sincerity in the president's desire to march his troops into a territory the recollection of which must have been, at least, distasteful to him. There is more reason to believe that the large sum which it was necessary to appropriate for the expenses of the campaign—the management of which would belong to the administration, was the real object he had in view. Four millions were granted for the re-conquest, but when Santa Anna demanded ten millions more while the first grant was still uncollected, the members refused to sustain the president's demand. The congressmen were convinced of that chieftain's rapacity, and resolved to afford him no further opportunity to plunder the people under the guise of patriotism.

Santa Anna's sagacious knowledge of his countrymen immediately apprised him of approaching danger, and having obtained permission from congress to retire to his estate at Mango de Clavo, near Vera Cruz, he departed from the capital, leaving his friend General Canalizo as president ad interim. Hardly had he reached his plantation in the midst of friends and faithful troops, when a revolt burst out in Jalisco, Agnas Calientes, Zacatecas, Sinaloa and Sonora, against his government, headed by General Paredes. Santa Anna rapidly crossed the country to suppress the rebellion, but as he disobeyed

SANTA ANNA FALLS- -HERRERA-TEXAN REVOLT.

327

the constitutional compact by taking actual command of the army whilst he was president, without the previous assent of congress, he became amenable to law for this violation of his oath. He was soon at enmity with the rebels and with the constitutional congress, and thus a three fold contest was carried on, chiefly through correspondence, until the 4th of January, 1845, when Santa Anna finally fell. He fled from the insurgents and constitutional authorities towards the eastern coast, but being captured at the village of Jico, was conducted to Perote, where he remained imprisoned under a charge and examination for treason, until an amnesty for the late political factionists permitted him to depart on the 29th of May, 1845, with his family, for Havana.

Upon Santa Anna's ejection from the executive chair, the president of the council of government, became under the laws of the country, provisional president of the republic. This person was General José Joaquim de Herrera, during whose administration the controversies rose which resulted in the war between Mexico and the United States.

The thread of policy and action in both conntries is so closely interwoven during this pernicious contest, that the history of the war becomes, in reality, the history of Mexico for the epoch. We are therefore compelled to narrate, succinctly, the circumstances that led to that lamentable issue.

The first empresario, or contractor, for the colonization of Texas, was Moses Austin, a native citizen of the United States, who, as soon as the treaty of limits between Spain and our country was concluded in 1819, conceived the project of establishing a settlement in that region. Accordingly, in 1821 he obtained from the Commandant General of the Provincias Internas, permission to introduce three hundred foreign families. In 1823, a national colonization law was approved by the Mexican Emperor Iturbide during his brief reign, and on the 18th of February, Stephen F. Austin, who had succeeded his father, after his death, in carrying out the project, was authorized to proceed with the founding of the colony. After the emperor's fall, this decree was confirmed by the first executive council in conformity to the express will of congress.

In 1824 the federal constitution of Mexico was, as we have narrated, adopted, by the republican representatives, upon principles analogous to those of the constitution of the United States; and by a decree of the 7th of May, Texas and Coahuila were united in a state. In this year another general colonization law was enacted

28

ORIGIN OF WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES.

by congress, and foreigners were invited to the new domain by a special state colonization law of Coahuila and Texas.

Under these local laws and constitutional guaranties, large numbers of foreigners flocked to this portion of Mexico, opened farms, founded towns and villages, re-occupied old Spanish settlements, introduced improvements in agriculture and manufactures, drove off the Indians, and formed, in fact, the nucleus of an enterprizing and progressive population. But there were jealousies between the race that invited the colonists, and the colonists who accepted the invitation. The central power in the distant capital did not estimate, at their just value, the independence of the remote pioneers, or the state-right sovereignty to which they had been accustomed at their former home in the United States. Mexico was convulsed by revolutions, but the lonely residents of Texas paid no attention to the turmoils of the factionists. At length, however, direct acts of interference upon the part of the national government, not only by its ministerial agents, but by its legislature, excited the mingled alarm and indignation of the colonists, who imagined that in sheltering themselves under a republic they were protected as amply as they would have been under the constitution of the North American Union. In this they were disappointed; for, in 1830, an arbitrary enactment-based no doubt upon a jealous dread of the growing value and size of a colony which formed a link between the United States and Mexico by resting against Tamaulipas and Louisiana, on the north and south, — prohibited entirely the future immigration of American settlers into Coahuila and Texas. To enforce this decree and to watch the loyalty of the actual inhabitants, military posts, composed of rude and ignorant Mexican soldiers, were sprinkled over the country. And, at last, the people of Texas found themselves entirely under military control.

This suited neither the principles nor tastes of the colonists, who, in 1832, took arms against this warlike interference with their municipal liberty, and after capturing the fort at Velasco, reduced to submission the garrisons at Anahuac and Nacogdoches. The separate state constitution which had been promised Texas in 1824, was never sanctioned by the Mexican Congress, though the colonists prepared the charter and were duly qualified for admission. But the crisis arrived when the centralists of 1835, overthrew the federal constitution of 1824. Several Mexican states rose independently against the despotic act. Zacatecas fought bravely for her rights, and saw her people basely slain by the myrmidons of Santa Anna. The legislature of Coahuila and Texas was dispersed

TEXAN WAR FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF 1824.

329

by the military; and, at last, the whole republic, save the pertinacious North Americans, yielded to the armed power of the resolute oppressor.

ence.

The alarmed settlers gathered together as quickly as they could and resolved to stand by their federative rights under the charter whose guaranties allured them into Mexico. Meetings were held in all the settlements, and a union was formed by means of correspondArms were next resorted to and the Texans were victorious at Gonzales, Goliad, Bejar, Conception, Lepantitlan, San Patricio and San Antonio. In November they met in consultation, and in an able, resolute and dignified paper, declared that they had only taken up arms in defence of the constitution of 1824; that their object was to continue loyal to the confederacy if laws were made for the guardianship of their political rights, and that they offered their lives and arms in aid of other members of the republic who would rightfully rise against the military despotism.

in

But the other states, in which there was no infusion of North Americans or Europeans, refused to second this hardy handful of pioneers. Mexico will not do justice, in any of her commentaries on the Texan war, to the motives of the colonists. Charging them with an original and long meditated design to rob the repub lic of one of its most valuable provinces, she forgets entirely or glosses over, the military acts of Santa Anna's invading army, March, 1836, at the Alamo and Goliad, which converted resistance into revenge. After those disgraceful scenes of carnage peace was no longer possible. Santa Anna imagined, no doubt, that he would terrify the settlers into submission if he could not drive them from the soil. But he mistook both their fortitude and their force; and, after the fierce encounter at San Jacinto, on the 21st of April, 1836, with Houston and his army, the power of Mexico over the insurgent state was effectually and forever broken.

After Santa Anna had been taken prisoner by the Texans, in this fatal encounter, and was released and sent home through the United States in order to fulfil his promise to secure the recognition of Texan independence, the colonists diligently began the work of creating for themselves a distinct nationality, for they failed in all their early attempts to incorporate themselves with the United States during the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. These presidents were scrupulous and faithful guardians of national honor, while they respected the Mexican right of reconquest. Their natural sympathies were of course yielded to Texas, but their executive duties, the faith of treaties, and the sanctions of