Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/31

Rh José L. Becerra and Servando T. de Mier, Cárlos M. Bustamante, Jimenez Mangino, Cabrera, Espinosa, Ibarra, and Paz.

The secretary of justice and ecclesiastical affairs, Pablo de la Llave, by order of the executive, moved on the 14th that the house should proceed at once to carry out the wishes of the people; and Ramos Arizpe, as president of the committee on constitution, promised to present within three days the draught of an organic law fulfilling that object, and which was to remain in force until a constitution could be framed and promulgated. Such is the history of the acta constitutiva, the draught of which was circulated to the authorities on the 22d of November, the discussion of it being formally begun on the 3d of December.

The main point to be determined was the system of government embodied in the fifth article, yet in the face of the provincial demands, it was made the subject of a warm discussion. Several deputies spoke against the plan of federation, and Doctor Mier, deputy from Nuevo Leon, on the 13th of December, expatiated on the evils that a separation of the till then united provinces would bring upon the country. The proposed acta constitutiva, he said, was but a translated copy of the constitution of the United States of America, which he contended was entirely unsuited to Mexico. The federating of her provinces would be equivalent to separating them — a policy that must necessarily entail upon them the very evils that the Anglo-Americans of the north endeavored to avert with their federation. It must be confessed