José Mariano de Salas (11 May 1797 – 24 December 1867) was a Mexican soldier and politician who served twice as interim president of Mexico, once in 1846, during the Mexican American War, and once in 1859 during the War of Reform. He was a known partisan of Santa Anna, and his first presidency which occurred during the Mexican-American War involved Salas serving as interim president for Santa Anna, after the overthrow of Mariano Paredes, while Santa Anna returned from an exile. Nonetheless, Salas still governed for a few months and energetically passed measures to unite the country and promote the war effort. At Santa Anna's behest, Salas also restored the Constitution of 1824, thus ending the Centralist Republic of Mexico which had been in effect since 1835. His second presidency during the Reform War was much less eventful. After an election, he was assigned to the post while president-elect Miguel Miramon arrived and only remained in power for a few days. As the Second Mexican Empire was being established in 1863, the Assembly of Notables elected him as part of the executive triumvirate that invited Maximilian of Habsburg to take the throne. Early life Mariano Salas was born in Mexico City in 1797. After receiving his primary education, he joined the military and participated in the Mexican War of Independence as an infantry cadet in the Infantes de Puebla regiment. He initially on the side of the Spaniards, but he joined in the Plan of Iguala in 1821, and during the First Mexican Empire sided with congress as it broke out into armed conflict against Emperor Iturbide in 1823. After the establishment of the First Mexican Republic, he defended the government of Guadalupe Victoria against the insurgents in the Plan of Montaño of 1827. He was in charge of the tenth battalion stationed in Guadalajara when the Spanish attempted to invade Mexico in 1829, and he fought against that incursion, remaining with the garrison of Tampico el Alto until the Spanish departed. He joined in the Plan of Jalapa against Vicente Guerrero, but defended the subsequent government of Anastasio Bustamante when the San Luis Potosí militia rose up. During the Plan of Veracruz in 1832, he defended the government of Bustamante up until the end, but after his overthrow was an accomplished fact, he was willing to fight for adherence to the new government of Manuel Gomez Pedraza. During