Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/378

346 that of Governor of Oaxaca. He became afterwards Secretary of State, and President of the Supreme Court of Justice.

On the 17th of February, 1857, a new Constitution was promulgated by the enlightened Congress. It declared that national sovereignty resides essentially in the people, and adopted the republican form of government, representative, democratic, and federal. It proclaimed each state free and sovereign within its limits, and introduced many reforms and improvements in the old code. It was received with great applause by the liberal party, but with little disguised disapproval by the army and clergy, who set themselves from its birth to combating its success. Great disturbance arose, excommunication of the liberals, promulgations, pronunciamentos, arrests, uprisings. From the midst of all the confusion Juarez took possession of the presidency by right of his position as head of the Supreme Court, since Comonfort, the legitimate President, had pronounced, been condemned, and forced to leave the country. Juarez and his party held their own through much adverse circumstance. On his side were ranged, in the defence of the Constitution of 1857, Doblado, Ortega, Zaragoza, Guillermo, Prieto, and other important men; on the side of the clerigos were the Generals Miramon and Marquez, and the greater part of the chiefs of the regular army. Civil war waged over the land; there is reason to believe that moderate principles and the Constitution of 1857 would have triumphed, had it not been for the strange and certainly unexpected events of the