Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/627

Rh Every such rebuke and defeat brought on ridicule, and lessened the influence of the government, causing an exaggerated sense of liberty to prevail in all directions, manifested by the states in a disregard for the federal bond, and the enactment of measures beyond their province.

In the middle of 1852 several hitherto despised movements began to assume alarming proportions. Rebolledo, who at the close of the preceding year had risen at Jalapa against the local authorities and their tax levies, and for some time struggled with little success, was now creating some attention by his firm stand and more extended range of pretensions for reform. At Mazatlan a no less powerful uprising took place on similar grounds, with the advocacy of state division, and in Michoacan religious feeling added its potent influence to the trouble there brewing. The lately installed governor, Melchor Ocampo, was a man of liberal views, whose precepts became no less obnoxious to the clergy than his measures. They used every effort in behalf of the opposition, pointing among other things to the immense increase in cost of the local administration as compared with centralist times. The result was not exactly as expected, for a number of armed factions rose, which endangered the interests of the state rather than the stability of the government. Nevertheless the religious element of the strife spread far beyond the borders, to add strength to germinating movements elsewhere, among them in Jalisco, which once more was to cradle the revolution.

Governor Portillo had made himself unpopular at Guadalajara by introducing an obnoxious police