Garcia Morales to D. Elial , Secretary, February 1, 1866

[Translation.]

I have received with positive satisfaction the two decrees issued by the President under date 8th November last, and the circular of the department which accompanied it; the first of them on the prolongation of the functions of the supreme magistrate of the nation, while the condition of the foreign war does not permit the making of a new constitutional election; and the second on the mode of substitution for it, during the war, it should fall through.

The anomalous circumstances under which, unfortunately, the republic is placed; the void or silence of the constitution on this point of such vital interest to the country; the spirit of articles of 78, 79, 80, 82 of the same fundamental code; and, finally, the amount of powers which the legislative power of the Mexican union devolved on the executive at the date of the 11th December, 1861, can superabundantly justify the first of said measures, in which not even the enemies of the government will ever be able to see anything else than the intense zeal of the President for legitimate action, the closest investigation of his determinations, and above all, his singular self-denial in encountering a position so trying as the present without other recompense than the satisfaction always caused by the discharge of duty, however onerous it may be.

Independence and liberty!