CHAPTER X
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1835-1836
Rrmwlings of the atp,proaching storm. Efforts of the national and state governments to enforce laws long forgotten, and to extend to local affairs an imperial administration to which the colonists had be- come strangers, were to prove fatal, as had been the case with the English colonies on the Atlantic Coast sixty years before. Until 1832 Texas had successfully avoided identification with any of the political parties warring in Mexico. To save themselves, the embattled colonists declared in that year for Santa Anna and the Constitution of 1824, 1 thus unwittingly entering the national political arena. But Santa Anna, a Conservative at heart, had used the Liberals merely to secure power. Elected President in 1833, after the successful revolt against Bustamante, he had allowed Vice President Valentin Gomez Farias to assume executive powers. Between April of 1833 and January of 1835 the executive power had changed hands between Santa Anna and Go~ez Farias seven times. Santa Anna graciously stepped aside to permit Gomez Farias to receive the odium for all the liberal reforms and thus make it possible for himself to court the favor of the Church, the Army, and the wealthy by posing as the moderator of liberal excesses. Texas had benefited from the liberalism of the new government. More specifically, Santa Anna, mindful of the moral support given him by the Texans, had approved the modification of the Law of April 6, 1830, to permit immigration from the United States, and continued to show favors to Texas until late in 1834. Santa Anna finally decided to throw off his mask, and again assumed the presidency in April, 1834. He repudiated the liberal program of 1832, declared the country had had enough, exiled Gomez Farias, dismissed all but one of his ministers, dissolved legislatures and ayzmta- mientos, and annulled the laws against the clergy. Congress was convoked and obligingly legalized the acts of Santa Anna. October of 1835 witnessed the establishment of a central system of government that gave dictatorial powers to the former leader of the liberal revolt of Vera Cruz. A centralized government replaced the federal system set
1 "Turtle Bayou Resolutions," see Chapter IX, pp. 248, 249.
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