Career—the life of a man who, without the highest characteristics of a real hero, was mixed up in every event which took place on the plateau of Anahuac, from the beginning of the struggle to the end.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was born in Jalapa, Feb. 21, 1798, sixty-six years to a day after the birth of George Washington, whose footsteps, if he followed at all, it was in an erring manner. He first made his appearance in public, as we have seen, fighting in the war of independence; it was he who, in 1821, expelled the royalists from Vera Cruz, and took possession of the city. Yturbide thus owed to him, in part, his success, but it was no intention of Santa Anna's to make an emperor of him, and he applied the same vigor in pulling him down from the throne, that he had to smooth the way to it. This effected, he withdrew to his estates in Jalapa, accepting the federal government decreed by Congress the 4th of October, 1824.
This Constitution, wisely drawn up in accordance with the best models, provided an excellent system of government, if it could be adhered to. Don Felix Fernandez Victoria, an army general, called by the people Guadalupe Victoria, on account of the intervention in his favor against the Spanish, as they believed, of the patron saint of Mexico, Our Lady of Guadalupe, assumed office in 1824, and kept it for two years without any commotion. He is described by Madame Calderon as a plain, uneducated, well intentioned man, brave and enduring. She gives an anecdote to his credit. When Yturbide, alone, fallen, and a prisoner, was banished from Mexico,
