judicious reforms and a conciliatory policy would meet with acceptance from the people. His reasons are given in a note below.[1] Any other course, he feared, would give the retrograde element the control of affairs in the new situation; anarchy showed her head everywhere; despotism, with its accessaries, revenge and persecution, would be sure to follow, and render it impossible for liberty ever to reign in the country. His excuses could not, however, wash away the blot he threw upon his name and fame by the violation of his solemn oath. His conduct at first aroused public hatred, which later turned into contempt for his character.
Comonfort labored under the erroneous idea that he could bring about the amalgamation of parties bitterly hating each other, and constitute a government strong enough to overrule all parties, and be at the same time independent of them all. It is not even impossible that he believed the reaccionarios would eventually get the upper hand, and consign him to the fate that General Guerrero's eminent services — compared with which his own were as nothing — did not save that patriot from. Be it as it may, he soon saw his error, and the entanglements he had got himself into. Seventy deputies assembled in Querétaro and reiterated their protest. Anarchy, now that there was no recognized supreme law, reigned in Mexico, and a three years' terrible struggle began. The plan of Tacubaya was accepted in several towns, and rejected with indignation in others.[2] Comonfort, hard
- ↑ Till the 17th he could not, he said, break his pledge to follow the constitution in every act; but after Zuloaga and his brigade set aside the code, which he was powerless to prevent, his position changed. In upsetting the code they effected a revolution, which seemed to have been prompted by the force of circumstances; and in tendering him the chief place they showed that their movement was not hostile to liberty, for they well knew him to be no compromiser with retrogression. He accepted the office under the solemn promise and condition, sine qua non, that 'ningun partido dominaría en la situacion nueva, y que el gobierno no habia de abandonar el camino de una prudente reforma, ni el pensamiento conciliador que le habia gaiado hasta entónces.' Baz, Vida de Juarez, 128; Portila, Méj. en 1356-7, 288-300.
- ↑ The states of Mexico, Tlascala, Vera Cruz, Tamaulipas, and parts of
