Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/393

Rh Mexican nation, and satisfied that these could only be secured by the successful imitation of our federal system, together with the destruction of the large standing army, and the release of the large church properties from the incubus of mortmain.

There was much discontent in Mexico with the election of these two personages to the presidency and vice presidency. Reflecting men thought the union unnatural, and although the desperate times required desperate remedies, there was something so incongruous in the political alliance between Farias and Santa Anna, that little good could be expected to issue from it. The clergy were alarmed for its wealth, and the moderate party was frightened by the habitual despotism of Santa Anna. The latter personage was in fact, regarded with more favor at the moment by all classes, than Farias, because the country had reason to believe him a man of action, and familiar in times of danger and distress, with all its resources of men and money; and as he was entirely occupied with the organization and management of the army at San Luis, the opposition party directed all its blows against the administration of the vice presidency.

A few days after the installation of the new government, the agitation of the mort-main question was commenced in congress. The Puro party united with the executive, made every effort to destroy the power of the clergy, by undermining the foundation of its wealth, while the Moderados became the supporters of the ecclesiastics, under the lead of Don Mariano Otero.

At length the law was passed, but it was not a frank and decided act, destroying at once the privileges of the clergy and declaring their possessions to be the property of the republic. In fact it was a mere decree for the seizure of ecclesiastical incomes, which threatened the non-complying with heavy fines if they did not pay over to the civil authorities, the revenues which had formerly been collected by the stewards of convents and monks.

This act, comparatively mild as it was, and temporary as it might have been considered, did not satisfy the clergy, even in this moment of national peril. They resorted to the spiritual weapons which they reserved for extreme occasions. They fulminated excommunications; and published dreadful threats of punishment hereafter for the crime that had been committed by placing an impious hand upon wealth which they asserted belonged to God alone. This conduct of the religious orders had its desired effect not only among the people, but among the officers of government; for the chief clerk of the finance department, Hurci, refused to