Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/124

Rh. This unjustifiable proceeding was sustained by the subservient ministerial majority in congress.

The national congress from 1829 to the end of 1830, taken as a whole, was undeserving of popular respect. During the first session both houses were subservient to the demands of all parties. Their bickerings and general discordance brought upon the country all the troubles resulting from the Jalapa plan. In 1830, the legislative body, with a few honorable exceptions among its members, went over to the support of the men who effected the overthrow of Guerrero's government, which explains the ease with which it was accomplished as well as the facility with which Bustamante's administration obtained a legal status. But the congress of 1831-2 conducted itself with still greater subserviency to the will of the ministers, passing special laws, establishing special courts to terrorize those discontented with the existing order of things, giving the government almost unlimited powers, decreeing proscriptions, and rewarding crime. It permitted the executive, without protest, to modify or construe the laws at will.

The judiciary was not free from the corruption that pervaded congress. The courts, from the lowest to the highest, lent themselves to subterfuge and chicanery to please the government, and became its abject tools, as was made evident in the proceedings against Alpuche, Zerecero, Gondra, and others, and in the admission of the inost absurd charges, preferred in most cases by notoriously disreputable men. The independence of the legislative and judicial powers no longer existed, and the people were actually at the