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Valentino Gomez Farias and Anastasio Bustamente

From Mexico and Her Military Chieftains by Fay Robinson, published 1847

Valentine Gomez Farias is one of the most eminent men in Mexico, and has always been found in the same phase of the political world, a partisan of radical reform. His name has appeared in the records of every event since the revolution, having been a diputado to the first congresses; always the defender of popular liberties, he opposed Iturbide when the latter made himself a monarch, although one of his partisans at the commencement of his career; supported both Pedraza and Victoria, and has always been willing to stand by any one who would take a step towards the advancement of popular liberty.  He first appears in a prominent position when, at the expiration of Pedraza's presidency, Santa Anna was chosen to succeed him with Farias as his vice-president. The state of affairs in Mexico at this period was most peculiar. Santa Anna was the constitutional president, and sought to destroy the instrument under which he held office so as to extend his authority, while Gomez Farias, a liberal, or "exaltado," was anxious to increase the privileges of the people, and assimilate the government to that of the United States his great object of admiration. In the congress of 1833 and 1834, there was a strong majority in favor of the vice-president, and decrees were passed or proposed destroying much of the incubus of oppression, by which the church, heterodox in the eyes of the Catholic world, as it was repugnant to the principles of a free people, would have been removed. Santa Anna long protested against these innovations, and at length began to hint that he would employ force to counteract the "views of the reformers." This was a hazardous scheme, the chances of which, however, he had well calculated; and by one of those maneuvers which be so well understood, be began to concentrate his forces around the capital. He proceeded so far as to post a guard at the door of the senate chamber, and gave to the officer in command, Captain Cortez, orders to exclude all but the senators known to be his friends. At this outrage, Cortez, who had been educated in the United States, represented, in a conversation not long afterwards, that though he obeyed his general, he felt as if he were guilty of matricide, knowing that he destroyed the liberties of his country. The consequence was, that the congress immediately declared the freedom of its discussions invaded, and on the 14th of May, 1834, suspended its sessions. This is the last thing a deliberative body should do. It should remember it has no dignity separate from that of its constituents; that it is its duty to do all things, to suffer all things, rather than degrade the character of the nation. A senate should never fly from a foreign enemy; and it may be with some propriety maintained, that it should sit, like the old Romans, calmly in the capitol till Gauls plucked at the beards of the senators.

The senate of Mexico, however, was not Roman. It was not even supported by the prejudices of the people. It is one of the peculiarities of the Spanish race, on both continents, to love titles. The old Castilian, like the soldier in Kotzebue's "Pizarro" proof to bribes, can be won by an appeal to kindness and vanity. The race is everywhere fond of titles, and consequently jealous of those who possess higher distinction than themselves. Mier y Teran, when he dispersed the congress of Chilpanzingo, said "that instead of attending to the interests of the people, its members were occupied in taking care of themselves, and calling each other excellentisimos," and this account seems to exhibit all the characteristics of the legislative assemblies of the country, before or since. The consequence of such a state of affairs could not but be jealousy on the part of the people, the existence of which Santa Anna took advantage of immediately on the suspension of its sessions by the congress, Santa Anna appealed to the people by a proclamation, in which he set forth his views in relation to the preservation of religion, order, and law, all of which, he said, were threatened by the vice-president, Farias, and his tyrannical majority in the legislature. How potent this address was, will be understood by a reference to a subsequent chapter, in which is exhibited a statement of the condition of the church. The minds of the people having been prepared by this address, a pronunciamento was effected on the 25th of May, at Cuernavaca, a town of the department of Mexico, about thirty miles from the capital. The plan proposed on this occasion was strange: it put a negative on all prospect of improvement from the extension of religious liberty, by a provision that all laws affecting church property should be repealed; it destroyed liberty of political opinion, by an enactment that all the partisans of the federal system should be banished, that the actual congress had ceased to exist, and that another should be convened, the members of which were to possess full powers to re-organize the government. This plan was almost universally adhered to, and the session of congress finally ceased. The new congress met on the 1st of January, 1835, as has previously been described, and the first act was to declare the vice-president, Farias, disfranchised, and he was accordingly compelled to retire to New Orleans, where he resided as lately as 1838. It then proceeded to a series of discussions, relative to the form of government, & c., the result of which was a declaration that congress might make any alterations it pleased in the organic form of the government, so that a republican constitution existed, and the Catholic religion was not interfered with.