Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/688

668 devoted themselves to their tasks; but very soon differences cropped out, resulting from Comonfort's acts in Mexico, whither he had been despatched with extraordinary powers, which created embarrassments, as several of his measures clashed with others adopted in Cuernavaca.

The men of the revolution, as stated before, were bitterly hostile to the regular army, and the idea of dissolving it began to gain ground. Ocampo and (Juarez were for doing so, but Comonfort decidedly opposed the scheme; he continued its existence, resolving that the military class should be reformed, but not destroyed. Comonfort also prevailed on Vidaurri to accept the arrangements made at Lagos. That chief had been demanding the punishment of the army. This army question greatly fanned the flame of division in the liberal party; it had already broken out with the election of Alvarez, which had been a victory of the radical wing over the moderate liberals and a large portion of the clergy who preferred Comonfort, and like the whole upper class of society at the capital and throughout the republic, looked on the southern chief as wholly unfit to be president.

A call had been issued on the 16th of October for a congress to assemble at Dolores Hidalgo on the 14th of February, 1856, to organize the nation under a republican, democratic, and representative form; a few modifications had been added to the oft-mentioned decree of 1841. The functions of the congress were limited by the 69th article of the decree to framing the constitution and organic laws, and to revising the acts