Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/304

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284
MISRULE AND OVERTHROW OF SANTA ANNA.

agitation. Their object was return to power at any price. They were too greatly in the minority at the moment to effect anything by themselves, but the federalists were stronger, and so they proposed a fusion, offering to sacrifice principles if their captive champion were adopted as joint leader. This was readily agreed to, as it had been substantially during the Urrea-Farías outbreak under Bustamante.[1] A positive declaration against the segregation of Texas was added to gain support from the hot-headed portion of the community, and emissaries were despatched in different directions to promote coöperation. In Puebla sympathetic manifestations became apparent; the still subsisting hostilities in the Mizteca region obtained a fresh impulse; the assemblies of Zacatecas and Yucacan spoke firmly for a restoration of the constitution of 1824; the governor of Chihuahua was deposed by a bloodless uprising, and so also in Tabasco, although here the comandante militar Martinez prepared to assert with arms the supremacy of the federalists.[2]

Santa Anna, who had lent the aid of his purse to these manifestations, was daily waiting for an opportunity to obtain his release in order to place himself at the head of forces, but the alarmed authorities hastened to send him out of the country.[3] This served greatly to disconcert the plans laid; nevertheless, the factions at Mexico resolved to strike a blow, availing themselves of the well known federalist sympathy there, and the popularity of their chief among certain sections of the rabble and of the army, which had become discontented under the economic pressure of a distressed government.[4] On June 7th, accord-

  1. This president also enlisting the federalists just before his fall, as Santa Anna likewise attempted to do.
  2. This the most pronounced of the provincial manifestations took place on June 14th. For details concerning them all, see Siglo XIX., Monit. Constit., and other journals during June and July 1845.
  3. 'Creyó que con quince dias mas de existir en la República recobraria su imperio.' Bustamante, Nuevo Bernal Diaz, i. 22.
  4. Among the promoters are named the reconciled Tornel, Bores, deputy for Yucatan, Lafragua, Farías, and Olaguibel, who is said to have written the pronunciamiento.