Don Manuel Mier y Terán was one of the most cultured and intelligent men in Mexico during the years 1820-1832, according to Filisola, Tornel, and Dr. Mora, the latter Terán's biographer. (See Filisola's Guerra de Tejas, I, Chapter XXIII and Appendix, and Tornel's Breve Reseña, 171-173.) According to Dr. Mora, Terán was connected with the struggle for independence from the year 1810, and from that date until his death he was unswervingly loyal to the cause of Mexico. At the time of his appointment as chief of the boundary commission, he was head of the School of Artillery in Mexico City. In 1829 he was made comandante general of the Eastern States, and Dr. Mora says that had he lived, he instead of Santa Anna, would have been elected to the presidency in 1832. Tornel says: “The efforts of General Terán to save the district of Texas to the nation were tremendous, and when the military command fell to him, through the removal of General Bustamante, he disciplined the colonies with effective vigor. One of our revolutions destroyed the fruit of his valiant labors and sent him to his death, to the sorrow of all patriotic citizens.” The revolution referred to was that by which Santa Anna deposed Bustamante, and Tornel is wholly correct in his assertion that it was this revolution that destroyed Terán's work in Texas.
As to Terán's ability and personality, Filisola quotes Dr. Mora as follows: “Terán was a scholar who was worthy of a distinguished place in the Paris Academy of Sciences, and furthermore he was a man of the highest distinction with regard to integrity of conduct, social qualifications, polish of manner, and even personal appearance; he fought always in the cause of independence, and this with honor, purity of purpose, intelligence and ability, during a period when examples of these virtues were rare enough, and examples of their opposing vices woefully frequent. In his political faith he was a progressive. . . . Terán had ambition, but being honorable enough to realize that such should not be satisfied at the price of civil war, he abandoned such a field to the vulgarly ambitious. But when his country's cause was endangered by Spanish invasion, he hastened to the field of battle, where he won the laurels of a victory due almost entirely to his efforts and genius. Neither the rebellion of Acordada, nor that of Jalapa, nor any which followed, gained his approval; to all he refused his services, remaining at all times loyal to the recognized government, firm in the conviction that civil wars, only by exception, are a means of political progress.” I have found nothing in Terán's public or private correspondence to contradict this estimate of him. The “recognized government” did not of necessity mean to him constitutional government, apparently, but there is ample evidence that he believed in honest, strong government, whether by a strict adherence to the Constitution of 1824, or by the right of individual capacity. No other view can be taken of his unswerving support of Bustamante. It has generally been reported that, in despair over the defeat of his command by the Santa Anna forces, he died at Padilla by his own hand in July, 1832. Filisola refuses to accept this version, declaring that Terán was assassinated by an emissary of Santa Anna.
