To preserve at least a shadow of the legislative power, Iturbide established a junta, which he styled 'instituyente' composed of forty-five members selected from the deputies of the dissolved congress. The installation took place on the 2d of November,[1] Castañiza, the bishop of Durango, being elected president. In such an assembly, the tool of course of the emperor, was vested the legislative power until the meeting of a new congress, for-the convocation of which regulations were to be formed by it without delay. But the business most urgent was to find some means of raising money. Nor did the junta nacional instituyente waste time, but on the 5th passed a decree ordering a forced loan of $2,800,000.[2] As the collection, besides being attended with trouble, would be a slow process, and as there was then lying at Perote and Jalapa nearly $1,300,000[3] belonging for the most part to Spaniards who had left the country or were on the point of departure—money awaiting safe conduct to Vera Cruz for shipment to Spain—Iturbide seized it and applied it to government purposes,[4] a proceeding which brought down upon him much censure, and alienated the good-will of many.
- ↑ Disposic. Varias, ii. f. 76; Bustamante, Cuad. Hist., vi. carta 5a 116-25; Id., Hist. Iturbide, 23 et seq. A list of the names of the members, Iturbide's opening address, and the basis of the organization of the junta are supplied in Mex. Col Ley. Fund., 94-103.
- ↑ Gac. Imp. Mex., ii. 950-1. Alaman states that this was the first decree of the junta. Hist. Méj., v. 668.
- ↑ At Perote $740,200, and $557,000 at Jalapa, in all $1,297,200. Id., v. 669-70; Medina, Mem. Sec. Estado, 1823; Mex. Col. Ley. Fund., 100.
- ↑ He tries to defend his action by asserting that the late congress had authorized him to lay hands on any existing funds, and that he had been pri-
ten minutes after this intimation congress still remained in session, Cortazar was to dissolve it 'militarmente.' Mex. Col. Ley. Fund, 93-4. Iturbide entered into an explanation of his reasons for taking this step, and the statement of charges against the congress which appeared in the preamble to the decree dissolving it was amplified and published by the government under the title: Indication del origen de los extravios del Congreso Mexicano, que han motivado su disolucion. The accusations were to the effect that the assembly was influenced by Spanish intrigues of the party opposed to independence; that it consequently neglected its work on important matters the formation of the constitution, the organization of the revenue department, and the proper establishment of the judicial tribunals and wasted its time in trifling or irrelevant discussions; that it moreover arrogated to itself prerogatives belonging to the sovereign. Gac. Imp. Mex., ii. 944-7, 953-6, 962-3, 985-8.
