Justin H. Smith - The Mexican-American War (Vol. 1&2)

But now the people took fire. They had trusted Santa Anna completely, and their confidence had been as completely abused. It was felt that he had shown a deliberate intention to ignore the public interest and feed upon the nation—disregarding all personal rights, threatening all fortunes and contradicting all principles. Paredes, who had never forgiven Santa Anna for running him off the track in 1841, pronounced. In November, 1844, war began. The President attempted both to cajole and to terrorize his enemies, and moved against the insurgents with a powerful army; but on December 6 the troops at the capital revolted, and the nation concurred. In the departments he was particularly hated, for he had impoverished them with taxes and spent the money elsewhere; but Mexico itself blazed. “Death to the lame man!” shouted the populace, dragging his foot round the streets. Dazed and overwhelmed, Santa Anna, after moving about irresolutely with his dwindling army, left it with a small escort early in January, 1845, and then took to his heels with only four servants. Before long some peasants captured him, and later in the year he was banished.9

At first sight this collapse amazes us. It seems impossible that Santa Anna, whose particular talent lay in discovering the direction of political currents, should have lost so suddenly his tremendous power. But the explanation is readily found. Without a doubt he was the foremost Mexican of his time. Seen at the head of a ragged, undisciplined mob called a regiment, inspiring them with eye, gesture and words, and leading them on with almost electrical energy; seen at a banquet, where he could show himself—despite the six colonels erect and stiff behind his chair—merely a prince of good fellows, dignified but cordial, courtly but unrestrained, brilliant yet apparently simple; seen at the council board, seizing upon a shrewd idea expressed by one of his associates and developing, illustrating and applying it in a way that made its real author marvel at his chief’s wisdom; seen in one of his outbursts of Jacksonian rage, as when he threatened at a diplomatic reception to run the boundary line between Mexico and the United States at the cannon’s mouth; seen at the opera house, in a crimson and gold box with a retinue of crimson and gold officers, dressed in the plainest of costumes himself, and wearing on his countenance an interesting expression of gentle melancholy and resignation, as if he were sacrificing himself for the nation and shrank from the gaze of an adoring public—seen in these and other phases he appeared remarkable, and even, as combining them, extraordinary.9

But in reality he was a charlatan. Though head of an army, he knew nothing of military science; though head of a nation, he knew nothing of statesmanship. By right of superiority and by right of conquest Mexico seemed to be his; and, with what Burke described as “the generous rapacity of the princely eagle,” he proposed to take the chief share of wealth, power, honor and pleasure, leaving to others the remnants of these as a compensation for doing the work. It was a cardinal principle with him that the masses could be ignored; and in 1844, having reduced the Church to subservience and formed a combination with the military and the financial men, based on a community of interest in exploiting the national revenues, he deemed himself invulnerable, the more so because the coterie of base flatterers that he loved to have about him reflected this conviction. Of a true national uprising he had no conception; and when this came, finding himself in the presence of a power that amazed and overawed him, seeing his axioms disproved and his pillars going down, he lost heart, and plunged from the zenith to the nadir of his essentially emotional nature.9

Santa Anna’s legal successor was General J. J. Herrera, president of the council of state, a fair, pacific, reasonable and honest man; and the new ministry commanded respect. For a time the halcyon days of 1825 returned. This was the first great popular movement since Mexico had become independent. All had united in it, and therefore all were in harmony; every one had assisted, and therefore every one felt an agreeable expectation of reward. Factions laid down their arms. For a few weeks all remembered they were Mexicans. But the situation was extremely difficult. Santa Anna’s constitution, which commanded no respect because neither authorized by the people nor endorsed by good results, was still in force. All who believed in his system, including twenty thousand half-pay—or rather no-pay—officers, dissipated, hungry and reckless, began at once to plot for his return or for some one of the same kind to succeed him. Herrera’s aim to introduce reforms, both civil and military, gave great offence. Paredes, representing the Church and the aristocracy, stood at the head of the main army, and soon showed a disposition to hold aloof. Indeed every prominent man had a busily scheming clique.10

The correct course for the new President would have been to declare for the constitution of 1824, and throw himself upon the Federalists; but, fearing that such a step would excite a revolution, he adopted the timid and hopeless policy of trying to balance one party against another. Owing to fear of the army, though he knew he could not rely upon it, he dared not organize militia; and before long a body of troops were allowed to revolt with impunity. Soon, therefore, the government had no prestige and no substantial backing. Every sort of a complaint was made against it. The financial troubles became acute. Confusion and uncertainty reigned, and the President was physically incapable of a hard day’s work.10

In March a conspiracy that indicated an ominous combination of Federalists and Santannistas came to light. In May, under strenuous pressure from England and France, the government shrinkingly agreed to recognize Texas if she would bind herself not to join the United States; and this wise though tardy move brought an avalanche of abuse upon it. In June the Federalists rose, but the affair was badly managed and failed. Tornel, the arch-plotter, a general who never had a command, was sent to the northern army; and other turbulent men were imprisoned. But still the government merely drifted—blind, irresolute, vacillating, moribund; and the general public looked on with complete indifference. Going to sleep red and waking up green—for revolutions usually began at night—was no longer a novelty.10

In August the ministers resigned; “the chief offices of state were begging in the streets,” wrote the correspondent of the London Times; and the men who finally took them, while personally well enough, had little strength and less prestige. By September the government stood in hourly fear of a revolution; but so little booty could be seen, that although the plots thickened, they were lazily developed, and amounted to nothing. Paredes, the Santannistas and the Federalists became constantly more threatening, however, and the administration more and more afraid to take any step whatever, good or bad. Nobody could guess what it would do to-day from what it did yesterday. The anarchy of weakness constituted the government. A triumvirate of Paredes, Tornel and Valencia was much talked of. Many prayed for some respectable despot, many for a foreign prince; and some of the more thoughtful suggested cautiously an American protectorate. “Sterile, deplorably sterile” has been the movement against Santa Anna, exclaimed the friendly Siglo XIX in October, describing it as “a moment of happy illusion.” By this time the administration was powerless even at the capital; and on November 30 El Amigo del Pueblo, an opposition sheet, announced, “There is no government in Mexico.” This, however, was premature. Before the dénouement of this tragi-farce the United States was to enter upon the scene; and as this new phase of the drama requires to be prepared for, we must here leave Herrera, for a brief space, in the midst of his difficulties.10