The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-10 00:00:00

PROCLAMATION of SANTA ANNA. 1
Address of GENERAL ANTONIO LOPEZ DE
BANTA ANNA to his countrymen upon the subject
of the plan proclaimed for the real regeneration of the
Republic.
(Issued at Vera Cruz, Aug. 16, 1846.)
Mexicans,—Called by the people and the garrisons of
the departments of Jalisco, Vera Cruz, and Sinatoa,
South Mexico, and other paints of the Republic, I
quitted Havannah on the Bth instant, at nine in the
Evening, with the sole object of coming to aid you in
savibg our country from its enemies, internal and ex-
ternal. Great has been my joy when, on arriving at
this point, I learnt that the former had been overthrown
by your forces ; and that I was already proclaimed, on
all sides, as General-in-Chief of the liberating army. A
proof olio much confidence will be met by me with the ut-
most loyalty ; but on accepting the plan proclaimed, al-
low ,me to enter into some explanations, which I con-
sider necessary, in order to dispel any suspicions founded
on a past, the recollections of which are so painful
to me. _ _ _

Desiring to consolidate peace in the interior of the re-
public, in order to make it flourish and prosper, and to
insure by that means the integrity of our immense terri-
tory, I have devoted all my efforts in consequence of the
events of 1804, to establish an Administration endowed
with vigour and energy, and capable of keepicg down
the spirit of turbulence and disorder. Without ever
going beyond Republican forms, i 'endeavoured for this
purpose to support myself on property, on high posi-
tions, on creeds, and even on the few historical memorials

existing in the country, hoping thus to moderate by the
inertia of Conservative instincts, the vehemence of po-
pular masses. But without ascendancy and prestige as
I was, and the elements assembled by me being viewed
with distrust, resistance was made on all sides, which I,
however, expected to overcome in time. I call God to

witness that in this I acted with patriotism, with since-
rity. and with good faith.
After some years of trial I began to remark that the
republic did not advance, that some departments showed
tendencies of separation from the others ; and that the
public) discontent was daily increasing. Wavering then
in my convictions, they afterwards lost all their power,
when a part of the country had been occupied by
strangers, and our national existence of the whole was
endangered, I called on the people to the rescue, and
they answered me with threats ; as if any other misfor-
tune could have been preferable to that in which the
country then was placed. Urged by the firm determi-
nation that we should be a sovereign and independent
people, and knowing, on the other hand, the vast re-
sources on which we could rely for support, I then be-
came convinced that our Government, being organised in
a manner by no means conformable with the wishes of
the ation, and governed by a secondary Legislature not
added for the advancement of its interests, the people
revenged themselves in that way by seeking for an oc-
casion in which they should be called on to take care of
their own good, and to organise their Government in the
manner which they should consider most proper.
In our time we have seen another nation, in a similar
conflict, employ similar means to oblige its Government
to promise the representative system, which it was
anxious to have established, and when that had been ob-
tained, we have seen its moral apathy changed into
heroic enthusiasm, against the foreign invader who en-
deavoured to subjugate it. Is there anything, therefore,
strange in the idea that our people should, in this in-
stance, do as much to recover the full enjoyment of their
sovereignty, acknowledged by all governments, though
trodden under foot by all, in the practical administration
of affairs ? On this point I owe to my country, in consi-
deration of the part which I have taken, to declare
frankly and honestly, upon this critical and solemn occa-
sion, that it can be saved only by a return to first princi-
ples, with entire submission of the minority to the sove-
reign will of the majority of the nation.
Upon proof so clear and peremptory, of the serious
difficulty attending-that which I had considered best cal-
culated to secure to the republic respectability abroad, I
found it right to recede, and to yield to public opinion,
and follow it with the same ardour and constancy with
whieh I had opposed it before comprehending it. To
discover the most effective means of raising the spirit of
the public, and predisposing it to the war, with which we
are threatened on the north, was my employment ; and
I was beginning to develop the measures for that pur-
pose, when the events of the 6th of December, 1844, oc-
curred, and plunged the republic into the miserable situ-
ation in which you how see it.
Expatriated from that time for ever from the national
territory, with a prohibition to return to it under the
hard penalty of death, the obstacle which I was sup-
posed to present to the establishment of an administra-
tive system, conformable with public exigencies, being
removed, I believed that the men who had succeeded in
placing themselves in my. stead, by calling public opinion
to their aid in effecting it, would respect that opinion,
and summon the nation to organise its government ac-
cording to its own wishes. Pained, as I was, not to be
allowed to take part in the real regeneration of the
country, I still most sincerely desired it, because I be-
lieved that, whilst our political horizon was daily becoma
ing darker, no other means were left to save us.
My prayers for this were redoubled on seeing that,
in consequence of the development of the invasive policy
of the United States, stimulated by the perfidy of the
Cabinet of General Herrera on the serious question of
our northern frontiers, the European press began to in-
dicate the necessity of a foreign intervention in our
domestic concerns, in order to preserve us from the am-
bitious projects of the neighbouring republic. That,
however, which raised my uneasiness to the greatest
height, was to see in a newspaper of credit and influ-
ence, peblished in the Old World, a proposition made
in dcfbber last, to bring us back by force under the
yoke of our ancient masters. My conviction was, never -
theless, still strong, that no Mexican, however weak
might be his feeling of attachment for his country, would
dare to favour such ideas openly, and still less to recom-
mend them to the consideration of the people.
Meanwhile, news reached me of a resolution projected
by General Paredes, which revived my hopes ; fur
though he had been the determined enemy of every re-
presentative popular government, I supposed that he had
altered his opin*ns, and I honoured himso far as to believe
him incapable of advancing schemes for European inter-
vention, in the interior administration of the republic.
He succeeded, and his manifesto declaring his adhesion
to the plan proposed by the troops quartered at San Luis
Potosi, increased my uneasiness, because I clearly saw in
it a diatribe against the independence of the nation,
rather than the patriotic address of a Mexican General,
seeking, in good faith, to remedy the evils of his country.
His perverse designs were in fine fully revealed, as well
as by his summons (for the assemblage of a Congress)
of the 24th of last January, issued in consequence of
this revolution, as by the newspapers showing the ten-
dency of his administration to the establishment of a
monarchy under a foreign prince, in the republic.
As one of the principal chiefs of the independence of
our country, and founder of the republican system, I was
then indignant at this endeavour of some of its sons to
deliver the nation up to the scoffs of the world, and to
carry it back to the ominous days of the conquest. I
thereupon took the firm determination to come and aid
you to save our country from such a stain, and to avoid
tfie hofrible consequences of a measure by which its
glorious destiny was to be reversed, carrying it back to
what it was, and to what it never should be again. To
execute this determination was to offer up my blood to
any one, in case of failure, who might choose to shed it,
in compliance with the terms of the barbarous decree
which drove me from the republic ; but I preferred to
perish in this noble attempt, rather than appear indiffe-
rent to the ignominy of my country, and see the countless
sacrifices made for our independence, and the right to
govern ourselves rendered illusory.
Mexicans, the real objects of those who, while invoking
order and tranquillity, have constantly endeavoured to
prevent the nation from organising its Government as it
chose, have now been laid open; and the time is come
when all true republicans of all parties, the body of the
pcbplc as *elit as the army, should unite their efforts
sincerely, in order to secure entirely the independence
of our country, and to place it at liberty to adopt the
form of Government most suitable to its wishes, each
sacrificing his own individual convictions to the will of
the majority. How, indeed, can the minority, however
wise and opulent, and powerful they may be, pretend to
assume to themselves the right to regulate the affairs of
the community, or to govern the majority, without an
express delegation from the latter, given of their own
accord, not presumed, nor still less extorted by force?
This may be among people who are ignorant of their
own rights, and where the want of the means of inde-
pendent subsistence subjects the many to" the few, who
have monopolised everything; but it is not to be effected
among us, in whom the democratic spirit in the midst of
many favourable circumstances, has been developing
itself for thirty-six years, and now renders imperious
and decisive, the necessity of concentrating by practice
the political axiom of the sovereignty of the nation.
This most essential circumstance has been disregarded
and, despised in all constitutions hitherto given to the
country; and in the only one which has appeared most
popular, the antagonism of the principles adopted has
rendered it ineffective ; so that democracy, which alone
can serve as a solid basis for our social edifice, has been
unable to develop itself, and thus to afford the peace
which is its instinctive law, and the other benefits in-
effable; which it produces. Hence the convulsions which
have so long agitated us, and of which some European
writers have taken advantage, so far as to depreciate
our race ; opposing the liberty and independence
of the republic; manifesting the necessity of inter-
ference, in order to strengthen it against the febrile in-
vasion of the United States ; and declaring, in fine,
that it would be as easy to conquer Mexico with a por-
tion of the troops now quartered in the island of Cuba,
as it wis in the time of the native Mexican princes.
My blodll boils on seeing the contempt with which we
are thus treated, by men who either do not know us
well, or who, interested in transplanting among us the
fruits of their old social system, and of the times in
which tfiey originated, consider America in the same
state in which it was during the sixteenth century.
Should any attempt be made, as indicated, to carry
these mild plans itnto effect, all interests of race would
be silenced, and but one voice would be heard through-
out the Continent. The one hemisphere would then be
seen arrayed against the other, and for the disasters
which would fall on the rash agressar who should thus
attempt to interfere with the internal administration of
other nations, he alone would be responsible.
To pronounce thus against the many nations which
form the great Ilispano American family, to declare
them incapable of enjoying republican institutions, is,
in fact, to be ignorant of, or not to conceal, what is
p_roved by the testimony of Chili, New Granada, and
Venezuela, in contradiction of such assertions. It is to
attribute, no doubt with evil intentions, to men of a
certain race, defects of administrative forms which, not
being entirely democratic, have produced the bitter
fruits of monarchical forms engrafted on them, without
adverting to the fatal influence of the latter on the lot of
the others. the nation by
To expect, moreover, to strengthen
uepuptousne
dthineaei::
monarchy, under a foreign prince,
istencein it of elements for the establliti