Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/37

8 called prayers, and confess to some fat priest well qualified to sympathize with every earthy desire. . A man Who played this game according to the rule was good and safe. A brigand counting the chances of a fray could touch his scapularies with pious conﬁdence, and the intending murderer solicit a benediction on his knife. Enlightened Catholics as well as enlightened non-Catholics deplored the state of religion in Mexico.

Next after the Church came the “army,” which meant a social order, a body of professional military men ~that is to say, oﬂicers—exempted by their fuero from the jurisdiction of the civil law and almost exclusively devoted to the traditions, principles and interests of their particular group. As the Church held the invisible power, the army held the visible; and whenever the hells ceased to ring, the roll of the drum could be heard. Every President and almost every other high ofﬁcial down to the close of our Mexican war was a soldier, and sympathized with his class; and as almost every family of any importance included members of the organization, its peculiar interests had a strong social backing. By force of numbers, too, this body was inﬂuential, for at one time, when the army contained scarcely 20,000 soldiers, it had 24,000 oﬁicers; and so powerful became the group that in 1845, when the real net revenue of the government did not exceed $12,000,000, its appropriation was more than $21,000,000.

Under Spanish rule, although the army enjoyed great privileges, it had been kept in strict subordination, and usefully employed on the frontiers; but independence changed the situation. Apparently the revolution was effected by the military men, and they not merely claimed but commonly received the full credit. Not only did a large number of unfit persons, who pretended to have commanded men during the struggle, win commissions, but wholesale promotions were made in order to gain the favor of the officers; and in these ways the organization was both demoralized and strengthened. Over and over again military men learned to forswear their allegiance, and at one time the government actually set before the army, as a standard of merit, success in inducing soldiers of the opposite party to change sides.