Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/47

Rh in the constitution and the laws. In many states of the New World that standard has not been reached—it has not been reached in Mexico.

It is not necessary to review the history of the various constitutions of Mexico to show that there the fundamental law has outlined an ideal standard of action and not a rule for everyday observance. A comparison of the norm set by the constitution of 1857 under which the republic lived through all the orderly period of its existence with the practice of the government in the same period will illustrate the degree to which even in time of peace the observance of the constitution has continued to be an unrealized ambition.

In its main outlines this constitution, like its predecessors, was very much like the Constitution of the United States of America. There was an attempt to establish a division of powers among three branches of the government. The legislative function was vested in a Congress composed of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The members of the former were elected for terms of two years by Mexican citizens qualified to vote, from districts of a population of 40,000 or major fraction. Those elected must be at least 25 years of age, residents of their districts, and not members of ecclesiastical orders. The senators were elected by an electorate qualified as was that which chose the deputies, two being selected from each state. The requirements for candidacy were the same as for the deputies except that the senators had to be at least 30 years old. Their term was six years.

The executive power was centered in the President of