Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/327

Rh Was it to be imagined that men who had always been controled, could learn immediately to control themselves? Was it to be believed that the military personages, whose ambition is as proverbial as it is natural, would voluntarily surrender the power they possessed over the masses, and retire to the obscurity and poverty of private life when they could enjoy the wealth and influence of political control, so long as they maintained their rank in the army? This would have been too much to expect from the self-denial of Creole chiefs; nor is it surprising to behold the people themselves looking towards these very men as proper persons to consolidate or shape the government they had established. It was the most natural thing conceivable to find Iturbide, Guerrero, Bustamante, Negrete, Bravo, Santa Anna, Paredes, and the whole host of revolutionary heroes succeeding each other in power, either constitutionally or by violence. The people knew no others. The military idea,—military success,—a name won in action, and repeated from lip to lip until the traditionary sound became a household word among the herdsmen, rancheros, vaqueros and Indians,—these were the sources of Mexican renown or popularity, and the appropriate objects of political reward and confidence. What individual among the four or five millions of Indians knew anything of the statesmen of their country who had never mixed in the revolutionary war or in the domestic brawls constantly occurring. There were no gazettes to spread their fame or merit, and even if there had been, the people were unable to buy or peruse them. Among the mixed breeds, and lower class of Creoles, an equal degree of ignorance prevailed;—and thus, from the first epoch of independence, the ceased to be a true republican tribunal in Mexico, while the city was surrendered as the battle field of all the political aspirants who had won reputations in the camp which were to serve them for other purposes in the capital. By this means the army rose to immediate significance and became the general arbiter in all political controversies. Nor was the church,—that other overshadowing influence in all countries in which religion and the state are combined,—a silent spectator in the division of national power. The Roman Hierarchy, a large land-holder,—as will be hereafter seen in our statistical view of the country,—had much at stake in Mexico, besides the mere authority which so powerful a body is always anxious to maintain over the consciences of the multitude. The church was, thus, a political element of great strength; and, combined with the army, created and sustained an important party, which has been untiring