294 
APPENDIX. 
affords the amplest refutation of the position now, for the first time, as- 
sumed by Mexico. 
In his pronunciamento, when he came into power, he declared that 
" the cessation of all anterior pacts is indispensable, because they are all 
either affected with nullity or repugnant to a portion of society ; but the 
common law which is in full force, and those which this provisional Gov- 
ernment will publish, will, to a certain extent, fill the void created by 
the present state of things." 
So that, on assuming power, he declared himself authorized to make 
and publish laws ; or, in other words, declared himself dictator. 
After having accomplished his purpose of creating a federal system 
of government ; after causing to be held an election for President, which 
resulted in the choice of Santa Anna ; and after convoking the Congress 
in order to surrender his dictatorship, he proceeded, through his minis- 
ter of foreign relations, to render an account to Congress of what he 
had done. 
This minister reported to Congress, " that the provisional Government 
of Salas had exercised, as the nature of the case required, a real and 
very ample dictatorship, which lasted till the publication of the new con- 
stitution." The minister then set forth, with great minuteness, in a re- 
port printed and submitted to Congress, all the decrees rendered by 
Salas/ Amongst them are the following : 
A decree organizing the bureau of general archives. 
A decree relative to the liberty of the press. 
A decree relative to colonization. 
A decree relative to literary property. 
The decree of November, 1846, extending for two years to Garay the 
period for commencing the ivork on the Isthmus of Tehuantepcc. 
A decree authorizing popular meetings. 
A decree concerning naturalization. 
And, in closing, he stated " that he had called the Congress together 
at the earliest possible moment, in order to put an end to the dictatorial 
period.'" 
When this account was thus rendered by a dictator laying down his 
temporary power in the face of the constitutional authorities, not one 
voice was heard in Mexico, in her counsels, nor in her press, breathing a 
suspicion of the purity of his motives, the validity of his acts, or the 
extent and nature of the power which he declared he had just exercised. 
Ever since then the Mexican Congress, executive, courts of justice, and 
public functionaries of all classes, have been in the habit of citing the 
