Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/679

Rh 1876, in the city of Mexico, and few prominent persons accompanied his remains to the grave. A pension asked for his widow was refused by congress. An attempt was made in the following year to have the national congress pass an act declaring that Santa Anna died in possession of all the honors and decorations conferred on him by the nation. I cannot find, however, that any final action was taken.

The first of the articles adopted by the public meeting that proclaimed the plan of Ayutla, and General Rómulo Diaz de la Vega as the commander-in-chief of the forces at the capital, authorized him to choose a board, or junta, of two representatives for each department, and the federal district, which he did, appointing a body of 52 members, on whom devolved the duty of electing, under the second and third articles, at a single sitting and by absolute majority, a president ad interim of the republic, and of serving afterward as his council of state during his short provisional rule. It was thus unexpectedly to assume the most prominent place in the revolution. The junta assembled in the hall of deputies, and soldier he had been faithless to his superiors, and as a ruler had never been of firm principles, but a political weather-cock and an unmitigated tyrant, with self-aggrandizement as his chief aim. His estates were seized by the liberal party in 1855, Gov. La Llave of Vera Cruz being the first to issue a decree to that effect. Afterward President Zuloaga ordered them restored, and this was carried out by his successor Miramon. Santa Anna's military rank was also restored to him. In Chihuahua he was on the 6th of July, 1866, proclaimed a traitor of the worst type for his acceptance of the empire, and his property was confiscated. He made an attempt in 1867 to enter Mexico, coming to Vera Cruz on the steamer Virginius, when the city was besieged by the republican forces. Being arrested by a U. S. man-of-war, and held as a prisoner till the republicans captured the place, he was permitted to go on the Virginius wherever he pleased, out of the republic. For violating his pledge on the coast of Yucatan he was arrested and taken to Vera Cruz, where he was tried, and sentenced to eight years' exile. In Habana he still tried to influence Mexican politics; but this was the last of the old man's efforts, he being by this time convinced that he had become a political nonentity. A general amnesty decreed by the Mexican government allowed him to return to his country in 1874. He petitioned not only for the restoration of his property, but also of his rank as a general with pay. His reiterated petitions were denied, till the last one, which was left unnoticed. But for this persistency to recover rank with its emoluments, which had been hinted to him would not be-conceded, his earlier services might have spared him some degree of prestige. He lost all, and was left to an imbittered life, utterly ignored.