This is probably due to the fact that the criminal acts with which the struggle was initiated, and the cruel proceedings employed to sustain it, have been forgotten. When Mexico had realized the highest democratic prerogative to elect its mandataries, and we had the right to expect in the midst of peace and tranquillity, the periodical renovation of the public powers, for the expression of the national will only, the most corrupt balance of the conquered classes have tried to destroy our political institutions for all time and by violence or force only have they disposed of the life, the rights and interests of our countrymen. They have perpetrated bloody executions without subjection to any law; they assassinate the Constitutionalists who fall wounded, battling with arms for the liberty of the people,--and deputies and senators who defend our democratic institutions by word, they drag peaceful men and even children from their homes, obliging them to take up arms against us, and instil terror throughout, burning entire towns. It has been crimes of this nature which have made the cause that I represent, constitute not only a corrective political revolution but also that it should have the character of an act of peace, and severe justice which will chastise the guilty, and provide for the salvation of the Mexican family. To fill these purposes, within the spirit of our Constitution, without any sentiment of passion, but meditating with reflection up to what point clemency and magnanimity can arrive, before an imperious duty of justice and the high necessity of assuring peace and the future of the nation, I have determined that the law of Juarez of January 25th, 1862, which defines and chastises crimes against the public peace, shall be put into force. With strict subjection to that pre-existent law, the Huerta officials were tried and executed, among whom were some who had been apprehended in Torreon by the same General Villa who, in addition to pardoning them, then acceded to the fact that they should become incorporated in our forces, in which they tried later, but in vain, to make the men whose command was entrusted to them, desert--they finally running away, in order to relapse into their crimes. It is true that the principles established in international wars agree to give pardon and immunity to the prisoners, but in civil struggles the most civilized nations in all epochs have employed proceedings still more rigorous and bloody than those which we have been obliged to adopt. In the case of executions of officials in Ciudad Juarez, the chastisement according to the law, of delinquents against peace and public security must be viewed, as a just punishment, rather than a cruelty to prisoners of war.