Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/37

Rh and their salaries, and the manner of electing deputies and senators, and justices of the supreme court.

At the presidential election the centralists made Nicolás Bravo their candidate, Guadalupe Victoria being the favorite of the federalists. The latter obtained a majority of the seventeen votes that were cast, and congress declared him constitutionally elected. The votes for vice-president being divided between Nicolás Bravo and Vicente Guerrero, neither of them having the requisite majority, congress chose the first-named.

The constitution required that the president and vice-president elect should assume their offices on the first of April, and hold for four years; nevertheless the congress decreed that they should enter at once upon the discharge of their duties, inaugurating without loss of time the new system of government.

The constitution of Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, the name given the republic, having been solemuly published on the 4th of October, 1824, this day and the 16th of September were declared the· only national anniversaries.

The constitution thus adopted confirmed the federal system already established by the acta constitutiva. After declaring the absolute independence of the country, and the Roman catholic religion as the only one permitted therein, and recognizing the states that were to be the component parts of the federation,