It contained eleven articles, and embraced persons who, to the 19th of September of the same year, had been guilty of infidencia, or treason, sedition, conspiracy, and other offences of a political nature. From its benefits were excepted, 1st, the regentes and lugartenientes of the empire; and 2d, generals who, while commanding in chief a division or corps d'armée, deserted to the foreign invader.[1] One month was granted for insurgents still under arms to apply for their pardons; failing in which, they were to be prosecuted. The eleventh article declared that the persons included in the second exception should not be sentenced to the penalty of death, to which they were amenable, but to the "mayor extraordinaria." A few days later several deputies[2] moved that the benefits of the amnesty should be extended to the men who had been regents of the empire, but congress rejected the motion. Prisoners entitled to the amnesty were released. Among them were the ex-generals Severo del Castillo and Miguel Negrete. The latter had been arrested in July, subjected to trial, and being convicted, was sentenced to death.[3] But the people would not allow such a fate to befall one of the heroes of the Cinco de Mayo, as well as a brave defender of Puebla the following year, and petitions for his un-
- ↑ The executive wanted also to be excepted the so-called ministers who countersigned Maximilian's decree of Oct. 3, 1865, and the leaders of insurrections and mutinies that had occurred from Aug. 1867 to the date of the law, but congress rejected the proposition. The benefits of the amnesty were also allowed to those among the excepted whose fate had been defined by the executive, and it might be extended to persons comprised in the second exception whenever the executive deemed it expedient. Prosecutions already instituted were to be discontinued, and fines remitted. Sequestrated or confiscated property, not yet sold, was to be restored, in the condition it might then be, to the parties interested. The amnesty did not exempt from responsibility for property of the government or private parties illegally seized; nor did it imply restoration of rank, decorations, offices, honors, pay, pensions, montepío, etc. Diario Debates, 5° Cong., iii. 213-18; Diario Ofic., Oct. 16, 1870. Marquez de Leon claims some credit for this enactment. Mem. Póst., MS., 342-4.
- ↑ Zamacona, Islas, Prieto, Ávila, and Orozco. El Siglo, Oct. 23, 1870.
- ↑ Diario Ofic., July 12, 13, 1870. Lerdo was accused of favoring Negrete's execution out of personal hostility. El Monitor Rep., July 13-15, 1870.
the law those persons who held the offices of secretary or under-secretary of state, and those who acted as members of courts-martial, or who, while serving their country, deserted to the enemy. Puebla, Var. Ley., no. 41.
