RETURNS CONSTITUTION OF 1824 RE-ADOPTED. 377 



he at length received the Presidential and popular sanction of his 

 return to Mexico. 



In truth, the nation at large had no one but Santa Anna, at that 

 moment of utter despair, in whose prestige and talents — in spite 

 of all his misfortunes and defeats — it could rely for even the hope 

 of escape from destruction, if not of ultimate victory. 



Whilst the Mexican nation had been thus sorely vexed by in- 

 testinal commotions and foreign invasion an Extraordinary Consti- 

 tuent Congress — Congreso Extraor dinar io Constituyente — had 

 been summoned and met in the capital, chiefly to revise the Con- 

 stitution, or the " Bases of Political Organization," of 1843, which 

 had been superseded by the temporary adoption of the Federal 

 Constitution of 1824, according to the edict issued by Salas, 

 under the direction of Santa Anna soon after that personage's re- 

 turn from exile. This Extraordinary Congress re-adopted the old 

 Federal Constitution of 1824 without altering its terms, principles, 

 or phraseology, and made such slight changes as were deemed 

 needful by an Acta Constitutiva y de Reformas, containing thirty 

 articles, which was sanctioned on the 18th, and proclaimed on the 

 21st of May by Santa Anna, who had reassumed the Presidency. 

 By this approval of the Federal System the Executive entirely 

 abandoned the Central policy for which he had so long contended, 

 but which, as we have seen in the 11th chapter, he no longer be- 

 lieved, or feigned to believe, suitable for the nation. 



Notwithstanding this submission to popular will, and apparent 

 desire to deprive the Central Government of its most despotic pre- 

 rogatives, the conduct of Santa Anna did not save him entirely from 

 the machinations of his rivals or of intriguers. Much discontent 

 was expressed publicly and privately, and the President, accord- 

 ingly tendered his resignation to Congress, intimating a desire to 

 hasten into private life ! This stratagetic resignation was followed 

 by the retiracy of General Rincon and General Bravo, who com- 

 manded the troops in the city. Acts of such vital significance upon 

 the part of the ablest men in the Republic, in an hour of exceeding 

 danger, at once recalled Congress and the people to their senses ; 

 and if they were designed, as they probably were, merely to throw 

 the anarchists on their own resources and to show them their inef- 

 ficiency at such an epoch, they seem to have produced the desired 

 effect, for they placed Santa Anna and his partizans more firmly in 

 power. Congress refused to accept his resignation. Unfortunate 

 as he had been, it perhaps saw in him the only commander who was 

 capable in the exigency of controlling the Mexican elements of re- 



