Page:Juarez and Cesar Cantú (1885).djvu/5

 He says, for instance, that Maximilian

 "granted liberty to the negroes at the same time in which "Lincoln decreed that of the negroes in the United States."

What knowledge of Mexico, of its history, of its social condition, can a man have who, without hesitation, thus declares that there were slaves in this country when Maximilian arrived? If Cesar Cantú, in the full compliance with his duties as a historian, had consulted the books that had already been published about Mexico, he would have learned, as we all know here, that in December 1810, the illustrious curate of Dolores solemnly issued a decree granting liberty to the negroes; that Morelos repeated this decree on the 5th of October 1813, and that Guerrero, on the 15th of September 1829, confirmed those prescriptions by another decree which contained these two articles:

 "1st Slavery is abolished in the Republic." "2nd All persons who hitherto have been considered as slaves, are free."

But there is yet something more to he noted. Maximilian, far from having abolished slavery, which did not exist in Mexico, entertained the idea of re-establishing that hateful institution, acting, for this purpose, in accord with the Southern Confederacy, as may be seen by innumerable documents which are to be found in the fifth volume of the Correspondence of the Mexican Legation in Washington, and which were published here in 1871.

He says also that Juarez "from the adjacent territory (alluding to the United States) continued to call himself the legitimate Chief of Mexico," when all the world knows that Juarez never for a moment abandoned the