Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/816

796 The war of independence achieves for Mexico autonomy; but much remains to be done before she can fit herself for this new sphere — before she can be relieved of the fetters and encumbrances worn by her during three centuries of despotic tutelage. Řelief comes only in another struggle between the new and old order of things; against superstition and class supremacy, protracted through nearly half a century, and forming a probationary transition period to the era of development under Porfirio Diaz.

The period of independence opens auspiciously, with the country recovered from the ravages of war; but prudence is cast to the winds in framing plans for the future, and in carrying them out. The formation of a republic is the natural outcome of a rising by the people for the people, as indicated in the speedy fall of Iturbide's empire; and equally natural is the eagerness to imitate the constitution of a sympathizing neighbor, the successful prototype of the new evolution. The conditions of the two nations, however, are widely different in race characteristics, climatic and other environments, and in interests and leanings; and while Mexico's adopted institutions are modified somewhat by French ideas, the new culture standard for Anáhuac, yet they are hardly suited to a people just out of leading-strings-a people so far unschooled in the self-control required for the enjoyment of true liberty. Moreover, it seems hazardous to separate a hitherto united country into semi-independent states, especially when there exist large bodies of ignorant aborigines, who, constituting a class of minors, require the care of one supreme guardian. On the other hand, the federal system is encouraged by the diversity of races, based to some extent on ancient tribal differences and distribution, and fostered by the isolated or sectional warfare of the independence struggle; and it soon becomes apparent that in the division of states lies a source of strength for the people in the conflict now beginning with the