Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/271

Rh speaking of the document of Tacubaya, "upon this impudent document, which proposes to the Mexican nation a military government, and the most ominous of dictatorships in favor of the false Defender of Public Liberty, of the most ferocious enemy of every government that has existed in the country, I hasten to send it to you, that you may have it published in this State, where surely it will excite the same indignation as in an immense majority of the inhabitants of the capital, who, jealous of the national glory, and decided to lose everything in order to preserve it, have spontaneously proclaimed the reestablishment of the federal system, the whole garrison having followed this impulse. There is no medium between liberty and tyranny; and the government, relying on the good sense of the nation, which will not see with indifference the slavery that is preparing for it, puts itself in the hands of the States, resolved to sacrifice itself on the altars of the country, or to strengthen its liberty forever.

"I enclose the renunciation which His Excellency Don Anastasio Bustamante makes of the Presidency," &c.

3d October.—Though a very democratic crowd collected, and federalism was proclaimed in Mexico, it appears that no confidence in the government was inspired by this last measure. Some say that had Bustamante alone declared for the federal system, and had sent some effective cavalry to protect the pronunciados of that party all through the country, he might have triumphed still. Be that as it may, General Canalizo pronounced for federalism on the