Part 194

"The establishment of a constitutional government in Spain, in 1820, produced upon Mexico an effect very different from what was anticipated. As the constitution provided for a more liberal administration of government in Mexico than had prevailed since 1812, the increased freedom of the elections again threw the minds of the people into a ferment, and the spirit of independence, which had been only smothered, broke forth anew. Moreover, divisions were created among the old Spaniards themselves; some being in favor of the old system, while others were sincerely attached to the constitution. Some formidable inroads on the property and prerogatives of the church alienated the clergy from the new government, and induced them to desire a return to the old system. {2171} The Viceroy, Apodaca, encouraged by the hopes held out by the Royalists in Spain, although he had at first taken the oath to support the constitution, secretly favored the party opposed to it, and arranged his plans for its overthrow. Don Augustin Iturbide, the person selected by the Viceroy to make the first open demonstration against the existing government, was offered the command of a body of troops on the western coast, at the head of which he was to proclaim the re-establishment of the absolute authority of the king. Iturbide, accepting the commission, departed from the capital to take command of the troops, but with intentions very different from those which the Viceroy supposed him to entertain. Reflecting upon the state of the country, and convinced of the facility with which the authority of Spain might be shaken off,—by bringing the Creole troops to act in concert with the old insurgents, —Iturbide resolved to proclaim Mexico wholly independent of the Spanish nation. Having his head quarters at the little town of Iguala, on the road to Acapulco, Iturbide, on the 24th of February, 1821, there proclaimed his project, known as the 'Plan of Iguala,' and induced his soldiers to take an oath to support it. This 'Plan' declared that Mexico should be an independent nation, its religion Catholic, and its government a constitutional monarchy. The crown was offered to Ferdinand VII, of Spain, provided he would consent to occupy the throne in person; and, in case of his refusal, to his infant brothers, Don Carlos and Don Francisco. A constitution was to be formed by a Mexican Congress; … all distinctions of caste were to be abolished. … The Viceroy, astonished by this unexpected movement of Iturbide, and remaining irresolute and inactive at the capital, was deposed, and Don Francisco Novello, a military officer, was placed at the head of the government; but his authority was not generally recognized, and Iturbide was left to pursue his plans in the interior without interruption. Being joined by Generals Guerrero and Victoria as soon as they knew that the independence of their country was the object of Iturbide, not only all the survivors of the first insurgents, but whole detachments of Creole troops flocked to his standard, and his success was soon rendered certain. The clergy and the people were equally decided in favor of independence; … and, before the month of July, the whole country recognized the authority of Iturbide, with the exception of the capital, in which Novello had shut himself up with the European troops. Iturbide had already reached Queretaro with his troops, on his road to Mexico, when he was informed of the arrival, at Vera Cruz, of a new Viceroy. … At Cordova, whither the Viceroy had been allowed to proceed, for the purpose of an interview with Iturbide, the latter induced him to accept by treaty the Plan of Iguala, as the only means of securing the lives and property of the Spaniards then in Mexico, and of establishing the right to the throne in the house of Bourbon. By this agreement, called the 'Treaty of Cordova,' the Viceroy, in the name of the king, his master, recognized the independence of Mexico, and gave up the capital to the army of the insurgents, which took possession of it, without effusion of blood, on the 27th of September, 1821. All opposition being ended, and the capital occupied, in accordance with a provision of the Plan of Iguala a provisional junta was established, the principal business of which was to call a congress for the formation of a constitution suitable to the country. At the same time a regency, consisting of five individuals, was elected, at the head of which was placed Iturbide. … When the congress assembled [February 24, 1822], three distinct parties were found amongst the members. The Bourbonists, adhering to the Plan of Iguala altogether, wished a constitutional monarchy, with a prince of the house of Bourbon at its head; the Republican, setting aside the Plan of Iguala, desired a federal republic; while a third party, the Iturbidists, adopting the Plan of Iguala with the exception of the article in favor of the Bourbons, wished to place Iturbide himself upon the throne. As it was soon learned that the Spanish government had declared the treaty of Cordova null and void, the Bourbonists ceased to exist as a party, and the struggle was confined to the Iturbidists and the Republicans." By the aid of a mob demonstration in the city of Mexico, on the night of May 18, 1822, the former triumphed, and Iturbide was declared emperor, under the title of Augustin the First. "The choice was ratified by the provinces without opposition, and Iturbide found himself in peaceable possession of a throne to which his own abilities and a concurrence of favorable circumstances had raised him. Had the monarch elect been guided by counsels of prudence, and allowed his authority to be confined within constitutional limits, he might perhaps have continued to maintain a modified authority; but forgetting the unstable foundation of his throne, he began his reign with all the airs of hereditary royalty. On his accession a struggle for power immediately commenced between him and the congress." After arbitrarily imprisoning the most distinguished members of that body, Iturbide, at last, proclaimed its dissolution and substituted a junta of his own nomination. "Before the end of November an insurrection broke out in the northern provinces, but this was speedily quelled by the imperial troops." It was followed in December by a more formidable revolt, led off by Santa Anna (or Santana), a young general who had supported Iturbide, but who had been haughtily dismissed from the government of Vera Cruz. Santa Anna was joined by Victoria and other old Republican leaders, and the power of Iturbide crumbled so rapidly that he resigned his crown on the 19th of March, 1823, promising to quit the country, on being assured a yearly allowance of $25,000 for his support. "With his family and suite he embarked for Leghorn on the 11th of May. … From Italy he proceeded to London, and made preparations for returning to Mexico; in consequence of which, congress, on the 28th of April, 1824, passed a decree of outlawry against him. He landed in disguise at Soto la Marina, July 14th, 1824; was arrested by General Garza, and shot at Padillo by order of the provincial congress of Tamaulipas, on the 19th of that month. … On the departure of Iturbide, a temporary executive was appointed, consisting of Generals Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete, by whom the government was administered until the meeting of a new congress, which assembled at the capital in August, 1823. {2172} This body immediately entered on the duties of preparing a new constitution, which was submitted on the 31st of January, 1824, and definitively sanctioned on the 4th of October following. By this instrument, modeled somewhat after the constitution of the United States, the absolute independence of the country was declared, and the several Mexican Provinces were united in a Federal Republic. The legislative power was vested in a Congress, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. … The supreme executive authority was vested in one individual, styled the 'President of the United Mexican States.' … The third article in the constitution declared that 'The Religion of the Mexican Nation is, and will be perpetually, the Roman Catholic Apostolic. The nation will protect it by wise and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of any other whatever.' … On the 1st of January, 1825, the first congress under the federal constitution assembled in the city of Mexico; and, at the same time, General Guadalupe Victoria was installed as president of the republic, and General Nicholas Bravo as vice-president. The years 1825 and 1826 passed with few disturbances; the administration of Victoria was generally popular; and the country enjoyed a higher degree of prosperity than at any former or subsequent period."

_M. Willson, American History, book 3, part 2, chapters 4-5._

ALSO IN: _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 7 (Mexico, volume 3), chapters 29-33, and volume 8, chapters 1-2._

MEXICO: A. D. 1822-1828. Free-Masonry in politics. The rival branches of the order. The Escocés and the Yorkinos.

For some years a furious contest raged between two political societies, "known as the 'Escocés' and 'Yorkinos'—or, as we should call them, Scotch Free-Masons and York Free-Masons—whose secret organizations were employed for political purposes by two rival political parties. At the time of the restoration of the Constitutional Government of Spain in 1820, Free-Masonry was introduced into Mexico; and as it was derived from the Scotch branch of that order, it was called, after the name of the people of Scotland, 'Escocés.' Into this institution were initiated many of the old Spaniards still remaining in the country, the Creole aristocracy, and the privileged classes—parties that could ill endure the elevation of a Creole colonel, Iturbide, to the Imperial throne. When Mr. Poinsett was sent out as Embassador to Mexico [1822], he carried with him the charter for a Grand Lodge from the American, or York order of Free-Masons in the United States. Into this new order the leaders of the Democratic party were initiated. The bitter rivalry that sprung up between these two branches of the Masonic body kept the country in a ferment for ten years, and resulted finally in the formation of a party whose motto was opposition to all secret societies, and who derived their name of Anti-Masons from the party of the same name then flourishing in the United States. When the Escocés had so far lost ground in popular favor as to be in the greatest apprehension from their prosperous but imbittered rivals, the Yorkinos, as a last resort, to save themselves, and to ruin the hated organization, they pronounced against all secret societies. … 'General Bravo,' Vice-President of Mexico, and leader of the Escocés, having issued his proclamation declaring that, as a last resort, he appealed to arms to rid the republic of that pest, secret societies, and that he would not give up the contest until he had rooted them out, root and branch, took up his position at Tulansingo—a village about 30 miles north of the City of Mexico. Here, at about daylight on the morning of the 7th January, 1828, he was assailed by General Guerrero, the leader of the Yorkinos, and commander of the forces of government.' After a slight skirmish, in which eight men were killed and six wounded, General Bravo and his party were made prisoners; and thus perished forever the party of the Escocés. This victory was so complete as to prove a real disaster to the Yorkinos. The want of outside pressure led to internal dissensions; so that when two of its own members, Guerrero and Pedraza, became rival candidates for the presidency, the election was determined by a resort to arms."

_R. A. Wilson, Mexico: its Peasants and its Priests, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapter 2._

MEXICO: A. D. 1828-1844. The rise of Santa Anna. Dissolution of the Federal System. The Unitary Republic established. Recognition by Spain. The Pastry War. Retrogradation and decline.

"After the death of Iturbide, by far the most powerful person in the nation was the Creole general Santa Anna, who, at the age of 24, had already destroyed the military empire of his chief. Santa Anna at first interested himself in the visionary project of Bolivar for framing a general confederation of the new nations of South America.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1826.

This project … failed completely; and for several years he settled down as governor of Vera Cruz, reconciled himself to the Federal Republic, and took no part in public life. In 1828, however, the Presidential election led to a civil war in which Santa Anna and his favourite Veracrusanos first found out their capabilities; and they had an opportunity of testing them again in the next year, when the feeble force of Barrados, the last military attempt made by Spain to reduce Mexico, was cut to pieces at Tampico. From that movement Santa Anna became the sole controller of the destinies of the country: and in 1833 he was elected President. Forty years ago all Europe knew the picture of Santa Anna, with his tall spare figure, sunburnt face, and black hair curling over his forehead; how he lived on his hacienda of Manga de Clavo, cockfighting, gambling, and horse-racing, occasionally putting himself at the head of his bronzed troops, and either making a dash at an insurrection, or making a pronunciamento on his own account. Mexican histories tell how gallantly he defended Vera Cruz in 1839, against the French invasion under Prince de Joinville [called 'the Pastry War,' because consequent on the non-payment of French claims, among which there was prominence given to a certain pastry-cook's claim for goods destroyed in the riot of a revolution at the capital in 1828]; how his leg, having been shattered by a ball, was buried with a solemn service and a funeral oration in the cemetery of Santa Paula in Mexico; and how, in a few years, when Santa Anna was in disgrace with the people, they destroyed the tomb, and kicked Santa Anna's limb about the streets with every mark of hatred and contempt. … {2173} The manifold difficulties of government in Mexico sufficiently attested the weakness of the Federal constitution; and in 1835, after a trial of eleven years, the state governments were dissolved, and the Republic, one and indivisible, set up for a time in their place. There was now to be a President, elected by an indirect vote for eight years, a Senate, and a House of Deputies, both elected by a direct popular vote, and an elective Supreme Court. Santa Anna, who was identified with the Unitary principle, was re-elected three times; so that with some intermission he governed Mexico for 20 years. The dissolution of the Federal government naturally strengthened the hands of Santa Anna; and in 1836 Mexico was for the first time recognized by Spain. But the unitary republic was a time of disaster and disgrace; and from the point of view of progress it was a period of reaction. … Europe looked forward, almost without jealousy, to the time when the great nation of North America would absorb this people of half-civilized Indians mixed with degenerate Spaniards. Events which now happened greatly strengthened this impression."

_E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 20, sections 6-7._

MEXICO: A. D. 1829-1837. The Abolition of Slavery.

"The general affairs of the country in the second half of 1829 were in a chaotic state. Disorganization fettered every branch of the government. … And yet, amidst its constant struggle, Guerrero's administration decreed several progressive measures, the most important of which was the abolition of slavery. African slavery had indeed been reduced to narrow limits. The Dominican provincial of Chiapas, Father Matias Cordoba, gave freedom to the slaves on the estates of his order. On the 16th of September, 1825, President Victoria had liberated in the country's name the slaves purchased with a certain fund collected for that purpose, as well as those given up by their owners to the patriotic junta. The general abolition, however, was not actually carried out for some time, certain difficulties having arisen; and several states, among which was Zacatecas, had decreed the freedom of slaves before the general government arrived at a final conclusion on the subject. As a matter of fact, the few remaining slaves were in domestic service, and treated more like members of families than as actual chattels. At last Deputy Tornel, taking advantage of the time when Guerrero was invested with extraordinary powers, drew up and laid before him a decree for total abolition. It was signed September 15, 1829, and proclaimed the next day, the national anniversary. The law met with no demur save from Coahuila and Texas, in which state were about 1,000 slaves, whose manumission would cost heavily, as the owners held them at a high valuation. It seems that the law was not fully enforced; for on the 5th of April, 1837, another was promulgated, declaring slavery abolished without exception and with compensation to the owners."

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapter 4._

MEXICO: A. D. 1845. The Annexation of Texas to the United States.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1836-1845.

MEXICO: A. D. 1846. The American aggression which precipitated war.

"Texas had claimed the Rio Grande as her western limit, though she had never exercised actual control over either New Mexico or the country lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The groundless character of the claims of Texas to the Rio Grande as its western boundary was even admitted by some friends of the measure. … Silas Wright, … referring to the boundaries of Texas, declared that 'they embraced a country to which Texas had no claims, over which she had never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede.' Mr. Benton denounced the treaty [of annexation and cession of territory] as an attempt to seize 2,000 square miles of Mexican territory by the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte, which would be an act of direct aggression. … In ordering, therefore, General Taylor to pass a portion of his forces westward of the river Nueces, which was done before annexation was accomplished, President Polk put in peril the peace and the good name of the country. In his Annual Message of December of that year [1845] he stated that American troops were in position on the Nueces, 'to defend our own and the rights of Texas.' But, not content with occupying ground on and westward of the Nueces, he issued, on the 13th of January, 1846, the fatal order to General Taylor to advance and 'occupy positions on or near the left bank of the Rio del Norte.' That movement of the army from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, a distance of more than 100 miles, was an invasion of Mexican territory,—an act of war for which the President was and must ever be held responsible by the general judgment of mankind."

_H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 2._

ALSO IN: _T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 2, chapter 149._

MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847. The American conquest of California.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.

MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847. War with the United States. The first movements of American invasion. Palo Alto. Resaca de la Palma. Monterey. Buena Vista. Fremont in California.

"The annexation of Texas accomplished [see TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836, and 1836-1845], General Taylor, the United States commander in the Southwest, received orders to advance to the Rio Grande. Such was the impoverished and distracted condition of Mexico that she apparently contemplated no retaliation for the injury she had sustained, and, had the American army remained at the Nueces, a conflict might perhaps have been avoided. But, on Taylor's approaching the Rio Grande, a combat ensued [May 8, 1846] at Palo Alto with Arista, the Mexican commander, who crossed over that stream. It ended in the defeat of the Mexicans, and the next day another engagement took place at Resaca de la Palma, with the same result. These actions eventually assumed considerable political importance. They were among the causes of General Taylor's subsequent elevation to the Presidency. As soon as intelligence of what had occurred reached Washington, President Polk, forgetting that the author of a war is not he who begins it, but he who has made it necessary, addressed a special message to Congress announcing that the Mexicans 'had at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil.' Congress at once (May 13th, 1846) passed an act providing money and men. {2174} Its preamble stated, 'Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that country and the United States, be it enacted,' etc. As long previously as 1843, Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Relations, had formally notified the American government that the annexation of Texas would inevitably lead to war. General Almonte, the Mexican minister at Washington, in a note to Mr. Upshur, the Secretary of State, said that, 'in the name of his nation, and now for them, he protests, in the most solemn manner, against such an aggression; and he moreover declares, by express order of his government, that, on sanction being given by the executive of the Union to the incorporation of Texas into the United States, he will consider his mission ended, seeing that, as the Secretary of State will have learned, the Mexican government is resolved to declare war as soon as it receives intimation of such an act.' War being thus provoked by the American government, General Scott received orders (November 18th, 1846) to take command of the expedition intended for the invasion of Mexico."

_J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 23 (volume 1)._