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126 soldier he was held to be a martinet; later, as a statesman, he was a strict republican. He lent his support to Iturbide, however, while on the throne, and was of much service to him. In 1824 he was despatched to Puebla as comandante general and governor; and charges of neglect to prosecute malefactors being preferred against him, he was recalled, tried by court-martial, but finally acquitted; after which President Victoria called him to assume the portfolio of war in his cabinet. Of the particulars of his election to the presidency in 1828, and the events therewith connected, I have spoken in a previous chapter. The new government made its triumphal entry into the capital January 3, 1833, and was received with homage. But a fatality seemed to accompany the republic in every effort to consolidate its peace and political institutions. Envy and discord were ever alive, and now showed their unhappy tendencies in the interior. Zacatecas, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosí made objections to some articles in the plan of Zavaleta, grounded on their alleged inefficacy to save the country from a reaction.

The sincere pledges of the new cabinet and confidence inspired induced the states to abandon the prospect of a convention. But the dangerous question initiated by Zacatecas, Jalisco, and San Luis Potosí demanded a prompt solution. While the states named two citizens to form a privy council, the executive established a board composed of two natives of each state to aid him in carrying out his plans of reform, and at the same time watch his acts. This would be a further guaranty of his good intentions. A meeting of commissioners from Zacatecas, Jalisco, Durango, Querétaro, and San Luis Potosí, on the