314 FEDERALISTS CENTRALISTS GUERRERO PRESIDENT. 



people, and laws and constitutions are equally disregarded under 

 the impulse of passion or interest. Such was the case in the pre- 

 sent juncture. The Yorkinos had been outvoted lawfully, accord- 

 ing to the solemn record of congress, yet they resolved not to 

 submit ; and, accordingly, Lorenzo de Zavala, the Grand Master 

 of their lodge, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who was then a 

 professed federalist, in conjunction with the defeated candidate 

 Guerrero and Generals Montezuma and Lobato, determined to 

 prevent Pedraza from occupying the chair of state. Santa Anna, 

 who now appeared prominently on the stage, was the chief agitator 

 in the scheme, and being in garrison at Jalapa, in the autumn of 

 1828, pronounced against the chief magistrate elect, and denounced 

 his nomination as "illegal, fraudulent and unconstitutional." The 

 movement was popular, for the people were in fact friendly to 

 Guerrero. The prejudices of the native or Creole party against the 

 Spaniards and their supposed defenders the Escocesses, were 

 studiously fomented in the capital ; and, on the 4th of December, 

 the pronunciamiento of the Accordada, in the capital, seconded the 

 sedition of Santa Anna in the provinces. By this time the arch 

 conspirator in this drama had reached the metropolis and labored 

 to control the elements of disorder which were at hand to support 

 his favorite Guerrero. The defenceless Spaniards were relentlessly 

 assailed by the infuriate mob which was let loose upon them by the 

 insurgent chiefs. Guerrero was in the field in person at the head of 

 the Yorkinos. The Parian in the capital, and the dwellings of many 

 of the noted Escocesses were attacked and pillaged, and for some 

 time the city was given up to anarchy and bloodshed. Pedraza, 

 who still fulfilled the functions of minister of war previous to his 

 inauguration, fled from the official post which he abandoned to his 

 rival Santa Anna; and on the 1st of January, 1829, congress, — 

 reversing its former act, — declared Guerrero to have been duly 

 elected president of the republic ! General Bustamante was chosen 

 vice president, and the government again resumed its operation 

 under the federal system of 1824. 



Note. — Although a masked Indian slavery or peonage, is permitted and en- 

 couraged in Mexico, African slavery is prohibited by positive enactments as well 

 as by the constitution itself. But as it may interest the reader to know the Mexi- 

 can enactments relative to negroes, on this subject, the following documents are 

 subjoined for reference : — 



ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 

 The President of the Mexican United States to the Inhabitants of the Republic. 

 Be it known — That, being desirous to signalize the anniversary of independence, 

 in the year 1829, by an act of national justice and beneficence, which may redound 



