This short statement of facts shows that the first movement for independence, notwithstanding its popularity, was an apparent failure, because it had not the support of the higher classes; but as soon as it became for the interest of the higher classes themselves that Mexico should be independent of the Spanish rule, their influence turned the scale, and independence was at once achieved.

The ease with which the Spanish Government was overthrown in Mexico by the defections of the Spanish army tended greatly to the subversion of military discipline, which was instrumental in subsequent military mutinies against the constituted authorities. One of the worst effects of a successful rebellion is that it sanctions the principle that brute force shall rule, and awakens the personal ambition of unscrupulous and successful soldiers. All that was necessary to overthrow a government was to induce the general-in-chief of the government forces to join the rebels, and this offered so tempting a bait for promotion and power that few could resist it. It brought about the complete demoralization of the old Mexican army, as will presently be seen, and the overthrow of the several regular constituted governments, to the very great detriment of the country.

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

Iturbide's Ephemeral Empire.-Iturbide entered victorious the City of Mexico on September 27, 1821. A regency of three members was established, of which he was elected President. He convoked a National Congress on February 24, 1822, and the Spanish Cortes having declared, on February 13th of the same year, null and void the treaty of Cordova, Congress, under some military pressure, declared Iturbide Emperor by 67 votes against 15, on May 19, 1822, and on July 21st he was formally crowned at the Cathedral. But the Mexican patriots, who had been fighting for ten years in favor of independence, material progress, and liberal principles, could not be satisfied with the success of their former enemies and the establishment of an empire. They thought that this was depriving the country and themselves of the fruits of their victory, and so they combined against Iturbide, and having a majority in Congress, he had it dissolved. In their efforts to overthrow the empire, the liberals were joined, strange to say, by the ultraconservatives, who were either jealous, or disagreed with Iturbide because he did not go as far as they intended, and they joined in the conspiracy against him, and thus his overthrow was made easy.

On December 6, 1822, Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, of whom I shall presently have occasion to speak more at length, headed a rebellion in Veracruz against Iturbide, proclaiming a republican form

of government. Iturbide sent an army under General Echavarri, but this General joined Santa Ana on February 1, 1823, in a platform (which we call plan) against Iturbide, called the "Plan of Casa Mata," which was adopted in many other sections of the country. Iturbide then restored the Congress that he had dissolved, and sent his resignation as Emperor. On April 7th, Congress decreed that Iturbide had not been regularly declared Emperor, that his resignation could not therefore be accepted, and he was ordered out of the country and sailed for Leghorn, Italy, on May 11, 1823, on the English brig Rawlins.

Iturbide was later induced by his friends to return to Mexico in the supposition that he would find the people in his favor. He landed at Soto de la Marina on the 14th of July, 1824, and the Legislature of the State of Tamaulipas sentenced him to death, as he had previously been declared an outlaw by an act of Congress, and he was shot at Padilla on the 19th of the same month.

Establishment of a Republic.—After Iturbide's downfall a republican form of government was unavoidable. Congress appointed an Executive Power of three members, electing for that position Generals Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete.

About this time Masonic lodges were established in Mexico, the first being of the Scottish Rite, which was joined by most of the conservative element of the country, but, unfortunately, that lodge was turned into a political organization, and played a very prominent part in the public disturbances of that period. The Liberal party was divided into two wings: the extreme Liberals, or Federalists, who were in favor of a government fashioned on the model of that of the United States, the powers of the Federal Government being limited; and the moderate Liberals, or Centralists, who favored a centralized republic, with a stronger government. This wing of the Liberal party united itself with the Monarchists and the friends of the Bourbons, and they all joined the lodge of the Scottish Rite, and were called "Escoceses "' in Spanish. The Liberals were the old patriots who had fought for independence from the beginning and they were assisted by Iturbide's friends who out of hostility to the existing government had joined them, in their turn, and to meet their opponents with similar weapons, organized a lodge of the York Rite, whose members were called " Yorkinos." For some years the names by which the political parties were known in Mexico were Escoceses and "Yorkinos," equivalent to Conservatives and Liberals. Mr. Poinsett, the first United States Minister sent to Mexico, was at the time accused of being the instigator of the establishment of the lodges; but it seems that while he desired the success of the Yorkinos, he was not the founder of that Lodge.

Federal Constitution of 1824.—A National Congress to organize the country was convoked and met on November 7, 1823, and it issued on

January 21, 1824, the primary bases of a Federal Constitution, and on October 4th of the same year the final Constitution was adopted and promulgated. It was modelled on the Constitution of the United States, and was almost a copy of it, and I do not know whether, in imitating so closely the Constitution of this country we did not make a mistake. The Constitution of a nation should be adapted to the conditions of that country. Here in the northern section of the continent, there were at the end of the last century thirteen colonies independent of each other, which made war against England, achieved their independence, and then found themselves little more than a confederacy of infantile nations, with all the weaknesses which have ever attended a simple confederation. They therefore decided to consolidate themselves into a single nation, under the name of "The United States of America." The Federal system of government was the only solution of the problems which then confronted the people of this country. It was the natural and inevitable outgrowth of the condition of things existing before the adoption of the Constitution. In Mexico there was a united country, subject to the same authorities and laws, and with only one head. In adopting a republican federal system there, the nation had to be artificially divided up into separate sections, to be called States, which had no separate existence before, and no individual history or experience in self-government. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that when this Constitution went into operation it caused great disturbance. It is easy to find in this fact one of the causes of our prolonged civil wars. We were not alone in suffering such misfortunes, for almost every other nation on this continent, following in our footsteps, tried to adapt the republican federal system to a condition of things to which it was not suited. Brazil alone escaped this period of turmoil and experiment by establishing an empire, with a scion of the reigning house of Portugal on the throne, and by not adopting a federal republican form of government until nearly a century later, after the people had acquired some ideas of selff-government and some capacity for carrying it out; and it is probably for these reasons that she has suffered less by civil commotion than any other country of similar origin in this hemisphere.

Unfortunately, very little regard was paid to the provisions of the Constitution of 1824 immediately after its promulgation, as the men then in power did not hesitate to infringe upon them, especially for the purpose of placing their own candidates in the high positions, thus setting a very bad example, which contributed greatly to the subsequent demoralization of the Mexican political parties, as will presently be

seen.

Our Constitution of 1824 was a decided victory for the Liberal party, but very far from being a final one. The Church party, though

then defeated, was really the stronger of the two during the early years of independent Mexico. The power of the Liberals was of short duration; the Conservative Church party prevailed upon some of Mexico's numerous military leaders to rebel against the Government and inaugurate a series of revolutions, which ended in 1835 in the overthrow of the Constitution of 1824, thus giving a pretext to the Texas settlers to rebel against Mexico. Santa Ana and the Conservative leaders held that a federal form of government was not that which was best adapted to the country, and that a strong centralized government was needed.

It would be too long and rather uninteresting to mention all the military mutinies, or pronunciamientos as we called them, during the revolutionary period from 1822 to 1855, as it would be a rather dry and long list of names and dates almost unintelligible to any one not very familiar with the history of Mexico. I will pass therefore over this dark period, mentioning only the leading and most conspicuous of them.

In a recent article published about Mexico by Justice Walter Clark, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina,' it is stated that between 1821 and 1868 the form of the Mexican government was changed ten times; that over fifty persons succeeded one another as presidents, dictators, or emperors, and that more than three hundred successful or abortive revolutions were recorded. I append to this paper a list of all the rulers that Mexico has had before, during, and after the conquest by the Spaniards, and that list contains the exact number of persons who exercised the government in this country during the revolutionary period, but even supposing that Justice Clark's figures be exact, they will only show the correctness of the views just expressed on this subject that the demoralized condition of the army made it easy to start revolutions, that they occurred very frequently, and that the army had naturally a great deal to do with them; but it is also plain that there was often, if not always, some political motive or principle involved in such revolutions, and although a great many were military mutinies, others were popular uprisings, often under cover of military pronunciamientos.

All the military leaders during the whole period of our revolutions pretended in their pronunciamientos that they only desired to carry out the will of the people as interpreted by themselves, and that their only object was to overthrow the existing government, which they considered either illegal or one which had abused its authority, claiming always to act on behalf of the people and for their welfare, recognizing in that way that the people are the source of all power.

'Arena, for February, 1896.-" The Land of the Noonday Sun. Mexico in Midwinter."

After the adoption of the Federal Constitution hostilities between the two parties were renewed, the Liberal party, which had been the promoter of independence and which desired progress, and the Conservative or Church party, which aimed to maintain the status quo, and which was strongly averse to any change. It is not strange that the conflict between these two parties, representing ideas so antagonistic, should have lasted so long.

An election took place in September, 1824, and General Victoria was elected President, assuming that office on October 10, 1824, General Bravo being elected Vice-President. On January 1, 1825, the first Constitutional Congress opened its sessions, and on November 18, 1825, the fortress of Ulua, opposite Veracruz, surrendered to the Mexican Government. General Victoria finished his term of office in comparative peace, although some military pronunciamientos had taken place which he was able to subdue, among others one headed by General Bravo, the Vice-President, and another by General Santa Ana.

When the following presidential election took place, on September 1, 1828, General Guerrero was the candidate of the Federalist, or Yorkino party, and General Gomez Pedraza, Secretary of War in the Victoria administration, of the Scottish, or Centralist party, the former having had 9 and the latter 11 votes of the Legislatures of the States. The Yorkino party was not satisfied with the result of the election, and General Santa Ana placed himself at the head of a rebellion to nullify the election and make Guerrero president. Another pronunciamiento took place with the same object in view, in the City of Mexico, which was finally successful, and Congress, acting under such pressure, declared on January 12, 1829, Guerrero elected President, and General Bustamante, Vice-President. General Guerrero was inaugurated as President on April 1, 1829.

During Guerrero's presidency, the Captain-General of Havana sent an armed expedition with about 4000 selected Spanish troops under General Barradas, to reconquer Mexico, which landed near Tampico in July, 1829, and on the 4th of the following August captured that port. General Teran was sent by the Mexican Government against Barradas, and Santa Ana went from Veracruz of his own accord and without orders. Both attacked Barradas, who capitulated on September 11, 1829. Spain finally recognized the independence of Mexico after the death of Ferdinand VII., by a treaty signed at Madrid on December 28, 1836.

General Bustamante, the Vice-President, who was then in command of an army in Jalapa, rebelled against Guerrero, on December 4, 1829, proclaiming the restoration of the Constitution. Guerrero himself took the field against Bustamante, but as he left the City of Mexico, the