President Pedro Hermión.
The 19th of June speech was a special address to the Mexican Congress made on that day in 1851 by President Pedro Hermión just before his assassination.
The speech came at a low point in Hermión's popularity. Word of the disastrous Battle of Williams Pass, in which two Mexican armies of 97,000 men suffered 66,000 deaths, had begun to reach the Mexican people. With defeat staring the U.S.M. in the face, popular opinion turned strongly against Hermión. In the spring of 1851 several attempts were made on Hermión's life, and he was unable to leave the Presidential Palace without a large contingent of armed guards.
When Hermión appeared before Congress to deliver a special message, there was speculation that he would announce his resignation, or at least withdraw from the 1851 Mexican elections. Instead, Hermión defended his conduct of the war and attacked his opponents as "turncoats, fair weather friends who run at the first sign of problems." He vowed that the war would continue "until we drive the last North American from our soil, and then we will march upon Burgoyne, and I will personally dictate peace terms to Gilpin and his jackals."
At first, the members of Congress were silent, and a few were openly scornful of the President, but soon they began to interrupt Hermión's speech with applause. By the end of the speech, the Congressmen were openly enthusiastic, and as Hermión concluded with the words, "We shall never give up! Our Cause is just!" half the Congress rose to a standing ovation.
As Hermión bowed to the applauding Congressmen, he was shot in the back of the head and instantly killed by Emiliano Zangora, a disgruntled former member of the Presidential guard. Zangora attempted to escape, but was cut down by the Congressional guard.
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Sobel's source for the 19th of June speech is John Conroy's The Rhetoric of Pedro Hermión: A Study in Mob Psychology (London, 1970).