Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/428

 Rh has disturbed the healthful action of internal police, and consequently impaired the morals of the masses.

It must be remembered that when Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke, it was at first rather to get rid of her rulers than of her system;—more to overthrow foreign tyranny and colonial subjection, than to establish a Republic. The original Plan of Iguala, to which Iturbidé adhered, proposed the offer of the Mexican Crown to Ferdinand, as a separate sovereignty from that of Spain. Events prevented the fulfillment of this scheme; and as soon as Iturbidé became successful in his military career, he influenced his soldiery (contrary to the wishes of the people, as expressed in Congress,) to proclaim him Emperor.

Had there been intelligence, virtue, and power enough among the masses to resist this encroachment in the bud; or, had Iturbidé imitated Washington, in the possession of a limited authority together with great popular confidence, he might have laid deeply and firmly the foundation of a Republican Constitution. The people would have bestirred themselves liberally in systems of National Education and improvement, and a free Press would have completed the project by disseminating the principles of freedom to every nook and corner of the country. Instead of this, however, the mass of good and educated men—unaided by liberal example from the Government—found it impossible to unleaven the mob of Spanish monarchism, or, to teach it to govern itself. Party spirit began to rage without stint and for feigned objects. The contest was between the possessors of power and the aspirants. The Yorkinos represented or pretended to represent the republican or advance party. The Escoceses—the aristocratic, or antagonists of a too liberal grant of popular rights and privileges. In this manner the whole country has been converted, by turns for twenty years, into a camp or battle-field. The army (without a foreign war,) is regarded as a separate body, created and supported—not to guard the nation against invading enemies—but to protect the Government against the people; and the church, in the meanwhile, naturally leans in favor of that powerful support which preserves its property and its Orders.

A long continued disturbance of the nation, like this, has of course checked industry and prevented emigration from abroad. It has made agriculture but a menial toil;—it has created an aristocracy of arms and spiritual power;—it has covered the people with foreign debt and domestic embarrassment;—it has taught the masses to suffer control and to lose independence;—it has forced the Government to mortgage every resource at ruinous interest;—it has fostered the most extensive political corruption that ever beggared a nation, and has afforded an opportunity, amid all this turmoil, to successive bands of ambitious plunderers to grow rich op the public spoil.

The lesson of chicanery and corruption taught to its colony by old Spain,—through her injustice and oppression,—became a principle of action, and duplicity was raised to the rank of a virtue.