The peace between the president, and the vice president, Don Valentin Gomez Farias, had been cemented by the good offices of mutual friends, though it is not likely that any very ardent friendship could have sprung up suddenly between men whose politics had always been so widely variant. Nor was there less difference between the moral than the political character of these personages. Santa Anna, the selfish, arrogant military chieftain,—a man of unquestionable genius and talent for command,—had passed his life in spreading his sails to catch the popular breeze, and by his alliances with the two most powerful elements of Mexican society,—the army and the church,—had always contrived to sustain his eminent political position, or recover it when it was temporarily lost. Such was the case in his return to power after the invasion of the French, in the attack upon whom he fortunately lost a limb which became a constant capital upon which to trade in the corrupt but sentimental market of popular favor. Valentin Gomez Farias, on the contrary was a pure, straightforward, uncompromising patriot, always alive to the true progressive interests of the Mexican nation, and satisfied that these could only be secured by the successful imitation of our federal system, together with the destruction of the large standing army, and the release of the large church properties from the incubus of mortmain.
There was much discontent in Mexico with the election of these two personages to the presidency and vice presidency. Reflecting men thought the union unnatural, and although the desperate times required desperate remedies, there was something so incongruous in the political alliance between Farias and Santa Anna, that little good could be expected to issue from it. The clergy were alarmed for its wealth, and the moderate party was frightened by the habitual despotism of Santa Anna. The latter personage was in fact, regarded with more favor at the moment by all classes, than Farias, because the country had reason to believe him a man of action, and familiar in times of danger and distress, with all its resources of men and money; and as he was entirely occupied with the organization and management of the army at San Luis, the opposition party directed all its blows against the administration of the vice presidency.
A few days after the installation of the new government, the agitation of the mortmain question was commenced in congress. The Puro party united with the executive, made every effort to destroy the power of the clergy, by undermining the foundation of its wealth, while the Moderados became the supporters of the ecclesiastics, under the lead of Don Mariano Otero.
At length the law was passed, but it was not a frank and decided act, destroying at once the privileges of the clergy and declaring their possessions to be the property of the republic. In fact it was a mere decree for the seizure of ecclesiastical incomes, which threatened the non-complying with heavy fines if they did not pay over to the civil authorities, the revenues which had formerly been collected by the stewards of convents and monks.
This act, comparatively mild as it was, and temporary as it might have been considered, did not satisfy the clergy, even in this moment of national peril. They resorted to the spiritual weapons which they reserved for extreme occasions. They fulminated excommunications; and published dreadful threats of punishment hereafter for the crime that had been committed by placing an impious hand upon wealth which they asserted belonged to God alone. This conduct of the religious orders had its desired effect not only among the people, but among the officers of government; for the chief clerk of the finance department, Hurci, refused to sign the law, and it was sometime before a suitable person could be found to put the law in operation. Santa Anna adroitly kept himself aloof from the controversy, and wrote from San Luis, that he merely desired support for the army, and that in other questions, especially those touching the clergy, he had no desire to enter, but would limit himself to the recommendation, that neither the canons, nor the collegiate establishment of Guadalupe, should be molested, inasmuch as he entertained the greatest friendship for the one, and the most reverential devotion for the other.
But the executive, fixed in its intention to liberate the property held in mortmain, took every means to carry the law into effect, and experienced the utmost resistance from the incumbents, especially when the property happened to belong to the female sex, which is always averse from intercourse or dealings with persons who are regarded as inimical to the church.
This rigorous conduct of the executive, and the opposition it encountered from the Moderados, fomented by that powerful, spiritual class which has so long controlled the conscience of the masses, gave rise, at this period, to the outbreak in the capital, which is known as the revolution of the Polkos. It began on the 22d of February, 1847, in Mexico, whilst Santa Anna was firing the first guns at Angostura; and its great object was to drive Farias from executive power. The forces on both sides, amounted to six thousand men, and were divided between the Polkos and the partizans of the government. Funds were found to support both factions, and from that time to the 21st of March, the city of Mexico was converted into a battle field. On the morning of that day Santa Anna, who had already despatched a portion of his broken army towards the coast, and who had been approached on his journey from the capital, by emissaries from both factions, arrived at Guadalupe, and immediately the contest ceased. The stewards of the convents refused to expend more money for the support of their partizans, and the treasury of the government was closed against its adherents. The personal influence of Santa Anna thus put an end to a disgraceful rebellion which threatened the nationality of Mexico, within, whilst a foreign enemy was preparing to attack its most vital parts from the gulf.
The conflict of arms was over, but the partizans of the clergy did not intermit their efforts to get rid of the obnoxious vice-president; and at length, they effected pacifically, what they had been unable to do by force.
They brought in a bill declaring that "the vice presidency of the republic, created by the decree of the 21st December, 1846, should be suppressed." The debate upon this was of the most animated nature, the friends and enemies of Farias showing equal vehemence in sustaining their views. On the 31st day of March the vote was taken, and the proposition carried by a vote of thirty-eight to thirty-five.
The following day a decree was passed embodying the above proposition and others: