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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
matters which could be presented; and the honorable Congress has been a witness of the impartiality and justice with which the com- mittee has conducted them, without making considerations of any kind, not only in not permitting the members to consult measures which might compromise the honor of the .Assembly, but furthermore, in not permitting them to use any measures which would not con- dusively express their opinion based on reasons of equity, .and ever with a view to the general good and the honor of the State. Finally, when the second regular sessions are about to adjourn, and when the committee believed that they had ceased their labors for awhile, they find themselves obliged to render an opiniori in a matter which has attracted public attention and which certainly could not be more difficult and delicate under the present circumstances. The honorable Congress saw tit to withdraw the leave which it had granted Mr. Lorenzo Zavala to enter upon the duties of the Min- ister of Finance on the 18th of April of tlte present year with the retention of his office, because it was evident that in having done this by simple agreement Congress had disregarded the Constitution which requires that various proceedings be made through me·asure9 which have the character of a decree; for the aforementioned body could not have failed to do so, as otherwise it would have broken the Jaw. l\Ir. Zavala, taking advantage of this occasion, immediately withdrew from the ministry, whereupon the states began to petition his removal. Although article 2 of the last resolution, which an- nulled the first one concerning the leave, expressly orders that the person at present in charge of the government shall not deliver up the office until Congress has passed the resolution, still, it is he- lieved tliat these measures were dictated with the consent of Mr. Zavala in order to free him of all public responsibility, to vindicate him of the faults attributed to him, and to place him in an advan- tageous posifion to molest the other states which have not been very favorable toward him. ' · Public opinion even goes to the extreme of imagining a great plan against the system protected by the State; and in truth, this opiniou apparently does not lack grounds to make it capahle of abuse, whe11 it "is. seen that the laws which are censured as most antifedernl are "precisely those which have been issued by the ministry of Mr. Zavala. The law of the 22nd of May, although dictated by the Cabinet, is known to have been proposed by this ministry; the law concerning- the loan in the terms in which it was first presented, which terms could not more clearly express its opposition to the system, had the same origin; the law of the 15th of last montl1, which all the l~ish1- tures have rejected, is notoriously a fabrication of the same func- tionary; and even the law to deprive the State of its financies has been consider<'d l,v all the other states as unconstitutional nnd for- ei~n to the extrao 0 rdinary powers of the Government. All these nrc data which have been collected to make l\lr. Zavala's opinion con- <'erning the form of government at least donbtfnl, and was not n SP.CrP.t coalition with the State to be suspected, seeing that his lcav,~ w'nit' dudd~nly withdrawn and he was admitt<'d to the office iri order tha"t this office might lend him 'the power which he had ex~n"t1stccl
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