Note VI-8 — Chapter VI · CIVIL WAR. 1829-1838.

Barrundia did not want the position, and did not work for it. He wished Morazan to be elected. Morazan had in his favor the prestige of a victorious general. He was somewhat in the position of Bonaparte when he returned from Egypt. Valle was recognized to be the best informed man of Central America; none could compete with him in literary or scientific attainments. In politics he was always an opponent of the aristocracy, who execrated his memory, and even impudently pretended to deny his literary merits. But we have seen elsewhere that he was not, like Barrundia, an uncompromising opponent of all governments not based on democracy and republicanism. He compromised with the Mexican empire, was a deputy to the imperial congress, where he made a brilliant record, and became a minister of the emperor, who sent him to prison when he dissolved the congress. After the emperor's overthrow, Valle maintained that the provinces of Central America were free to act their own pleasure. He was a popular man, but Morazan's victorious sword eclipsed all else just then. Id., 268.