No. 37.
Mr. Pringle
to Mr. Bayard.
United
States Legation in Central America,
Guatemala, December 6, 1885.
(Received January 4, 1886.)
No. 454.]
Sir: I beg to report that the elections passed off
quietly, and General Manuel Barillas has been elected constitutional
President, and Vicente Castaneda Vice-President of the Republic of
Guatemala.
The official announcement does not take place until Congress meets next
August.
I also inclose a decree of General Menendez, President of Salvador, relative
to the dissolution of the Assembly, and also the decree in which he declares
the country under martial law.
I have, &c.,
D. LYNCH PRINGLE,
Chargé d’Affaires ad
interim.
[Inclosure 1 in No.
454.—Translation.]
Decree of General Menendez, President of
Salvador.
Francisco Menendez, general of division and provisional President of the
Republic of Salvador, considering:
- (1)
- That ever since the first session of the constitutional
Congress there has been noticed a spirit of division amongst the
members composing it, a departing each day further and further
from that patriotism with which it should be inspired, so as to
establish the institutions which must consolidate that real
liberty, peace, and public order to which all Salvadorians
legitimately aspire.
- (2)
- That notwithstanding the notorious designs of leaving an
inadequate constitution, and not only a palpable but aggressive
resistance to the reforms indicated by the executive power, the
latter has reached the extreme of its prudence and tolerating
spirit, abstaining from having recourse to those violent
measures demanded by the public sentiment, from the desire to
evade for the Republic a scandal and the evils attendant upon an
abnormal situation of the country, as well as from the hope that
it would have succeeded in causing the opposition circle to
relax in their mournful endeavors to provoke difficulties and
disturbances.
- (3)
- That the moderation of this conduct is almost interpreted as
weakness on the part of the Government, and that, far from
diverging from their intentions, which are hostile towards it
and which are tending to denaturalize the glorious programme of
the revolution, it appears better to have given them more
strength of mind and greater audacity to bring into play their
machinations, an overestimating and abasing of the unlimited
liberty and the guarantees which this same Government has
vouchsafed them.
- (4)
- That from this cause the dissenters, against the actual
dictates and against a good and liberal constitution, have
engendered in the Republic an anomalous, unsustainable
situation, the uneasiness sequential to a public lack of
confidence and the intranquillity among the citizens, which is
the unavoidable result of the endless expectation of a
revolutionized state of politics.
- (5)
- That of late the spirit of discord has manifested itself by
events which have taken place in the excited session of to-day,
in which a considerable number of members of the assembly, not
wishing to become the plaything nor the ridicule of the
opposition party, violently abandoned their seats, with protests
that they would never return to occupy them, this action causing
Congress to be spontaneously dissolved.
- (6)
- That the first and principal duty of the Government is to
maintain sacredly the principles of authority and of public
order, and it would not be compatible to the fulfillment of this
duty were it to forsake the great social and political interests
which are intrusted to it by going so far as to countenance with
criminal indifference, thereby compromising its own dignity, the
disorder caused in the very body of Congress itself, which
threatens the public peace and the free and republican practices
of the people of Salvador, whose guardian and defender it
is.
decree.
First and only article. It is hereby declared
that in consequence of the spontaneous dissolution of the constitutive
Congress without fulfilling its high mission,
[Page 51]
notwithstanding that it had been organized for two
months, the dictatorship in which the provisory government is invested
by the will of the people shall remain in vigor until such time as the
passions shall have become calmed and the Republic shall be at peace,
when appropriate measures will be taken.
Given in San
Salvador, 26th of November, 1885.
- FRANCISCO MENENDEZ.
- CRUZ ULLOA.
- RAFAEL MEZA.
- ESTANISLAO PEREZ.
- Z. GALDIAMEZ.
- HIGINIO VALDIVIESO.
[Inclosure 2 in No.
454—Translation.]
decree of general menendez, president of
salvador.
Francisco Menendez, general of division and provisional President of the
Republic of Salvador, considering—
- (1)
- That the scandalous dissolution of the constitutional Assembly
might give rise to new disorders, which the Government must
avoid in time and repress in a prompt and energetic
manner;
- (2)
- That however painful, and even repugnant, it maybe to appeal
to measures of a grave character, it is necessary to do so in
extreme cases, in order to preserve public order and when the
tenacity and obstinacy of those who try to destroy the
principles of authority, without whose shelter liberty is an
empty word;
By virtue of all the authority with which I am invested,
decree.
- Article I declares to be re-established
in full force the state of siege under which the Republic has been
maintained already a situation which the same national Congress
dissolved to-day of its own accord brought about and determined to
maintain.
- Art. 2. This decree shall take effect
from this date.
Given in San Salvador
27th of November,
1885.
- FRANCISCO MENENDEZ.
- CRUZ ULLOA.
