Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/64

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44
CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.

lived for some time in concealment. On the 2d of March, 1829, he embarked at Tampico for London, having previously resigned his right to the presidency.[1] The result of this victory was that the congress, which assembled on the 1st of January, 1829, annulled the election of Gomez Pedraza, and chose Guerrero as the second president, Anastasio Bustamante being appointed vice-president. Thus was the national constitution rent, and the door opened for future excesses.

The retiring president had hoped to weather the storm, and recover his lost authority by the appointment of Guerrero as minister of war.[2] The latter part of his administration was indeed stormy, and he seems to have become bewildered, an evidence of which is the step he took in going to the ex-acordada building to parley with rebels.

The country felt the shock of the lawless acts of the mob at the capital. But the yorkinos looked at the matter in a different light, claiming that a new era of peace, prosperity, and happiness had been secured for Mexico.

Victoria's term ended on the 1st of April, 1829, and he retired from office, never again to appear in public life except in an inferior role.[3] It must be said in his favor that though he was often influenced by favorites, he never was false to his principles. During his rule were founded the order of the Águila Negra, and the York rite lodges, the former by a Bethlehemite friar named Simon Cruz, whom Victoria banished to Yucatan, where he died. In the organization of the lodges Victoria really took but little

  1. Suarez y Nararro, Hist. Méx., 130.
  2. Guerrero held that office only a few days and resigned it, that he might not be suspected of looking after his personal interests. He was then given the command of the forces in Puebla, Oajaca, and Vera Cruz. Id., 131.
  3. He was governor of Puebla, which position he resigned to become a senator for Durango, his native state. In March 1839 he served as one of the two Mexican plenipotentiaries to negotiate a treaty of peace with France. Blanchard and Dauzats, San Juan de Ulúa, 493-4.