Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/453

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
RECOGNITION OF DIAZ.
433

upon he had himself shouldered the responsibility of government, and should continue to act in that position.[1] After some further argument the conference ended, and Iglesias returned to Celaya. He thence proceeded to Silao, where he held a council of war with his ministers and generals of division, at which the impossibility of opposing Diaz was admitted. But Iglesias would never resign his just right, and he departed for Guadalajara, where he arrived on the 30th. Here another council was held, with similar result. The states which a few weeks before had declared in his favor now recognized Diaz in quick succession. Only two alternatives were left — exile or submission. But the stanch constitutionalist preferred self-banishment to the recognition of a revolutionist; and having issued another manifesto to the nation January 2, 1877, he left Guadalajara on the 5th for Manzanillo, at which port he arrived on the 13th. On the 17th he embarked on the steamer Granada, and landed at San Francisco, California, on the 25th of the same month.

Porfirio Diaz, after the conference at La Capilla, experienced no difficulty. The different divisions of Iglesias' army successively recognized him. Marching rapidly through the states which had proclaimed for Iglesias, he reorganized their governments without opposition, and after a bloodless campaign of two months, Diaz returned to the capital, which he entered February 11th, reassuming the provisional presidency on the 15th.[2] Meantime Mendez had issued the convocatoria for the congressional and presidential elections.[3]

  1. Diaz, Datos Biog., MS., 399–402; Iglesias, Recuerdos Polit., MS., 55.
  2. Diaz, Datos Biog., MS., 402; La Voz de Méj., Feb. 13, 1877; Diario Ofic., Feb. 16, 1877.
  3. On Dec. 23d. By it all who during the last four years had been guilty of falsifying electoral votes, or had aided Lerdo in his illegal proceedings, were declared excluded from candidateship. Diario Ofic., Dec. 25, 1876. Copy of convocatoria in La Voz de Méj., Dec. 26, 1876, and Diario Debates, 8° Cong., i. 5-7.

    Vicente River Palacio — Historia de la Administracion de D. Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada. Mexico, 1875, 8°, pp. 496, with portraits. This book