List of Claims, Senate Executive Documents, p. 18, 2d session 35th Congress, President’s Message.
In all these cases as they occurred our successive ministers demanded redress, but their demands were only followed by new injuries. Their testimony was uniform and emphatic in reference to the only remedy which in their judgments would prove effectual. “Nothing but a manifestation of the power of the Government of the United States,” wrote Mr. John Forsyth, our minister in 1856, “and of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail. I assure you that the universal belief here is, that there is nothing to be apprehended from the Government of the United States, and that local Mexican officials can commit these outrages upon American citizens with absolute impunity.”
In the year 1857 a favorable change occurred in the affairs of the republic, inspiring better hopes for the future. A constituent congress, elected by the people of the different States for this purpose, had framed and adopted a republican constitution. It adjourned on the 17th February, 1857, having provided for a popular election to be held in July for a president and members of congress. At this election General Comonfort was chosen president almost without opposition. His term of office was to commence on the 1st of December, 1857, and to continue for four years. In case his office should become vacant, the constitution had provided that the chief justice of Mexico, then General Juarez, should become president, until the end of the term. On the 1st December, 1857, General Comonfort appeared before the congress then in session, took the oath to support the constitution, and was duly inaugurated.
But the hopes thus inspired for the establishment of a regular constitutional government soon proved delusive. President Comonfort, within one brief month, was driven from the capital and the republic by a military rebellion headed by General Zuloaga; and General Juarez consequently became the constitutional president of Mexico until the 1st day of December, 1861. General Zuloaga instantly assumed the name of president with indefinite powers; and the entire diplomatic corps, including the minister from the United States, made haste to recognize the authority of the usurper without awaiting instructions from their respective governments. But Zuloaga was speedily expelled from power. Having encountered the resistance of the people in many parts of the republic, and a large portion of the capital having “pronounced” against him, he was in turn compelled to relinquish the presidency. The field was now cleared for the elevation of General Miramon. He had from the beginning been the favorite of the so-called “Church party,” and was ready to become their willing instrument in maintaining the vast estates and prerogatives of the Church, and in suppressing the Liberal constitution. An assembly of his partisans, called together without even the semblance of authority, elected him president, but he warily refused to accept the office at their hands. He then resorted to another but scarcely more plausible expedient to place himself in power. This was to identify himself with General Zuloaga, who had just been deposed, and to bring him again upon the stage as president. Zuloaga accordingly reappeared in this character, but his only act was to appoint Miramon “president substitute,” when he again retired. It is under this title that Miramon has since exercised military authority in the city of Mexico, expecting by this stratagem to appropriate to himself the recognition of the foreign ministers which had been granted to Zuloaga. He succeeded. The ministers continued their relations with him as “president substitute” in the same manner as if Zuloaga had still remained in power. It was by this farce, for it deserves no better name, that Miramon succeeded in grasping the presidency. The idea that the chief of a nation at his own discretion may transfer to whomsoever he please the trust of governing, delegated to him for the benefit of the people, is too absurd to receive a moment’s countenance. But when we reflect that Zuloaga, from whom Miramon derived his title, was himself a military usurper, having expelled the constitutional president (Comonfort) from office, it would have been a lasting disgrace to the Mexican people had they tamely submitted to the yoke. To such an imputation a large majority proved themselves not to be justly exposed. Although, on former occasions, a seizure of the capital and the usurpation of power by a military chieftain had been generally followed, at least for a brief season, by an acquiescence of the Mexican people, yet they now rose boldly and independently to defend their rights.