CHAPTER X

by himself; three by others, for his benefit. Twice he has been chosen President by the Federal party of the Federal Republic of Mexico. Three times he has been made President by the Central, or Ecclesiastical party. He has been twice banished from Mexico, and each time recalled again and placed at the head of affairs. He has twice been taken prisoner, when his captors held long consultations upon the propriety of putting him to death. He has, in turn, been the candidate of all parties, and has served all parties faithfully in turn, but most faithfully of all he has served himself. Actively engaged through life as a politician and a soldier, he has found time to readjust the whole complicated system of Mexican laws, and, in a series of volumes of autocratic decrees, he has drawn from that chaotic mass a new system of jurisprudence, that will stand as a monument of his genius as long as the Mexican nation shall continue.