Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/321

Rh recognised the independence of Mexico and yielded the metropolis to the "army of the three Guaranties," which entered it peacefully on the 27th of September, 1821. A provisional Junta of thirty-six persons immediately elected a regency of five, of which Iturbide was president, and, at the same time, he was created Generalissimo, Lord High Admiral, and assigned a yearly stipend of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

On the 24th of February, 1822, the first Mexican Congress or Cortes, met; but it contained within it the germ of all the future discontents, which since that day, have harassed and nearly ruined Mexico. Scarcely had this body met when three parties manifested their bitter animosities and personal ambitions. The Bourbonists adhered, loyally, to the Plan of Iguala, a constitutional monarchy and the sovereignty of Ferdinand. The Republicans, discarded the plan as a device that had served its day, and insisted upon a central or federal republic; and, last of all, the partisans of the successful soldier, still clung to all of the plan save the clause which gave the throne to a Bourbon prince, for, at heart, they desired to place Iturbide himself upon it, and thus to cut off their country forever from all connection with Europe.

As soon as O'Donoju's treaty of Cordova reached Spain, it was nullified by the Cortes, and the Bourbon party in Mexico, of course fell with it. The Republicans and Iturbidists, alone remained on the field to contend for the prize, and after congress had disgraced itself by incessant bickerings over the army and the public funds, a certain Pio Marcha, first sergeant of the first regiment of infantry gathered a band of leperos before the palace of Iturbide on the night of the 18th of May, 1822, and proclaimed him Emperor, with the title of. A show of resistance was made by Iturbide against the proffered crown; but it is likely that it was in reality, as faint as his joy was unbounded at the sudden elevation from a barrack room to the imperial palace. Congress, of course, approved the decision of the mob and army. The provinces sanctioned the acts of their representatives, and Iturbide ascended the throne.

But his reign was brief. Rapid success, love of power, impatience of restraint,—all of which are characteristic of the Spanish soldier,—made him strain the bonds of constitutional right. His struggles for control were incessant. "He demanded," says Ward, "a veto upon all articles of the constitution then under discussion, and the right of appointing and removing, at pleasure, the members of the supreme tribunal of justice. He recommended