15
religionists, and the absolute absence of facts on which to base the accusation preferred by Aguirre.
The following is Zarco’s article:
An accusation against the President of the Republic.
«The whole country remembers, undoubtedly, the afflicting circumstances which surrounded the Constitutional Government in the early days of its permanence at Veracruz, when dismay reigned all over the districts subjected to the Church party, and where, it is a fact, the liberals did not abound as they do to day. The condition of the interior of the Republic was painful indeed, and its situation abroad could not be worse, after the empty farce of power created by the reactionary faction in Tacubaya had been recognized as the legitimate Government of the country, thanks to the intrigues and to the interests of a European diplomatist whose memory can never be forgotten. At that time it was looked upon as a hope, as an advantage, that the Constitutional Government should succeed in obtaining recognition by the United-States of America, the liberal party believing that the moral influence of the neighboring republic, its mercantile interest, and even its physical support, would be auxiliaries to the national cause, and would hasten the triumph of right principles.
«In this aspiration, which became general among the most distinguished members of the liberal party, there was one who did not participate, who openly refused to call foreign troops to his aid, whether they were to be of the regular army of the United States, or whether they were to be volunteers who, on arriving in Mexican territory, would renounce their nationality and, after the campaign should have ended, would receive public lands on which to settle, in recompense of the services which they might lend to their adopted country. The man who thought that this plan was not consistent with the national decorum, the man who in this extreme resort foresaw a dan-
