Note V-77 — Chapter V · CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 1825-1830.

The representatives were, Arbeu for Vice-president Beltranena, Pavon for Guatemala, Espinosa for Salvador, and Morazan for Honduras and Nicaragua. The last propositions of Espinosa and Morazan were the following, namely: 1st. That a provisional government should be formed in Guatemala, composed of the chief of the state Mariano Aycinena, Mariano Prado, and Morazan; 2d. That the two armies should be reduced to 1,000 men, Guatemalans and Salvadorans in equal parts; 3d. That the provisional government should be installed in Pinula, and afterward enter Guatemala with that force to give it strength and preserve order in the state; 4th. A general forgetfulness of the past. Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 5, 16; Montúfar, Reseña Hist., i. 65. It is claimed, on the other hand, that Morazan really wanted the federal vice-president and the chief of the state of Guatemala to throw up their offices, the legislative assembly and representative council to cease exercising their functions; and that of 1826, sitting at La Antigua, and which had made Zenteno chief, was also to dissolve; the supreme court of justice was to stop acting. Meantime, and until new elections took place, Morazan was to be clothed with executive, representative, and judicial powers. Under the pretext of restoring the sway of law and constitutional order, a dictatorship, emanating from a war treaty, would have been created, whose sole object was to reward the victor with an unlimited authority. The commissioners of the federal and Guatemalan governments refused to accede, and presented counter-propositions of a different nature, namely, to the effect that the existing high functionaries should resign their powers, and a provisional government be established, with one representative from each state, to govern till new elections and the restoration of the constitutional régime. There were also propositions respecting the government of the state of Guatemala. Full details in Mem. Rev. Cent. Am., 125-9, 231-6, which are widely different from those in Morazan, Apuntes, MS., 16. The government of Mexico, at the request of that of Guatemala, tendered its mediation on the 20th of February, but it arrived too late, and there was nothing left for it to do but to tender the hospitalities of the Mexican soil to the victims of persecution. The full correspondence is to be found in Méx., Mem. Rel., 1830, 2-3; also in Suarez y Navarro, Hist. Méj., 407-14; this authority claims that Mexican mediation might have been finally successful in restoring peace but for the opposition of the new chief of Guatemala.