Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/67

1864.] not shrink from carnage, which is not ready to sacrifice everything but principle to avert it, will be the nation of all others to risk everything, honor, safety, social stability, for a whim. Beyond a doubt, too great indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy.

We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,—party-spirit. During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict, ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of settlement. It has been too much the custom to talk of these as though they were utterly meaningless. They are full of meaning. They mark the flux and reflux of this great battle. They stand for the victories or defeats of one or the other of these great principles.

It is not probable, that, at the outset of the Revolution, the Creoles had any thought of separating from the mother-country. They professed the greatest loyalty. And they proved it by unshaken fidelity on many a bloody field. Their only request was, that some constitutional features might mitigate the despotism under which they groaned. Even after eleven years' struggle, what they settled upon was a limited monarchy, with the King's son at its head,—or, if he refused, then some scion of another royal house. And even when this project failed, they raised to the vacant throne their own general, Iturbide. So strong in the beginning was the element of conservatism, or reaction, as they term it now, in Mexican affairs.

In 1823, however, the Liberal party obtained the supremacy, and under the lead of Santa Aña, who then first came into prominence, drove Iturbide from the throne, and put into operation a constitution patterned after our own. It is not too much to say, that, from that day to the hour when the allied troops landed at Vera Cruz, the conflict between two parties, two principles, two methods of government, has been waged with ever increasing bitterness and ever changing fortunes. It is probable that the Liberals have always been numerically the stronger. But the reactionary party has had its advantages. The rich and aristocratic have been with it. To a great extent the army, ever partial to the iron hand, has given it the support of its great power. And the Church, which has possessed perhaps one-quarter of the whole wealth of the country, and whose income has often far exceeded that of the State, has always plotted for the downfall of the Liberals.

In 1835 the power of these combined forces was so great that they were able to overthrow the constitution of 1824, and put into operation a new one on the plan of centralization. By this plan all federal representation ceased, and popular freedom was subject to unaccustomed restraints. The most noteworthy fact connected with this change was the Texan Rebellion, and consequent upon it our own Mexican War. But of these we shall speak hereafter. It was not until 1857 that the Liberals won back all that they had lost,—and more; for they replaced the old constitution by a new and freer one, and, as if by one stroke to inflict a final blow upon their adversaries, decreed the confiscation of all Church property. The Reactionists had at least vitality enough to make a death-struggle. Leagued with the army, they drove Comonfort from the presidency, and his party from the city of Mexico. For three years there were two presidents and two sets of officers of all sorts, and a civil war. The Liberals, under the Indian Benito Juarez, held Vera Cruz and the larger part of the country. At the end of this period the Liberal chieftain, with an unexpected energy, drove the opposing party out of the city of Mexico, and its leaders into exile, carried into effect the decree for the confiscation of Church