Chapter IV: Appendix: (manuscript Sources) 565 (2)

After dinner we look about the town. All is monotonous and sombre. The houses, mostly of one story, form a continuous wall along the street--or along the sidewalk, if there be one--and their projecting, heavily barred windows, in front of which the young fellows have to do their courting, suggest prisons more than homes. Now we come to the massive, crumbling, gloomy church, and wonder where the priest keeps the family which everybody knows he has. Here is the government house, and we stop to picture the wily politicians, who--with noble exceptions--obtain the offices of local grandeur, and the little horde of clerks, many of them rendered prematurely decrepit by their vices, that fawn but cannot be made to work at the nod of authority. In vain we look for a book-store, though somewhere that name doubtless appears on a sign; but we do find the office of the comandante general, an officer who represents the central power, has charge of the military, and often is mining and counter-mining in a sharp struggle with the governor. How intolerably dull it must be to live here! Business of a large sort there is none. The little newspapers are scarcely more than echoes from partisan sheets at Mexico. Religion is a subject that one must let alone, and education a subject that it is useless to discuss. Of science, history, art, nothing is known. The small men in power brook no criticism except from enemies. Affairs in other states, even a famine or a flood, excite little interest. Not much is left except petty intriguing and the gratification of coarse appetites. A revolution is about the only possible escape from this more deadly ennui.[1.8]

[LIFE AT MEXICO]

Our second day shall be given to the metropolis. The suburbs of Mexico are mostly ragged and unclean, but some broad avenues lined with fine trees run through them, and entering the city by one of these we make our way to the great central plaza. On the eastern side of this extends the palace, a very long two-storied building of little distinction, and on the northern side towers the huge cathedral, quite in the grand, heavy, Spanish style, seamed with earthquake scars and pockmarked by revolutionary bullets. It is a Sunday morning and still rather early, but the plaza is alive. The usual nightly crop of dead and wounded is being carried to the morgue or the hospital. Sick men, cripples and stalwart beggars are beginning to pose for alms. Prisoners in chains are pretending to put the streets in order; but their guards, with that mixture of good nature and indolence that characterizes the Mexican unless his passions are excited, let them do about as they please, and they take their cue for street-cleaning from the Book of Revelation: They that be filthy, let them be filthy still.[1.8]

Indians in various tribal costumes, mostly picturesque and all dirty, patter through the square with loads of provisions or babies. As no stoves or fireplaces exist, the charcoal man's loud "Carbosiú!" (_Carbón, señor!_) resounds through the streets. So does the plaintive cry of the water-carrier, bending under his great earthen jar, for the houses are all supplied from a few public fountains, the termini of aqueducts. "Orchata, lemon, pineapple, tamarind!" calls out a shrill voice; "What will you take, my darling? This way for refreshment:" and we see a good-looking girl in a short skirt expanded wide with hoops, her arms bare and her bodice cut low enough for a ball, selling "temperance" drinks. Here is a dingy cell stuffed with chin-basins, razors, dental implements, boxes of pomade, a guitar, a fighting-cock tethered in a corner, and sundry pictures of saints, parrots and battles; and there a cigar shop with a slender, black-eyed girl behind the counter, bold enough and handsome enough, even without the red rose in her hair, to tempt St. Anthony. Observe the _evangelista_, or public letter-writer, with two quills and an inkstand ready on his little desk under a canopy of straw matting; and observe, too, that lépero with his back against a donkey's pannier, robbing the pannier while he pretends to be buying a knife.[1.8]

Priests in long shovel hats; lousy soldiers in ragged, ill-fitting uniforms; gaudy officers chatting and smoking; jugglers with snakes and balls; cynical dandies retailing love affairs; half-naked léperos in the corners sleeping off their pulque; lottery venders with long strings of tickets; sellers of flowers, toys, candy, glass, wax-work, mock jewellery, cheap cutlery, and a thousand other things; closed carriages taking ladies to church; more beggars and still more--these and many other sights keep us too busy for reflection; but we cannot help noticing that seven out of ten persons are social drones or parasites, and that vice of one sort or another dims the face and weakens the step of almost every one. Suddenly a light bell tinkles, and the crowd is instantly grave and still. "God is coming," they whisper, or in other words the viatic is going to a sick man. A coach drawn by two mules and followed by a dozen slovenly friars holding lighted candles and chanting, comes slowly down a street. All uncover and kneel, and we must do likewise or very likely get a pummelling.[1.8]

This reminds us of duty; and, electing the cathedral in preference to sixty other churches, we enter. Before us is a great throng, chiefly women and léperos, of most devout worshippers. The finest ladies in the city are here, dressed all in black, with no ornaments except a silk mantilla, edged with lace, and a high tortoise-shell comb; and they kneel humbly beside the drudge or the beggar. The church itself--designed in the Spanish style, which places the choir in the middle of the nave and a balustraded walk between that and the great altar--with a cloud of incense filling the air and many hundreds of candles gleaming murkily from the shrines, is most mysterious and impressive. The gorgeousness of the sacred ornaments amazes us. Literally tons of silver are in sight; gold, precious stones and gems abound; and magnificent vestments try to hide the vulgar priests. But the splendor is oppressive, and the stench of the léperos intolerable; let us return to the light of day.[1.8]

All the streets are laid out at right angles, and most of the houses that line them are in two stories, of which the lower one is reserved for horses, carriages, servants, cows and storage; and the walls, built of rough stone, are very thick. The outside is usually frescoed in white, orange, blue, red or pale green, and often adorned with pious verses or biblical texts. Entering the big double gateway, we find ourselves in a courtyard, upon which doors and grated windows open; and we observe that a covered balcony of wrought iron or possibly bronze, reached by a central stairway and giving access to the rooms of the second story, is built round it. In many courtyards there are flowers and a fountain, and sometimes there are trees. Occasionally we find what looks like a grandee's residence, for Mexico was called in the Spanish time a city of palaces, and some of these residences, built of superior stone, equipped with gilded balconies and stairs, adorned with artistic sculptures, and perhaps decorated with Dutch tiles in blue and white, have survived in a fair condition the ruin of fortunes and the disappearance of titles; but at their best they were always imperfect, reminding one of the golden image with clay feet, and now most of them are dilapidated.[1.8]

Here is a gambling place, well filled; but it is only the usual monte, and if we care to watch a game, there will be something like a thousand more opportunities. Already, people are making for the bull-fight; but the upper classes mostly ignore that sport, and we may well follow their example. On the other hand let us drop in at the cock-pit. "Hail, immaculate Mary, the cocks are coming!" the herald is proclaiming. On the benches one may see the most delicate and fashionable young ladies of the city as well as the sharpest gamblers, and everything is quiet and orderly. But a glance is enough; and now as the "quality" will soon have dined, we will stroll on past the stately trees of the Alameda to the New Promenade, and be ready for them.[1.8]

Here, every afternoon at about five o'clock, and especially on Sunday, may be seen the Mexican élite. About a thousand carriages are in line to-day, many of them heavy, grand affairs from Europe, but some very antiquated and shabby, for the lady, however poor, must have a carriage of some sort. Here one sees the fair sex at their best. Clad in the most sumptuous and brilliant costumes they can possibly obtain and well covered with diamonds--for everybody above the rank of a lépero has diamonds--they sit up straight and handsome, and many of them look almost regal. More horses than mules are to be seen, and many of them have been imported. Guided by postilions instead of drivers, the carriages roll sedately along with an exchange of mutual salutes but not a word of conversation, and after a turn or two draw up and stop side by side, so that the ladies may review some four or five thousand cavaliers, who now ride past.[1.8]

Each gallant, without appearing to notice the carriage of his choice, pays court to an adored occupant of it by a special show of grace and horsemanship as he goes by. Small fortunes in silver and gold are lavished on the equipment of the steed, and the cavalier is resplendent in his tightly fitting trousers, short jacket, huge sombrero, gilded spurs, silver buttons, silk braid and gold lace. For us the impression is impaired considerably by his manner of riding, for he leans forward, puts barely his toes into the stirrup, and carries his heels far back; but he can ride very showily after all, curvetting and prancing, and the Mexicans are fully satisfied that no other horsemen in the world are their equals.[1.8]

The promenade over, all go to the play--not that anybody of fashion cares for it, but because that is the style, and few have any other way to pass the time. Let us have a look ourselves at the principal theatre, which travellers have pronounced--after one at Naples--the finest edifice of the kind. It accommodates more than eight thousand persons, and the rent of the best boxes is about $3000 a year. But almost every man and many of the women appear to be smoking; one can hardly see the actors; the noise of conversation is distracting; and as we are not adepts in the play of glances and fans which keep so many ladies in the boxes and so many gallants in the pit fully occupied, we shall find it pleasanter at the British legation ball. _Allons!_ Why, what a clangor the church bells are making! To be sure that opens the gates of purgatory for a while and gives the inmates a respite, but it certainly bears rather hard on the living.[1.8]

While by nature the most sociable of people, the Mexicans are the least so in practice, wrote an American minister at that capital. This is partly because many of social rank now lack the means to entertain, and partly because society is cut up by intrigues, jealousies and bitter memories; but at a foreign legation one has no expenses, and all meet on neutral ground. As we enter, everything seems fine and even brilliant. Diamonds are in profusion again, and the lustre of the great pearls matches them. But in Mexico it is never wise to look closely, for gross imperfections are sure to be discovered; and here, as we soon observe, the gowns are not really in style, and the musicians are only unshaven, half-blind, tatterdemalion scrapers.[1.8]

However, the people are what we care for, and they are certainly most interesting. Again we see the dignified ladies; they move now, and with a decided though rather ponderous grace. Conversation is not their forte, for they seldom read and never think; but all have beautiful eyes, teeth and hair; all have small hands and feet; and all are amiable, sincerely kind and by no means wanting in tact. The older ones appear stout and rather phlegmatic, it is true, but those of an earlier age are often fascinating. Look for instance at the girl under the chandelier, plainly all sentiment and senses, not really tall but slender enough to appear so, with a profile of carved ivory, pale cheeks just warmed with crimson, large, dark, languorous eyes, and a voluptuous figure disguised with no stays; and all this poised seemingly on the toe of a dainty satin slipper. What matters it if she and the rest of the ladies passed their day in gazing idly out of windows, smoking, nibbling sweetmeats and chattering trifles, and did not put on their stockings or do up their hair until dinner-time?[1.8]

But for us the men are more important. That short individual in spectacles, who looks erudite and speaks in a low tone with a gravity and reserve that emphasize his remarks, is Alamán, the most distinguished of the conservatives. The thin-featured, sharp-nosed person, so elegant and cynical, is Tornel, posing now in his favorite attitude as the patron of learning. Smooth-faced Bocanegra, an honorable if not very able statesman, is talking yonder to the British minister with the easy courtliness of a genuine hidalgo. Handsome and brave Almonte--"a good boy," as Santa Anna calls him--is laying siege to the belle under the chandelier; and Peña y Peña, seemingly rather dry and uninspired, is debating somewhat laboriously with a brother judge.[1.8]

Let us join a group. How strong, genial, easy, ready and gay, yet dignified and reposeful, they all are! Few indeed of our own countrymen could be so charming. Some one approaches, and they grasp him warmly by the hand, throwing the left arm at the same time round his shoulder and softly patting his back. "Friend," "Comrade," are frequent salutations. We are presented to the group, and find ourselves at once among devoted intimates. "My house is yours," exclaims one with a look that carries conviction. "Remember, I exist only to serve you," says another. "Only command me and all that are mine," exclaims a third.[1.8]

Mexico, however, reported a British minister, "judged merely by outward Appearances, is a perfectly different thing from Mexico seen in the Interior." One might be presented with a dozen houses and all their contents, yet go to bed on the sidewalk hungry. These friends and comrades are daily intriguing and conspiring against one another. Talk with an eloquent declaimer, and you will find his beautiful ideas vague and impracticable. Discuss them with him, and you will either excite wrath by demolishing his opinions or earn contempt--since he suspects in his heart that he is an ignoramus--by letting him vanquish you. Notice how lightly they speak of religion. That is considered good form. The Church is to be regarded as an institution for the women. But at bottom almost every one is mortally afraid of the hereafter, as a child is afraid of the dark, and when seriously ill is ready to grovel before a priest. The apparent robustness of these men, largely due to their indolence, is too often undermined by Cyprian accidents, which are confessed without hesitation. Hardly one of the husbands is loyal to his vows, while the other sex care only to elude numberless watchful eyes, and observe a strict regard for appearances; and in the lower walks a mother will quite readily sell her daughter's good name. However, courtesy is delightful whatever lies behind it, and if a person will try to eat a picture of grapes, he should blame himself for his disappointment. Temperament, environment and education make sangfroid and intellectual mastery impossible here; and in a world where passionate men and women grow up in traditions of idleness and self-indulgence they can hardly be expected, especially with the bad example of their priests before them, to be distinguished for self-restraint.[1.8]

Meanwhile, are the common people at home knitting? Let us walk back to the cathedral. The full moon is out. Almost above us rise the powerful towers against the clear firmament, and on our left is the palace, filling one whole side of the square with its numberless balconies and windows, while in front spreads the great plaza, glittering with innumerable lights against the shadowy arcades that fill the opposite side. The sky is a soft, pale blue; and the stars, fading near the brilliant moon, appear like dust raised by her chariot wheels. Under the trees on our right a huge serpent, the scales of which are human beings, turns, winds, bends, parts and rejoins in a circular promenade.[1.8]

Some occupy themselves with prosaic thoughts,--business, politics or social events--and a few talk of science and poetry. Yonder goes a millionaire, a real king of gold, at sight of whom all hats come off, while all eyes court his glance; but another, who passes with a triumphant step and bold gestures, appears to the crowd a greater man, for he is the king of the sword, the king of the bull-ring, the _matador_. But most, perhaps, are talking and thinking of love and of pleasure. Furtive but meaning glances are often exchanged; occasionally hand presses hand under the folds of the cloak; at times a few mysterious words pass quickly; now and then one sees a pretty woman on the arm of her bold lover, showing herself proudly to the world, while the husband follows on behind as best he can; and here and there a scowling, discarded friend looks out from behind a post with a knife clutched behind him.

Would you like to see a little more? Then visit the Barrio Santa Anna, and watch men with bloodshot eyes and women in red petticoats and loose, open chemisettes dancing a wild fandango, or plunge into a lépero's dive and watch the pariahs gambling sedately with a bloody knife on the table before them, while down in one corner a crouching woman moans and mutters over a prostrate figure. But how lightly all is done, even the tragedies, compared with northern depth and seriousness. In a sense we feel we are observing children.[1.8]

Of course in so brief a space the subject of this chapter could not be thoroughly treated, but our inquiry seems to make certain facts plain. Little in the material, mental and moral spheres was really sound in the Mexico of 1845. Her population was insufficient, and was badly welded together, so far as it had been welded at all; and while the lower orders of the people lay deep in ignorance, laziness and vice, the upper class, if we ignore exceptions, were soft, superficial, indolent and lax, urbane, plausible and eloquent, apathetic but passionate, amiable and kind though cruel when excited, generous but untrustworthy, wasteful but athirst for gain, suspicious and subtle but not sagacious, personally inclined to be pompous and nationally afflicted with a provincial vanity, greatly enamoured of the formalities of life, greatly wanting in the cool, steady resolution for which occasional obstinacy is a poor substitute, and still more wanting in that simple, straightforward, sober and solid common sense which is the true foundation of personal and national strength. In particular, the Mexican was intensely personal. This made him and his politics very interesting yet was really unfortunate, for in such men principles and institutions could have but feeble roots. Finally, as one result of this awareness of self, every man of any strength had the instincts of a dictator. Authority he instinctively resented; but on the other hand, when some one appeared to be dominant, a consciousness of this inner recalcitrancy and a fear of its being detected, combining with a hope of favors, produced adulation and apparent slavishness.

Evidently, then, Mexico was not intrinsically a strong country. Evidently her people had few qualifications for self-government. Evidently, too, they were unlikely to handle in the best manner a grave and complicated question requiring all possible sanity of judgment and perfect self-control; and, in particular, misunderstandings between them and a nation like the United States were not only sure to arise but sure to prove troublesome.

II

THE POLITICAL EDUCATION OF MEXICO

1800-1845

It was of course the political side of Mexican civilization that had the most direct bearing on our relations with that country, and this can best be explained by approaching it historically. At the same time we shall be aided in studying, not only some of the principal figures in the war and their mutual attitudes, but some of its most important and mysterious events.

The colonial régime of Spain was intended and carefully planned to ensure the safety, prosperity and contentment of her distant subjects, but for certain reasons it worked badly. Like all nations of that period, she believed that her colonies existed for the good of the mother-country, and aimed first of all to control and exploit them. She had to depend upon very human agents that were practically beyond her reach. While theoretically all Mexicans, except the aborigines, enjoyed an equality before the law, the government felt that emigrants from the Peninsula were especially worthy of confidence; and at the same time not a few of these men had friends industriously scheming for them at court. The consequences were, first, the establishment of a powerful Gachupine oligarchy, largely dependent on the royal will, the lowest member of which, even if penniless, felt superior to every Creole, and, secondly, the enthronement of privilege, often gained by ignoble means, in government, army, church and business. The Creoles--overawed by the almost divine prestige of the king, trembling before his power, and convinced that only his troops could protect them against the Indians--submitted; but they hated their insolent oppressors, and the Indians hated both groups. On the principle of "Divide and conquer" the government fomented these dissensions; and, supported by the intolerance of the Church, it did its utmost to bar out foreigners and foreign ideas in order to ensure an unreasoning subordination.[1.1]

What Mexico owed to Spain, therefore, aside from the remembrance and fruits of an efficiency that she could not hope to equal, was a settled tradition of arbitrary rule based on force, of authority selfishly and often corruptly used, of the government as possessing the sole initiative, of social disunion resulting from privilege and monopoly, of personal successes frequently due to intrigue or purchased favor, of political indifference except among the controlling or aspiring cliques, of apathy concerning all high interests, of ignorance, inertness, fanaticism, hard oppression, blind obedience, passionate feuds and gross pleasures.[2.1]

[THE REVOLUTION AGAINST SPAIN]

Little by little new ideas reached a few of the more intelligent, however. The American Declaration of Independence became known, and also the fact that Spain, by supporting England's rebellious colonies, had coöperated with heretics long pictured as infidels and fiends. Echoes from Diderot's encyclopædia and reports of the French revolution crept in; and the natural desire both to share on equal terms in the offices and in business, and to escape from the extra cost of living due to the monopolies, quickened thought. When war with England led to the raising of Mexican troops, a new sense of power began to be felt; when the Spanish monarchy crumbled before Napoleon in 1808, the illusion of the king's divinity and invincibility faded; when the royal family exhorted the Mexicans to accept the heir of the French revolution as their master, loyalty quivered to its base; and when the people of Spain took up arms to defend their betrayed nationality, the principle of popular sovereignty loomed up as greater than royal prerogatives. Finally the mass of the people, though too apathetic to realize the full meaning of these facts, were roused by a thunder-clap at home.[2.2]

Struggling with the crisis precipitated by events in the Peninsula, the viceroy--partly to gain support for himself, it is probable, and partly to gain support for the monarchy--showed a disposition to give the Creoles a voice in the government, upon which the leaders of the oligarchy were so amazingly foolish as to depose him by force, and usurp his authority. This conduct proved that much of their boasted loyalty and supposed ability had been shams, that what they really meant was to enjoy the wealth and power, that the cause of the Creoles was not one of subjects against their king, but one of subjects against subjects, and that only force could settle the issue. Dreams of independence immediately crystallized into schemes of insurrection.[2.2]

Foremost among the conspirators was Hidalgo, commonly described by the Mexicans as a Washington, but in reality a kindly, public-spirited, mockingly irreligious and frankly immoral priest. His plans were discovered; and so on the sixteenth of September, 1810, in the desperate hope of saving himself and his associates, he called upon the Indians, rabid with fanaticism and hatred of their oppressors, to rise against the Spanish, who, he declared, had now allied themselves with infidel Frenchmen against their holy religion. What followed was like the bursting of reservoirs filled with blood and fire. Scarcely a trace of statesmanship was exhibited by the leaders; most of their disciples acted like fiends let loose; and their enemies did little better. Soon many common priests, many Creole military men, and not a few other persons who felt sore under the heel of wealth and power and were ambitious to rise, embraced the cause, and so many of the rest sympathized with Hidalgo's demand for independence, that probably by good management he could have succeeded; but against a campaign like his the substantial elements of society found it necessary to combine, and when the heads of the insurrection were betrayed, captured and shot in 1811, little of it remained except horrible memories and lessons in conspiracy, treachery, hate, folly, wholesale destruction and wholesale murder.[2.2]

In a new form, however, the cause of independence lived on. Instead of wild hordes crying, "Death to the Gachupines!" there were now for the most part stealthy but merciless bands of guerillas, and the government soldiers followed close behind them in daring and ruthlessness. On the coast near Vera Cruz an officer named Antonio López de Santa Anna won a captaincy about this time by hunting down insurgents, and on the plateau a handsome, dashing man with brown hair and reddish side-whiskers named Agustín de Itúrbide, who had negotiated with Hidalgo about accepting the lieutenant generalship of the revolutionary army, distinguished himself on the royal side for greed and bloodthirstiness. In 1814 he wrote to the viceroy one Good Friday, "In honor of the day, I have just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to be shot," and the women among his prisoners fared no better than the men. On the other side Nicolás Bravo, whose father had been taken and executed, won a noble distinction by releasing about three hundred captives despite orders to kill them; Guadalupe Victoria, as he named himself, earned renown by living in caves like a wild beast rather than give up; and Vicente Guerrero, operating at the south in unexplored mountains, exhibited great resourcefulness, remarkable knowledge of men and extraordinary courage. The principal hero of this period, however, was Morelos, an Indian priest, who showed himself a consummate partisan leader.[2.2]

So successful were these and the many other chiefs in terrorism, robbery, slaughter and sack, and so deep a sentiment in favor of independence now existed, that with a little sagacity in counsel and a little concert in action the cause might have triumphed; but ambitions, jealousies, insubordination, disloyalty and political incompetence ruined everything, and by the end of 1819, although Guerrero still made head a little, the second phase also of the revolution was substantially at an end, leaving behind it hot embers of turmoil, fighting, treachery and massacre, and countless examples of making pillage a livelihood, selfishly disregarding the common cause, and grossly blundering in political management. Thought and feeling in Mexico had, however, been so educated by reflection, experience, discussion and foreign comments during the past nine or ten years, that a longer acceptance of the old régime could not be expected. Absolutism, though triumphant, was doomed.[2.2]

[ITÚRBIDE]

The fatal blow came from its champions. In 1820 a revolution in Spain revived the liberal constitution that had been adopted eight years before and then had been abolished by Ferdinand VII; and Apodaca, now viceroy of Mexico, felt compelled to proclaim the new law. The troops and the people began to dread another civil war; and the oligarchy, especially the Church dignitaries, concluding at once that only separation from the mother-country could save their privileges, looked about for an instrument. One was easily found. Itúrbide's greed had finally driven him from his post, his fortune had been wasted in self-indulgence, and he was now desperate. Long since, his active mind had seen that if the Creole troops could be seduced, they--supported by the revolutionary sentiment of the people--could overmatch about half their number of Spanish regiments; and he agreed readily to become the champion of autocracy in order to betray it. Cleverly deceiving the government, he obtained a command through the aid of his backers, and, in order to clear the field, attacked Guerrero. To dispose of that wary foe proved, however, no easy task; so he negotiated privately with a public enemy, described himself as "destitute of ambition and self-interest," and finally inveigled the insurgent leader into joining the conspiracy. Victoria followed that example. Santa Anna, though recently made a lieutenant colonel by the viceroy, came over with his men. Other leaders did the same; and on February 24, 1821, Itúrbide felt strong enough to announce a programme, the famous Plan of Iguala.[2.2]

This declared for independence, a limited monarchy under a Bourbon king, the Roman Catholic church as the sole form of religion, the old _fueros_, the right of office-holders to retain their posts, the fraternal union and political equality of Gachupines, Creoles and Indians, and the appointment of a committee (_junta_) to govern Mexico provisionally. No scheme could have seemed more inviting, and none could have been more delusive, for it ignored insurmountable difficulties and promised incompatible advantages. In all probability Itúrbide knew this; but prelates, troops, officials and people took the shining bait; O'Donojú, the new Spanish general, deciding it would be useless to fight, made a treaty with the revolutionary chief; and on September 27, 1821, Itúrbide carried the tricolor through the gate of the capital, stopped his gallant black charger at the convent of San Francisco, and received the golden keys of the city. Obedience, the sole basis of Mexican society, had been swept away; treachery and perjury had triumphed; and yet the unthinking multitude hurrahed.[2.2]

The generalísimo, violating the principle of popular sovereignty, now appointed the junta himself, excluding all the old revolutionists; that body in turn elected him and four associates to exercise the executive power as regents; and a Constituent Congress was prematurely summoned to draw up an organic law. The situation soon proved to be extremely difficult. Resentments needed to be healed, jealousies appeased, commerce and the industries put in motion, and the whole edifice of society and politics rebuilt on new foundations out of incongruous elements. Peculiarly urgent was the demand for money--the more so as some of the taxes were abolished in order to sweeten the revolution, while the expenses grew. On entering Mexico Itúrbide had proclaimed, "You see me in the most opulent of capitals;" and every one expected the new government--an independent, Mexican, popular government--to bear an open purse. In October, 1821, some fourteen thousand claims were presented to it.[2.3]

Itúrbide, whatever his aims and whatever his faults, was the sole Mexican of recognized preëminence, the sole possible rallying point; and patriotism called upon all to support his prestige and patiently correct his errors until society could take shape. Nothing of the sort occurred, however. The army idolized him; the civil officials counted on him; the prelates feared him less than they did his enemies; and the masses, ignorant of what went on below the surface, revered him as the Father of Independence; but the cheated absolutists, disappointed borbonistas, cajoled insurgents, distanced comrades, eclipsed leaders and unsuccessful claimants, the patriots, indignant that a cruel royalist should be the heir of the revolution, the republicans, few in number but increasingly influential, the friends of those he had massacred or plundered, and behind all the Scottish Rite Freemasons, who were liberals yet partisans of Spain--all these hated and dogged him. Honors and emoluments were heaped upon him to excite envy and odium; his weaknesses were baited; his strength was provoked; his administrative blundering was stimulated instead of corrected. When financial necessities compelled him to decree a forced loan, paper money and other arbitrary measures, many began to denounce him as a tyrant. Plausibly enough he was accused of disloyalty to his pledges and of aiming to be king. Finally his enemies, making the most of certain indiscretions that he committed, undertook to remove him from the command of the army. Whatever had been his purpose, he now found it necessary to strike; and a mutiny of the troops--endorsed later by the Congress under military and mob pressure--declared him emperor.[2.3]

Expenses then increased still more. Jealousies and enmities were embittered. Public sentiment veered sharply. Time, strength and funds were swallowed up in pomps that created no more illusion than a college student in a toga. Encompassed with flatterers, foes and traitors, financially and politically incompetent himself and guided by incompetent advisers, well enough aware that after deceiving everybody he could expect no one to be true, Itúrbide lost his head, sometimes wavered and sometimes tyrannized. Finally he thought it necessary to deprive Santa Anna of an authority that had no doubt been abused; and this interesting young man, who had recently proclaimed that he welcomed Itúrbide's elevation with a positively uncontrollable exuberance of joy, "pronounced" for a republic, knowing scarcely anything about that system, but knowing a great deal about the Emperor's unpopularity. This precipitated a revolution; and the movement, soon taken up by Victoria, Guerrero and Bravo, spread rapidly. Itúrbide's most intimate and trusted general was despatched against the insurgents, but betrayed him. The army went over. The people, who revered the Liberator but not the Emperor, concurred. With bad faith and gratuitous outrages his enemies crowded savagely upon him. Early in 1823 he abdicated; and in May, forsaken by every one of the many he had benefited, the discredited hero sailed for Europe, leaving behind him examples and suggestions of the most demoralizing kind.[2.3]

The junta, meanwhile, had disgusted the nation with its frivolities, political and fiscal incompetence and usurpation of powers, and there was a feeling of relief when it dissolved in February, 1822, the next day after Congress met. Congress, however, did no better and fared even worse, for it earned much contempt by sanctioning under pressure the elevation of Itúrbide; and then Itúrbide made Congress, and made all popular government, quite ridiculous in the eyes of the people and the army by forcibly sending the members home. When at his wit's end, he recalled it as if inviting the _coup de grace_, and soon it not only earned more contempt by pronouncing his elevation illegal and punishing every mark of condolence for the fallen chief, but undertook to outrank omnipotence by pretending that no empire had existed. Soon, too, all the selfish ambitions that had combined against Itúrbide in this body showed themselves so clearly as to add further discredit; and worse yet the Congress, though chosen merely to frame a constitution under the Plan of Iguala, held on after the refusal of Spain to coöperate had put an end to that scheme.[2.3]

The republicans, who were gaining ground because evidently no other Mexican could stand where Itúrbide had fallen, and the Iturbidistas, who desired to create anarchy in order to force the recall of their hero, clamored for new elections. Five provinces demanded them formally; and at length, despised by every one, Congress, the firstfruit of popular government, fell to the ground. Almost every institution that should have enjoyed respect was now discredited--even the Church, for it had crowned the emperor and shed its benedictions liberally on Congress. The army, however, stood, for it had shown its power both to elevate and to overthrow.[2.3]

The next Congress, which met November 7, 1823, had a more democratic basis; but the members were personally inferior, intrigue and self-seeking again prevailed, and the young orators--convinced that winning applause from the galleries was the true object of speaking--launched forth on all occasions with that fatal fluency which their intoxicating idiom encouraged. After centuries of enforced silence, men to whom liberty could only mean license were called upon to decide the gravest questions of statesmanship. Naturally they were eager to build before laying foundations; and naturally, too, where nine tenths of the people could not read, it seemed like genuine statesmanship to flourish the novel vocabulary of independence.[2.3]

Frivolous, fickle, now torpid and now running amuck, Congress found itself compelled eventually to frame a constitution. Under Spanish rule the provinces, each governed by an intendant, had known little and cared less about one another; and now, stimulated by the centrifugal tendency of the Iberian character and the dread of a tyrant, inflamed by transcendental doctrines of liberty, disgusted with the proceedings of the national authorities, and captivated by the thought of offices for all, they began to claim sovereignty; and something had to be done at once. A republic, though alien to all the habits and feelings of the nation, seemed evidently necessary, because no possible monarch existed, and because no other system could make it the interest of a sufficient number of persons to maintain the government; but this did not end the difficulties. The centralized type of republic was ardently desired by the oligarchy as likely to prove controllable, and by all the monarchists as a sloping path toward their goal; but the friends of Itúrbide and the enemies of privilege--strongest at a distance from the capital--fought against it, and at length, as the federal system, about which only the vaguest notions were entertained, promised more offices and seemed more likely to hold the country together, it was decided upon.[2.3]

To meet the crisis one individual, taking the constitution of the United States as a basis,[2.4] drafted the required instrument in three days; and so an untrained and uneducated nation found itself provided with a complicated mixture of democracy and privilege, liberty and intolerance, progress and reaction, which paralyzed itself by combining such antagonistic elements, omitted the safeguard of a supreme court like ours, and showed its own inadequacy by providing that in emergencies the President might be given "extraordinary powers," or in other words become a dictator. In short, the government was organized as a permanent revolution. There was much enthusiasm, however, over this triumph of nationality, and on New Year's day, 1825, the first constitutional Congress assembled. The treasury was now full of borrowed English gold; and--as every one hoped the new system might be developed in the direction he preferred--all agreed that an era of peace, joy and prosperity had at length arrived.[2.3]

[VICTORIA'S ADMINISTRATION]

Victoria was elected President. His frank, ruddy, bronzed face, peering out of gray whiskers and curly gray hair, looked happy and encouraging, but soon the mass of the nation felt once more cheated; for although Bravo had been the candidate of the oligarchy, Victoria--yielding to the pressure of that element--gave it a preponderance in the administration. A multitude of people were exasperated to find the old privileged classes again in control, and the execution of Itúrbide under an illegal law--for he had returned to Mexico--infuriated his partisans. Worse yet, the oligarchy denied the practicability of the federal system for so unwieldy a country, where the states felt so independent, where so many men aspired to hold office and where so few were qualified, and plotted to set up the centralized regime, with monarchy--preferably under a Spanish prince--as the ultimate aim of many; and Victoria, a polite, weak, indolent, easily-flattered man of small abilities, little education and immense vanity, who idolized his country but felt she would always need him as chief-priest, fell in with this plan, because without a change of the constitution he could not be President a second time.[2.5]

Disgusted and alarmed, the Federalists, who included the Iturbidistas, began therefore to scheme gropingly for a new revolution, a new war of independence; but at length, realizing that under the constitution a majority could rule, they established Masonic lodges of the York Rite, and with great skill, activity and perseverance organized their forces. Before long their power showed itself at the voting-urns, and the President, recognizing the logic of events and perceiving he could never supplant Bravo in the favor of the aristocracy, changed the complexion of the government. This in turn angered the faction displaced, and most unwisely--being physically much the weaker side--it massed its power in December, 1827, and revolted under a certain Montaño. Bravo, though Vice-President, placed himself at the head of the insurgents; but the government forces under Guerrero, attacking him during a truce, quickly ended the revolt.[2.5]

Peace, however, did not return. The newspapers unearthed or invented so many unsavory tales about the leading citizens that, besides proving those men unworthy of confidence, they excited lasting resentments. The Federalists--particularly the Iturbidistas--harshly avenged their past sufferings, for the Mexican idea of justice meant a chance to persecute the oppressor; and every thinking mind saw with dismay that whereas previous insurrections had occurred in a natural revolutionary period, the government legally established by the nation had now been defied by a great party led by the Vice-President himself. This was the letting out of waters, and to palliate it as chargeable to circumstances would be to excuse all political crimes.[2.5]

Meanwhile another storm had been gathering. The Spanish element, which not only was superior but felt so, had given much offence; and, quite aside from grudges, many thought it unsafe to have so large a number of Gachupines in the country--many of them active and able, not a few of them soldiers, and some occupying high civil and military positions--at a time when Spain was preparing to reassert her authority over Mexico. Others argued that should the Spaniards go, their places in business and the public service would be available for Mexicans. Still others considered this a good way to enfeeble the oligarchy, so as to curtail its privileges. Many demagogues perceived that here lay a splendid opportunity to acquire a following; and the Spaniards, for their part, long accustomed to despise and lord it over the Mexicans, often exasperated the public by offensive and imprudent conduct. The natural consequences followed. Many insurrections, benevolently treated by the government, demanded the expulsion of the Gachupines; some of the states passed laws in that sense; and finally, in 1827 and 1828, Congress did the same. A very large number of Gachupines actually departed and carried away their money. This drew out the strongest fibres of public life, the army, finance, trade and the industries; while the injustice and impolicy of these decrees and the bloody vengeance taken upon a few silly Spanish conspirators embittered feeling in Mexico, and greatly injured Mexican credit in Europe, where few except the Spanish merchants enjoyed any financial standing.[2.5]

By the time Victoria's administration drew near its end, Mexico had marked out her downward route. The parties faced each other as implacable foes. Each perpetrated as much electoral fraud and violence as it could; each kept up a savage press; and each worked in the dark through secret societies. Owing to extravagance, peculation, bad management, the backwardness of the states in paying their quotas, and the failure of an English banking house, the treasury was empty in spite of lavish borrowing. "Liberty" had become a by-word, for Victoria had wielded the extraordinary powers for a year and a half, punishments had gone beyond the laws, and the government had been given authority, not only to expel foreigners at will, but even to banish citizens from their states. Corruption was general and profound, commerce feeble, credit extinct, justice perverted, reported the French agent; and, as his British colleague added, the "Name of Patriotism" was used as a "Cloak to cover the greatest Excesses."[2.5]

And now came something worse. Well aware they could not elect one of their own number President against the popular candidate, Guerrero, the Centralists looked about for an acceptable Federalist. Gómez Pedraza, Victoria's minister of war, though narrow, harsh and passionate, was a strict and honest man, a laborious official and a thoughtful, effective orator. He had fought on the Spanish side in the revolution, and naturally favored a conservative, aristocratic régime. He, therefore, was secretly adopted in place of Bravo, now in exile. All those who detested unseemly party strife preferred him, and as the moderate wing of the Federalists also took that side, quite unaware that Centralism lurked in the shadow, Guerrero's noisy and overconfident supporters found themselves beaten. This result and the open exultation, threats and hostilities of their old enemies, who still controlled the senate and the supreme court, enraged them, for they perceived they had been duped once more, and they hotly charged--no doubt with some reason--that money and Pedraza's power as head of the war department had frustrated the will of the people; while it disgusted Victoria to be superseded by a man he had looked down upon as merely a useful clerk.[2.6]

[SANTA ANNA]

Another individual also took offence. After setting the ball in motion against Itúrbide, Santa Anna had been eclipsed by larger figures, and to shine again he took up arms as Protector of the People; but this enterprise collapsed at once, and he issued a very humble proclamation, closing with the words, "Permit me, permit me to dig myself an obscure grave that my ashes and my memory may disappear." A fairly comfortable grave was, however, dug for him by removing His Penitence to Yucatan as military commandant, and he proceeded at once to gild its interior by permitting illicit commerce with Cuba. Returning after a while to the proper field of ambition, he was more than suspected of complicity in two insurrections; but in each case he read the omens in season to extricate himself, and virtuously offered his sword to the government. Now, however, he took a bold stand. Not only were he and the successful candidate personal enemies, but he felt that little would be left of himself after four years of Pedraza's rule; and he knew that Guerrero, in addition to being favored by the army, really had a majority of the people on his side. Accordingly he unfurled his flag in September, 1828, for Guerrero, popular rights and a total expulsion of the Gachupines. In this contest he showed amazing quickness, audacity and resourcefulness, keeping up his motley troops principally by brigandage; but very soon his cause appeared to be doomed.[2.6]

At this point Lorenzo de Zavala, one of those human meteors that rarely illuminate Anglo-Saxon skies, came forward. His political relations were extremely intense; and now, believing the Centralists intended to place him before a firing-squad, he organized at Mexico, in the hope of saving himself and Santa Anna, the woeful insurrection of the Acordada, which fixed the example of party revolution. Victoria had an understanding with him, though after betraying the government and letting the handful of rioters get a safe start, he lost his nerve and betrayed them also; and in the end, at the cost of some bloodshed and extensive robberies, the insurrection triumphed; "the vile and unnatural Pedraza"--as his foes called him--fled to the United States, and Congress, after having declared Pedraza elected, pronounced Guerrero President on the express ground that revolts had occurred in his favor. In reality this was a revolution of numbers and popular ideas against privilege and oligarchy, and before long the country accepted the situation.[2.6]

[A NEW REVOLUTION]

Santa Anna was now a popular hero, the saviour of the nation; and he proceeded to confirm his title. In 1829 came the long expected blow from Spain, and having calmly assumed the military authority at Vera Cruz, he advanced to meet it. Near Tampico the invading army, stricken with fever, desired to lay down its arms; but Santa Anna, eager for laurels, attacked it. Spanish valor accepted the challenge; the Mexicans were repulsed; and their ambitious leader left the field before the battle ended. The invaders were then permitted to surrender, and soon a new cry was echoing through the streets of Mexico, "Viva Santa Anna, the Victor of Tampico!" Clothing himself with modesty and grace he now posed as a sort of benevolent divinity. Rather tall, thin, apparently feeble but capable of great exertions on occasion, with a head that bulged at the top, a swarthy complexion, brilliant and restless eyes, a very clear-cut voice and a voluble tongue, he moved about his estate at Manga de Clavo and the near-by city of Vera Cruz in an easy, affable way, accumulating popularity. "Can read somewhat," reported our consul in that city; but his thoughts were above literature. "Were I made God," it was said that he once remarked, "I should wish to be something more."[2.6]

Meantime, April 1, 1829, Guerrero assumed the Presidency. In his green jacket edged with fur, red waistcoat bound with a blue sash, brown mantle and heavy sabre, with his thick hair bristling toward all points of the compass, he was a picturesque figure, and as candidate had answered very well. For the role of chief magistrate, however, the British minister justly described him as "totally unfit." Being mostly of Indian and partly--it was stated--of negro blood, he instinctively distrusted the whites, while the latter utterly despised the class to which he belonged. Though his intuitive judgment was quick and within the range of his experience remarkably correct, he knew nothing whatever of letters and politics, necessarily depended upon the self-seeking flatterers of his party, and veered about like the wind. In military emergencies he could burst his bonds like a Samson, but the things he really cared for were a wench, a bottle, a game of monte and a nap under some spreading tree. Without ideas, knowledge, experience or high character, he faced a terrible inheritance: the laws ignored, the authorities despised, the administration disorganized, the treasury worse than empty, the country in distress and turmoil.[2.6]

Professions of loyalty to the "sacred" constitution and the laws could not blot out the fact that his authority was based upon a riot; and others would not feel satisfied merely because he was content. The extraordinary powers of the Executive, granted in view of the Spanish invasion, were used oppressively. A multitude of persons clamored for money and he could give them none; a multitude clamored for reforms, and he scarcely knew what they were talking about. As far as possible the rest of the Gachupines were driven out, but this merely added to the confusion. President and nation simply drifted, and the rocks were near. Before long the general government was practically ignored except at the capital, and the heads of the secret societies wielded the real power. Guerrero even allowed the oligarchy, his deadliest foe, to alienate him from the common people, the source of his strength. He became almost as isolated as Mahomet's coffin; and then--as soon as ambition could disguise itself with a programme--he fell.[2.6]

Mainly owing to the good-will of Guerrero, the Vice-President was General Anastasio Bustamante, a heavy, dull, rather kindly and fairly honest aristocrat, though nominally a moderate Federalist. When appointed by Guerrero to command the army of reserve at Jalapa, the principal military force in the country, he exclaimed on taking leave of the President, "Never will I unsheathe my sword against General Guerrero," but within a year (December, 1829) he did it; and, though a beneficiary of the Acordada riot, he revolted against the government in the name of the constitution. As a matter of fact his rebellion was merely another effort of the privileged classes, a revised edition of Montaño's, and the army received its pay from the money chests of the oligarchs. Little opposition was encountered, for Guerrero had let Delilah shear him, the Acordada episode and much other misconduct had completely discredited the radical Federalists, and the Federalists in general--who had raised Bustamante from a political prison to the second place in the nation--could not believe, after his fresh protestations of loyalty to the constitution, that he would betray them. The President, finding nobody to lean upon, fled to his old haunts in the south, was treacherously captured and was shot; and meanwhile, on the first of January, 1830, Bustamante took up the reins. Greed, corruption, imprudence, evil passions and lawlessness had ruined the cause of democracy, and Victoria's experiment of letting aristocrats administer a professedly popular system had to be tried again.[2.6]