Split into factions by political strife, which even the hammering at their gates of a common enemy had not sufficed to heal, Mexico received a terrible lesson. The history of Mexico had repeated itself. Just as Cortes and his Spaniards had penetrated from Vera Cruz to Tenochtitlan, thanks to dissensions among the Aztec inhabitants of the country, so had the Americans ascended over the same route to a similar victory by analogous circumstances. Even whilst the victorious forces of the Anglo-Saxons were marching onwards, the mad political generals and transient Presidents of Mexico were launching _pronunciamientos_, fighting among themselves, and shedding the blood of their own countrymen; and not until February 2, 1848, was peace entered into with the Americans, and the treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo signed. Mexico ceded to the United States under this agreement the area of an empire! Texas had already been lost; California and New Mexico[21] were given up now, rich and extensive regions, although little known at the time, as indemnity for which the United States Government paid the sum of fifteen million dollars. [Footnote 21: The English reader may ask, Where is New Mexico? It is that territory lying between Arizona and Texas, forming part of the American Union.] So was concluded what the Mexicans have termed "the unjust war," and the historian will probably not feel called upon to dispute the designation. Great bitterness of feeling between the two nations was aroused on account of this conquest and cession of territory, which, among the Mexicans of the great plateau, is, even at the present day, far from being forgotten. It was but a short time after the cession of California that gold was discovered--the famous days of 1849--and Mexico did not know what she was losing. Perhaps in the interests of the development of the fine State of California and its progressive people, circumstances were for the best as they were. Santa-Anna disappears from the scene in 1855. After the war he had assumed semi-regal titles and pretensions, and had brought about or permitted a further cession in the unpopular treaty with the United States. Further revolutions and _pronunciamientos_ followed, and civil war divided the country. The figure of Juarez, famous in his country's history, was appearing, and this remarkable man became President in January, 1858. In the previous year a new Constitution had been adopted, and is that which has remained in force to the present day. It was duly subjected to a futile _pronunciamiento_! Further legal enactments were made by the Liberals against the clergy, as well as the anti-mortmain statute, framed by Lerdo with the object of releasing the great properties held by civil and religious corporations; and it was mainly aimed at the power and wealth of the Church--a foretaste of the Reform Laws.