Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/39

Rh Several of its articles are transcripts of corresponding clauses in the constitution of the northern United States. Here and there appears the old Spanish leaven, particularly in the fourth article, which declares that the Roman catholic religion "is and shall perpetually be the religion of the Mexican nation," and forbids the enjoyment of any other. It must be said, however, to the honor of the framers of the instrument, that they manifested a praiseworthy interest in the improvement of the country and in the advancement of education, science, and trade; for the establishment of copyrights and patents, freedom of the press, and abolishment of barbarous practices in the administration of justice, such as torture, arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation of property, retroactive laws, and other procedures by which life, limb, personal liberty and property were at the mercy of unscrupulous tribunals or officials. We note the absence of clauses to establish trial by jury and publicity in administering justice. It cannot be denied that many of the provisions of this constitution produced good results and roused the country into useful activity, even in the midst of the turmoil and confusion Mexico was afterward subjected to during the succeeding half-century.or more. Comments, almost without number, were made even in those early days, by both Mexicans and foreigners, endeavoring to show that the troubles Mexico soon found herself involved in were the result of the liberal institutions she had adopted by servilely copying, as the commentators said, her more fortunate neighbor of the north. The opponents of republican government have argued from their standpoint the manifest incompatibility, as they allege, of such political institutions with the habits and education of a people who had been for three centuries in leading-strings, ruled by a system of royal command