Office of the Historian

No. 269.
Mr. Nelson to Mr. Fish.

Legation of the United States,
Mexico, November 28, 1871. (Received December 26.)
No. 475.]

Sir: As a part of the history of the present revolution, I inclose a translation of a protest that was published by several members of the national congress who call themselves “constitutional deputies.”

I have, &c.,

THOMAS H. NELSON.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

Protest of the constitutional deputies.

The undersigned, deputies of the sixth constitutional congress of the republic, taking into consideration:

That the popular suffrage has been stifled in a great portion of the country during the last elections for the renewal of the President, and that the public reputation and conscience verify the pressure of force and other administrative abuses, with which was obtained the suffocation or falsification of the spontaneous vote of the people;

That this mockery was continued in the revision of powers of this chamber, the door of which has been inflexibly shut to many anti-re-electionary deputies, the unblemished character of whose credentials is unimpeachable, as has been seen in the debates and votes of the last few days;

That there are a great number of districts in which the election for President has not been verified; and that this owing to the efforts of the administration that the vote of the people should not be expressed, such administration having decided that the periodical rotation of the executive power, which has been suspended for so long a time, and which wishes to paralyze it for a new period;

That there are many other districts arbitrarily deprived of representation in congress that will not have, in the critical and important declaration which this document treats of making, the participation which nature and the constitution authorizes them;

That neither have the representatives of all these districts been informed of the decisive and inaugurative acts of the legislature—acts which have been the means of preparing the result of the election to which they wish to proceed prematurely;

That it, as in duty bound, in reason and in justice, adjourned until the frustrated elections should be verified, and until the revision of the powers, which is incomplete, should be terminated in congress:

That to the parliamentary circles, whose repugnance to the re-election is known, they have not wished to give any representation in the investigating committee of the votes for the presidency;

That the present circumstances of the country demand from its representatives great foresight and gravity, in order to avert the danger of civil war, against which measures there is nothing so evident than that the supreme powers wish to legalize their functions and to put their titles of legitimacy out of the question;

That this premature act of the election, to which they wished to proceed, is not the seasonable and natural end, because the affair is finished, but, on the contrary, is a preconceived idea to which have been adjusted the anterior steps of Congress, which have unsustainable irregularities in face of the constitution, the electoral law, and parliamentary rule;

That a new irregularity has been committed by rejecting the proposition leading to the one that the elections should have their natural object, and should give, in all the [Page 355] points of the republic, the participation in them, of which many, against their will, have been deprived;

That the same majority of this assembly, by means of acts relative to the revision of the powers, has considered the protests of the minority to be efficacious, when the greater number of an associated body has oppressed such minority by jumping over the barriers of reason and of the laws:

Those who subscribe, considering all this, protest against the legality of the act that the majority of the congress established, in an electoral body, propose to execute and abstain from taking part in the premature vote and declaration to which the advice of the investigating committee extends.

Hall of sessions of the congress, Mexico , October 11, 1871.

  • P. Tagle.
  • Zamarcona.
  • Esteva Mirafuentes.
  • Felipe Buemostro.
  • T. Garcia.
  • Ramon Romero.
  • Ferreira P. Tora.
  • Lorenzo P. Castro.
  • Juan M. Vasques.
  • José Maria Palicios.
  • Vicente Lebrija.
  • Joaquin Maria Ruiz.
  • Carreon Mariano Iturbe.
  • Padilla F. Uriarte.
  • J. Alfaro.
  • Manuel Gonzales.
  • José G. Lobato.
  • Justo Merino.
  • Martin Gonzales.
  • Maepica.