Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/50

32 of the constitution of 1857 and the Diaz régime, public and private right were so disturbed that it is useless to attempt a discussion of the degree to which the various leaders sought to observe the commands of the constitution. With the coming of Diaz the theoretic balance of power was lightly brushed aside and an executive government was established that used the legislative and judicial branches as its agents.

One of the leading Mexican newspapers, contrasting law and fact, declared in 1878, "The constitution of 1857 is an ideal law, made for an abstract man; it is necessary to make it a Mexican law, adapted to our present condition and endow the state with all the vigor to recover from the long and dolorous experience of a half century of civil disturbances." It concludes, "legal precept is not in consonance with the necessities of life, arbitrary power and despotism are the only regimen possible in societies like ours." Under the existing conditions perhaps the conclusion was justified and the best that could be done, since the form of the constitution was not changed, was to keep it as an ideal, though not a measure of existing rights. Theoretically, of course, the policy adopted was altogether indefensible. Its justification was that it might keep Mexico from falling to pieces, raise the country in the estimation of the world, and bring to it that solid basis for economic development, which must be the foundation of any consistent national progress.