the hands of Gomez Farías, who energetically sustained that the civil authority should always be above the military, and endeavored to prevent interference on the part of the clergy in secular affairs.
The new administration likewise promoted public instruction, and labored to have the abolition of the capital penalty for political offences recognized as a principle of public policy.[1] It did not favor proscriptive measures, though the more violent wing of its supporters wanted to apply them to their defeated opponents, whom they nicknamed picaluganos — after Picaluga, the wretch who betrayed Guerreroand looked upon as hateful aristocrats.[2]
The reform measures proposed to be introduced, so directly affecting the interests of two such powerful elements as the ecclesiastical and military, caused the greatest agitation. Santa Anna thought that his presence at the head of the government might allay it, and accordingly assumed the presidential authority on the 16th of May, 1833.[3] It was about this time that the centralist party made its first public demonstration in a paper directed against the congress.[4] This body closed its session on the 21st of May.[5]
The prevailing uncertainty and alarm among the better elements of society gave encouragement to the enemies of the progressionists. At last armed parties began to present themselves in southern Mexico expecting support from Santa Anna, who had been
- ↑ Gomez Farías never violated it; though he had to deal with the men of the bloody administration of 1830-1832, and with those who in sustaining the fueros placed the party in power — his own in great jeopardy. Mora, Obras Sueltas, i. p. ccxxvii.
- ↑ Santa Anna tried to induce first Gomez Pedraza and next Gomez Farías to banish his personal enemies, but failed. Later, when he held the power to do it himself, he had changed his mind after resolving to champion the cause of the privileged classes.
- ↑ On that date he took the oath of office before congress, expressing his satisfaction at his rule beginning under the auspices of peace, 'reynando la concordia entre una mayoría inmensa de ciudadanos,' expressions that Bustamante ridicules. Voz de la Patria, MS., viii. 134-5.
- ↑ Its title was 'Ó se disuelven las cámaras, ó nuestra ruina es segura.'
- ↑ Bustamante, a bitter opponent, says that those chambers did much harm: 'llenaron de lágrimas la Nacion.' Id., 143.
