Page:Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala.djvu/20

 was supported by certain misguided elements at home. Nor will she forget that the sentiment of the American people during that crisis clearly showed that, if the United States had not been engaged in a civil war of vast proportions, the support given to Mexico would have been more than moral, and would have sufficed to terminate the struggle some years earlier.

In the same note it is stated that the forces of the Emperor Iturbide having occupied a large portion of the territory of Central America, the fortune of war forced them to abandon all that territory except Soconusco and Chiapas, and that Mexico, after becoming a republic, did not desist from reclamations founded upon the imperial policy of absorption and conquest.

In this there are some historical errors, and especially one which is due, as already stated, to one-sided allegations or to the fact that, unfortunately, the history of Mexico is not well known. Even during the empire of Iturbide it was not conquest but the free-will of the inhabitants of Chiapas and Soconusco which determined their annexation to Mexico, as well as that of all the provinces of Central America except Salvador. In the use of the same liberty, they afterward separated from this country and formed with Guatemala a republic; always excepting Chiapas and Soconusco, which, after Mexico became a republic, re newed their determination to remain incorporated therewith.

As it is not possible here to recount the history of what occurred, it will suffice to mention that, on account of the ever-renewed claims of Guatemala, there have been published very serious and carefully studied treatises with the object of proving the right which Mexico originally acquired to this portion of her