Note XIII-85 — Chapter XIII · REPUBLIC OF GUATEMALA. 1840-1865.

This was the result of public meetings held in the departments by the garrisons, officials, and parish priests, at which it was made to appear that it was the will of the people that Carrera should be president for life, with the privilege of selecting his successor, and that other amendments should be made to the acta constitutiva, as permitted by its 15th art. It is understood that at the meeting of officials in the capital there was but one dissentient vote to the proposition. He had in a manifesto of June 22d expressed a weak objection to the proposed change, but it was evidently a preconcerted plan of the aristocrats and the military element. Guat., Gaceta, May 12 to Sept. 15, 1854, passim; Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 87-90; Costa R., Gaceta, July 1-29, 1854; Id., Boletin Ofic., July 27, 1854; March 17, 1855; Carrera, Manifiesto, in Cent. Am. Pamph., v. no. 21; Squier's Cent. Am., 514. Carrera before this received honors from foreign governments; he was a knight grand cross of the papal order of St Gregory the Great; the same of the Mexican order of Guadalupe; and knight commander of the Belgian order of Leopold. Guat., Recop. Ley., i. 90.