Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/689

Rh of the late and present governments. Those duties were to be performed and completed within one year from the date of assembling.

Comonfort's opposition to violent measures and Ocampo's preference for a radical policy brought on a ministerial crisis; but as the latter was the only one of the ministers who insisted on leaving the cabinet, his portfolio was given to Miguel María Arrioja who filled it till the 7th of December. Much concern was caused by the dissension in the ministry, the summoning of the congress to meet at Dolores, and the alarming report of the president's death, which had been imminent from the running-away of the mules of his carriage when he was occupying it. The clergy began to assail the reformers from the pulpit, and some correspondence passed thereupon between the civil and episcopal authorities. The condition of the republic was anything but safe; the danger cane chiefly from the laxity originating in the plan of Ayutla; local authorities, the creation of local pronunciamientos, had assumed unlimited powers, recognizing no common centre; each governor was legislating on all matters, even such as were of the exclusive province of the supreme government; and the states had disposed of the revenues collected within their respective limits. Measures to put a stop to such abuses were necessary, and were accordingly provided.

An emeute in San Juan de Ulúa, promptly quelled, and a letter of Anastasio Zerecero, assuring the people, in the name of Alvarez, that the president had never belonged to the puro party, caused much alarm among the liberals. Alvarez became convinced at