Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/25

Rh themselves into two distinct parties, namely, federalists and centralists. The former, as their name denotes, preferred a federal system of government, and to them the partisans of Iturbide attached themselves in order to be revenged on the men that overthrew him. This party had an organ in the press called at first the Archivista, but which later assumed the name of El Águila Mexicana, and being edited under the influence of Juan Gomez Navarrete, Iturbide's attorney, and printed on his premises, added strength to the Iturbidists. The centralist party was formed of the masons of the Scottish rite, and the old monarchists, from whom it unjustly obtained the nickname of Bourbonists. To this party belonged the existing government and congress. Its press organ, El Sol, was ably supported by Santa María, the Colombian minister, who was honorably reinstated in his official position from which he had been dismissed by Iturbide's government. His writings were widely read, and appeared under the pseudonyme of Capitan Chinchilla In some issues, with no small wit, he would criticise the occurrences of the day; in others he would censure with great bitterness the errors of the opposing party, or ridicule them as mercilessly as he had the ceremonials of the imperial court.

The government had, however, most to fear from the exaggerated pretensions of the provincial juntas. These from the first kept the country in agitation; but timely rebuke put them down.

Commissioners from Oajaca, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Valladolid, and Guanajuato demanded a new congress. The minister of relations laid before the chamber the information that in Monterey a junta of delegates had been organized, representing Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Texas, which desired