Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/64

46 result of any development of popular opinion. While a system in some respects similar has resulted in the United States in an approach to direct popular control through the creation of agencies which, while keeping the form of the constitutional provisions, changed their spirit, in Mexico the indirect system enabled the executive to destroy all popular control.

The various states were divided into electoral districts of 40,000 inhabitants. These in turn were divided into sections of 500 inhabitants. Every alternate June the people of a section chose an "elector." The electors assembled in July to vote for one Congressman for each district and two Senators for each state. Every fourth year they voted also for the President. The result of the voting of the electors was canvassed by the Congress in the case of the Congressmen and the President, and by the State legislatures in the case of the Senators.

The state elections, also based on popular vote, occurred simultaneously with the choice of the federal officers but aroused no more popular interest. The state officers were regularly supporters of the government who lived in the state capital, though representing, in the case of legislative officers, outlying districts in which they were often very little known. Often the members of the state legislature might also be executive officers.

Besides this practice of allowing an individual to hold