Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Third Session of the Fortieth Congress

Mr. Plumb to Mr. Seward.

No. 184.]

Legation of the United States, City of Mexico, September 10, 1868.

Sir: The efforts of this government to put an end to the insurrections that have occurred in various parts of the republic since the outbreak in Yucatan in December last, appear to have been signally successful.

Near the close of last month the forces under General Alatorre effected the complete suppression of the rebellion in the sierra of the State of Puebla, with which General Negrete and the remnant of his followers had united.

A short time before, the forces under the orders of General Escobedo put an end to the revolt in the sierra of the State of Queretaro.

Aureliano Rivera, who pronounced in the sierra of Ajusco, in this State, has not been heard of since the first few weeks of his movement when forces were sent against him, and appears to have altogether disappeared.

Recent risings in the State of Vera Gruz have also quickly been suppressed.

The differences in the State of Guerrero appear finally to have been adjusted, and a general election has now been called in that State.

The insurrection in the State of Sinaloa, under Martinez, was quickly put down by the federal forces under General Corona; and thus, so tar, in every instance success has attended the arms and the measures of the government, until it may now be stated that at no period since the accession of President Juarez to the chief magistracy, in February, 1858, has the whole country been under such entire acquiescence in the rule of the constitutional government, and the measures of reform put in practice by the constitutional party, as it is to-day.

The military forces and the civil employés of the federal government are now regularly and promptly paid.

This may be one of the important causes of the improved state of affairs; but I think it must also be acknowledged that the people generally throughout the republic are showing a greater unwillingness to look quietly upon, or to permit a resort to unauthorized armed movements as a means of redress for local or federal grievances, and are more clearly seeing that there are sufficient and surer remedies by peaceful means through the press, the tribune, and the ballot.

It is too early yet safely to assert that the round of pronunciamientos may not again be recommenced, or that legislative differences may not occur to mar the present favorable prospects; but it must be admitted that there are hopeful signs that a greater degree of tranquillity will be maintained hereafter.

The condition of general insecurity for life and property throughout the country continues to be most undesirable, but the government manifests a determination to now turn its attention to that necessity, as its most important work.

President Juarez has expressed to me his personal assurances under this head, and unquestionably feels the most earnest desire to accomplish what is so vitally demanded in this regard.

His confidence in the future of his country appears not only to be unabated but strengthened; and he sees perhaps more clearly than many how important an element time is in the difficult task of giving to Mexico, under all the disadvantages the past has left as its legacy, a durable peace, order, and progress.

There appears to be also on the part of the government, and of their public men generally, an increasing appreciation of the necessity of giving an impulse to the material interests of the country.

Should the coming session of their congress meet the public expectation and the promises of its leading members, and the government use the initiative it can in this regard, a great improvement in the state of affairs here cannot but take place.

In this point of view the proximate session is looked upon as of critical importance. Employment, to keep the people from the necessity of crime and revolt, is a vital requirement of their present situation.

A useful document, which is at the same time an encouraging sign, has recently appeared in the shape of a manifesto from General Gonzalez Ortega, issued shortly after his recent unconditional release from confinement.

In this paper he relinquishes any claim he may have been supposed to have to the executive office or to the presidency of the supreme court, and admits the necessity as well as propriety of accepting the existing order.

His constitutional term as Vice-President expired on the 31st of May last, and that office is now filled by Mr. Lerdo de Tejada, but the manifesto of General Ortega is useful as showing the convictions and expressing the advice of one who was the only claimant of the position President Juarez occupies.

I beg to inclose a translation of this document herewith.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

E. L. PLUMB.

Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

[From the Diario Oficial, city of Mexico, September 1, 1868.—Translation.]

Manifesto of General Gonzalez Ortega.

The citizen Jesus Gonzalez Ortega to the Mexican nation.

Useless it appears to me to make here a statement of the occurrences that, relative to my person with the character of President of one of the supreme powers of the Mexican federation, have taken place before and after the decrees of the 8th of November were issued, and before and during the time of my imprisonment, because the circumstances of all these events appear in official documents and papers that have been published.

It remains to me, therefore, only to say a few words to my fellow-citizens as the sincere voice of my heart and of my head, as the intimate expression of my conscience, as the result of the liberty in which I now find myself, and after profound meditations in view of accomplished events, and in the presence of imprescindable measures which are exacted by the interests of the country and the peace of the republic.

On the 1st of the present month there was transcribed to me the communication of the general government, dated the 18th of July last, in which it was ordered that I should be placed at liberty, to the end that I might reside at the place that I might myself select.

As in the said note the supposed offenses were insisted upon, of flight and abandonment perpetrated by the general and by the president of the supreme court of justice, I had to return the note, asking only in a verbal manner, if, notwithstanding that step that the honor of the nation obliged me to take, I could make use of the liberty that was offered to me, to which I believed myself entitled, as, without motive whatever, I had been deprived of it; and an affirmative answer having been returned to me, I have removed to the capital of the State of Coahuila. I had thought of proceeding, in order to issue this manifesto, to some other capital of the more central States of the republic, but accidental causes have prevented me from realizing my purpose.

Placed at liberty, possessed already of my rights, and consequently of the faculty to emit my thoughts and to speak to the nation in compliance with the duty imposed upon me, the first that I have done has been to direct a retrospective view in order to examine the past with relation to the present, and another view to the actual situation in order to examine in the present the events to which the same past now has given an authority.

The order of things actually established is an accomplished event which rests in the most grave and vast interests. The legislatures, the tribunals of justice, and the governments of all the States of the republic being installed, the councils of all the municipalities of the same States being elected; the congress of the Union having been in session; the supreme court of justice of the republic exercising its functions, no voice has been raised protesting in the name of the people against the violation of law, against the decrees of the 8th of November, against the imprisonment of the president of the supreme court of justice, and if there have been some isolated voices with reference to this latter event, and they have been heard in congress, they have become silent soon after without result whatever.

Nearly all of the eminent men of the liberal party are forming or have formed part of the actual administration. The legislatures of some of the States have graved medals, have emitted votes of thanks and issued titles of well-deserving in favor of the author of the decrees of the 8th of November, and all without distinction have called legitimate government, constitutional government, that of which the head is the author of those same decrees; titles which have also been given in the press and the tribune by many of the democratic notabilities.

The author of the said decrees being accused by me before the national representation, the latter has not been willing to occupy itself with this affair and has seen with indifference, the same as all the authorities of the nation, the imprisonment of the president of the supreme court of justice, and by mandate of the law, President ad interim of the republic.

The men who, with myself, have raised the voice to defend the immunities of the law, some early, some later, and some at the last hour, have disappeared to form a part of the actual administration, or to recognize it tacitly or expressly.

No one do I accuse before the present or before history. I state facts, whose causes, perhaps grave and patriotic, I am still ignorant of, and I state them because those same facts not only authorize it, but reclaim in the name of the country the course that I am going to adopt.

I have remained, therefore, alone, absolutely alone, and without other support than that which a tranquil conscience affords when, in its judgment, a painful and difficult duty has been fulfilled.

To that same conscience I have addressed these inquiries, not once but many times. In the midst of this general abandonment common to all men and to all peoples, in view of so many interests created by a power tolerated by the people, under constitutional and democratic forms or appearances, and which interests cannot be destroyed except among rivers of blood, in the presence of grave diplomatic complications between Mexico and powerful nations, is it desirable, is it just, is it patriotic to put forward my individuality, by the official character which I have, as a constant menace to the public peace and tranquillity?

Is it desirable, is it just, is it patriotic to retain titles in the name of the people when that same people have not desired to save them nor even to recognize them, notwithstanding there are established, legally or illegally, all the democratic organs by means of which they could have caused their rights to have been enforced, or at least their voice to have been heard?

Is it just, is it patriotic, is it desirable to retain titles which the law has given, when the violation of the law is an event consummated or tolerated by the nation itself, and when their retention, under the present circumstances, might bring civil war, the only means that the representation of the people has left to save them, a war which would put an end, perhaps, to the Mexican nationality?

The voice of the passions silenced, conscience has answered these inquiries in the negative.

All of them involve a political problem; and of the present, whose prompt solution the epoch exacts, the interests of the republic reclaim, and to which I am led by my political position, parsed events, and the affection without limits that I have for my country. One of two extremes I have to touch in order to give this solution—to launch with the law in my hand, into civil war. or to abdicate in a patriotic and sincere manner the titles with which the nation has invested me.

Between these two extremes I have not vacillated for a moment in accepting the latter, and much more when this acceptation is imposed upon me by the reasons before stated, and is not indirectly exacted from me in the darkness of a prison.

I separate myself, therefore, from the constitutional titles and powers with which I have been invested by the vote of the people and the precepts of the law; whether as constitutional president of the supreme court of justice, or as President ad interim of the republic, I renounce them, and I return them complete and without spot to that same people, when so it is required by the force of past and present events and the peace of the nation.

In returning to the obscurity of private life, accompanied by the calmness and tranquillity of my conscience after a prolonged and stormy struggle, I have no embarrassment in order to remove all pretext for civil war, in recognizing, as I recognize, with my character of simple citizen, the authorities and functionaries actually established, to the end that under the shadow of the existing order, the patriotism of good Mexicans can secure the peace, the liberty, the progress, and the well-being of our exhausted republic.

No unpatriotic caprice, no ignoble and unfounded ambition, has led me to defend, with the force of truth and of reason and not with the force of arms, the isolated cause on the side of which I have been found until to-day.

I have defended with loyalty what, by my oath, I was required to do. The fulfillment of my obligations I have believed absolutely necessary to the national honor. Besides, I have always felt in the depths of my conscience that I have defended the best of causes, I abdicate it when the entire nation so exacts by means of a multitude of events which it has sanctioned. In abdicating it I have adopted the measure which is most in harmony with the public interests.

Upright, patriotic, and disinterested have been my intentions; upright, patriotic, and disinterested they are to-day. May the God of the universe, who knows my sincerity, grant that they shall contribute to the happiness of the dear land that has given me birth.

I should blush before myself if any ignoble passion should remain in my heart; if in it there should be given place to any low and base resentment against men and against events, and still more should I be ashamed when I know that the torrent of the latter almost always bears the former forward by unexpected, unknown, and even involuntary ways.

Mexicans, I swear to you before God, in addressing to you the fullness of my last official word, no sacrifice will I omit, not even that of going to seek an asylum and a tomb in a foreign land, if this shall be necessary, in order that there shall be realized the prayers that I make to-day for the peace of Mexico; no sacrifice is there that I will shun, if from this sacrifice shall result to my country honor and prestige at home, honor and prestige befores the enlightened peoples of the world, honor and prestige in the present, and honor and prestige before history.

Saltillo, August 19, 1868.

JESUS GONZALEZ ORTEGA.