The War of the Andes–Important decrees of the national government–The City National Guards called out.
Whereas the national government has received official information to the effect—
1. That the rebels who overturned the government of Mendoza on the 9th of November have completely thrown off the national authority, committing every kind of outrage against the law; arming and equipping a considerable force even after they had official notification that the national government sent a special commissioner at the request of the fallen administration; preventing the exercise of federal law in that territory: violating and seizing the mail-bags; sending armed bands into the neighboring provinces; invading San Juan in great force; attacking the federal and provincial troops there stationed; upsetting the lawful authorities of the place; outraging all law and order, and abandoning to the most unbridled excesses the free and enlightened institutions of the country.
2. That a band of filibusters under Felipe Varela has invaded our western provinces, to stir up a rebellion, openly declaring the intention to overthrow the federal government, as the object of their criminal crusade.
3. That rebel bands have simultaneously sprung up in Rioja, and begun their career with the usual depredations, but assuming this time a political character in close connection with the aforesaid rebels.
Moreover seeing—
1. That these proceedings by the Mendoza rebels deprive the movement of a purely local I character as at first supposed, while the combination of events already stated shows it to be a general rebellion and wide-laid plan to subvert the government and constitution.
2. That one of the objects of the rebellion is to draw off the attention and resources of the government from the war in Paraguay, and by this means lend efficacious aid to the foreign enemies of the republic.
3. That it behooves the government clearly to define the position of the rebels, and to at once restore the provinces and people to the enjoyment of peace under the protection of the national flag, using for this end all legal faculties and measures, and submitting the criminals to the rigor of the law :
The vice-president of the republic, in exercise of the executive, and by virtue of his faculties, hereby declares—
1. All individuals who may have taken part already, or shall hereafter do so, in the deeds of the Mendoza rebels, since the 9th November, 1866, as also those who accompany Felipe Varela, or shall hereafter join his band: the authors or accomplices of the revolt in Rioja, and all who in any part of the republic deliberately concur or aid in the present revolutionary movement, shall be considered as rebels and traitors to the republic, and brought before the federal tribunals to be dealt with in all the rigor of the law.
2. The respective ministers of state shall take the proper steps to enforce this decree, and communicate it for this purpose to the various governors of provinces.