♦REGULATIONS PROPOSED BY THE CENTRAL JUNTA.
The last act of the Junta had been to consign to the Regency the charge of seeing the Cortes assembled, according to these rules. In this final decree provision was made for choosing deputies to represent the provinces occupied by the enemy; they were to be chosen in the same manner as the colonial deputies. Here also the important point of the _veto_ was determined. If the Regency refused its assent to a measure which had passed both houses, the measure was to be re-considered; and unless re-passed by a majority of two-thirds in each house, it was lost, and could not be brought forward again in that Cortes; but if both houses, by such a majority, ratified their former determination, three days were then allowed to the Regency, and if within that time the royal sanction was not given, the law was to be promulgated without it. The Junta endeavoured to confine the Cortes within its proper limits, by declaring that the executive power appertained wholly to the Regency, and the legislative to the representative body; and lest any party should arise, who should aim at making the Cortes permanent, or unnecessarily extending its duration, “by which means,” the Junta said, “the constitution of the kingdom might be overthrown,” the Regency was empowered to fix any time for the dissolution of the assembly, provided it were not before the expiration of six months.
This decree, which developed the principles of the central Junta, and completed their labours, the Regency did not think proper to make public; one of the many acts of injustice which the Junta suffered after their compulsory resignation. The council of Castille, or rather the _Consejo-reunido_, in which such of its members were incorporated as had followed the legitimate Government into Andalusia, hinted, in a memorial full of calumnies against the ex-Junta, that the Cortes ought not to be convoked; their opinion was doubtless of great weight with the Regency; and as the Regents did not conceive themselves bound to follow the course which the preceding Government had marked out, they suppressed the edict, and issued in its stead an ♦FEB. 11.♦ address, breathing the same spirit as all the proclamations of the Spanish Government, but putting off the meeting of the Cortes. “The council of Regency,” they said, “could well have wished that your representatives had been at this time in Cortes assembled, and that the nation itself might thus have regulated its own destinies. The means which are necessary for our deliverance would quickly appear at its energetic and powerful voice. But this means of preservation has been too long delayed; and evils gathering upon each other, with the rapidity of a whirlwind, do not permit that it should be accomplished at the time and place appointed. The Isle of Leon, where the national congress ought to assemble, is at this time besieged by the enemy; from this isle we see their fires, we hear their artillery, we hear their insolent threats, and witness their ravages. Their rash endeavours, beyond a doubt, will fail against these intrenchments, where the watch-tower is erected which presents to all good patriots a beacon in the midst of the tempest. But the Isle of Leon, thus threatened by the enemy, cannot be at present a proper place for the celebration of our Cortes; and necessity compels us to delay it till the present crisis shall be past, and place and time suitable for so august an assembly can be assigned. Meantime, none of the measures and forms established and decreed for the convocation are to be suspended for a moment. The elections are to proceed, and the members who are chosen must hold themselves ready to perform their functions; the intention of the Government being, that the Cortes shall meet as soon as the circumstances of the war permit.”