Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 3/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
1821—1824.
O'Donoju, LXII. Viceroy of New Spain,
Iturbide, Emperor of Mexico.—1821—1824.
It will be seen by the Plan of Iguala, that Mexico was designed to become an independent sovereignty under Ferdinand VII. or, in the event of his refusal, under the Infantes Don Carlos and Don Francisco de Paula. Iturbide was still a royalist—not a republican; and it is very doubtful whether he would ever have assented to popular authority, even had his life been spared to witness the final development of the revolution. It is probable that his penetrating mind distinguished between popular hatred of unjust restraint, and the genuine capacity of a nation for liberty, nor is it unlikely that he found among his countrymen but few of those self-controling, self-sacrificing and progressive elements, which constitute the only foundation upon which a republic can be securely founded. His ambition had not yet been fully developed by success, and it cannot be imagined that he had already fixed his beart upon the imperial throne.
When the Plan of Iguala was proclaimed, the entire army of the future emperor, consisted of only eight hundred men, all of whom took the oath of fidelity to the project, though many deserted when they found the country was not immediately unanimous in its approval.
In the capital, the viceroy appears to have been paralized by the sudden and unexpected movement of his officer. He paused, hesitated, failed to act, and was deposed by the Europeans, who treated him as they had Iturrigaray in 1808. Don Francisco de Novella, an artillery officer, was installed temporarily in his stead, but the appointment created a dissension among the people in the capital and the country, and this so completely prostrated the action of the central authorities, who might have crushed the revolution by a blow, that Iturbide was enabled to prosecute his designs throughout the most important parts of the interior of the country without the slightest resistance.
He seized a million of dollars on their way to the west coast and joined Guerrero who still held out on the river Zacatula with the last remnant of the old revolutionary forces. Guerrero gave in his adhesion to Iturbide, as soon as he ascertained that it was the general's design to make Mexico independent, though, in all likelihood, he disapproved the other features of the plan. Guerrero's act was of the greatest national importance It rallied all the veteran fighters and friends of Morelos and the Bravos. Almost all of the former leaders and their dispersed bands, came forth, at the cry of "independence," under the banner of Iturbide. Victoria even, for a while, befriended the rising hero; but he had fought for a liberal government, and did not long continue on amicable terms with one who could not control his truly independent spirit. The clergy, as well as the people, signified their intention to support the gallant insurgent;—and, in fact, the whole country, from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, with the exception of the capital, was soon open in its adhesion to him and his army.
Don Juan O'Donoju,
LXII. Viceroy of New Spain.—1821
Iturbide was now in full authority, and whilst preparing to march on the city of Mexico, in which the viceroy, ad interim, was shut up, he learned that Don Juan O'Donoju had arrived at San Juan de Ulua to fill the place of Apodaca as viceroy. Proposals were immediately sent by the general to this new functionary, and in an interview with him at Cordova, Iturbide proposed the adoption of the Plan of Iguala by treaty, as the only project by which the Spaniards in Mexico could be saved from the fury of the people, and the sovereignty of the colony preserved for Ferdinand. We shall not pause to enquire whether the viceroy was justified or even empowered, to compromise the rights of Spain by such a compact. O'Donoju, though under the safeguard of a truce, was in truth a helpless man as soon as he touched the soil of Mexico, for no portions of it were actually under the Spanish authority except the castle of San Juan de Ulua and the capital, whose garrisons were chiefly composed of European levies. Humanity, perhaps, ultimately controled his decision, and in the name of his master, he recognised the independence of Mexico and yielded the metropolis to the "army of the three Guaranties," which entered it peacefully on the 27th of September, 1821. A provisional Junta of thirty-six persons immediately elected a regency of five, of which Iturbide was president, and, at the same time, he was created Generalissimo, Lord High Admiral, and assigned a yearly stipend of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
On the 24th of February, 1822, the first Mexican Congress or Cortes, met; but it contained within it the germ of all the future discontents, which since that day, have harassed and nearly ruined Mexico. Scarcely had this body met when three parties manifested their bitter animosities and personal ambitions. The Bourbonists adhered, loyally, to the Plan of Iguala, a constitutional monarchy and the sovereignty of Ferdinand. The Republicans, discarded the plan as a device that had served its day, and insisted upon a central or federal republic; and, last of all, the partisans of the successful soldier, still clung to all of the plan save the clause which gave the throne to a Bourbon prince, for, at heart, they desired to place Iturbide himself upon it, and thus to cut off their country forever from all connection with Europe.
As soon as O'Donoju's treaty of Cordova reached Spain, it was nullified by the Cortes, and the Bourbon party in Mexico, of course fell with it. The Republicans and Iturbidists, alone remained on the field to contend for the prize, and after congress had disgraced itself by incessant bickerings over the army and the public funds, a certain Pio Marcha, first sergeant of the first regiment of infantry gathered a band of leperos before the palace of Iturbide on the night of the 18th of May, 1822, and proclaimed him Emperor, with the title of Agustin the First. A show of resistance was made by Iturbide against the proffered crown; but it is likely that it was in reality, as faint as his joy was unbounded at the sudden elevation from a barrack room to the imperial palace. Congress, of course, approved the decision of the mob and army. The provinces sanctioned the acts of their representatives, and Iturbide ascended the throne.
But his reign was brief. Rapid success, love of power, impatience of restraint,—all of which are characteristic of the Spanish soldier,—made him strain the bonds of constitutional right. His struggles for control were incessant. "He demanded," says Ward, "a veto upon all articles of the constitution then under discussion, and the right of appointing and removing, at pleasure, the members of the supreme tribunal of justice. He recommended also the establishment of a military tribunal in the capital, with powers but little inferior to those exercised by the Spanish commandants during the revolution; and when these proposals were firmly rejected, he arrested, on the night of the 26th August, 1822 fourteen of the deputies who had advocated, during the discussion principles but little in unison with the views of the government."
This high handed measure, and the openly manifested displeasure of congress, produced so complete a rupture between the emperor and the popular representatives, that it was impossible to conduct public affairs with any concert of action. Accordingly Iturbide dissolved the assembly, and on the 30th of October, 1822 created an Instituent Junta of forty-five persons selected by himself from amongst the most pliant members of the recent congress. This irregularly formed body was intolerable to the people, while the expelled deputies, who returned to their respective districts soon spread the spirit of discontent and proclaimed the American usurper to be as dangerous as the European despot.
In November, General Garza headed a revolt in the northern provinces. Santa Anna, then governor of Vera Cruz, declared againt the emperor. General Echavari, sent by Iturbide to crush the future president of Mexico, resolved not to stem the torrent of public opinion, and joined the general he had been commissioned to capture. Guadalupe Victoria,—driven to his fastnesses by the emperor, who was unable to win the incorruptible patriot, descended once more from the mountain forests, where he had been concealed, and joined the battalions of Santa Anna. And, on the 1st of February, 1823, a convention, called the "Act of Casa-Mata," was signed, by which the re-establishment of the National Representative Assembly was pledged.
The country was soon in arms. The Marques Vibanco, Generals Guerrero, Bravo, and Negrete, in various sections of the nation, proclaimed their adhesion to the popular movement; and on the 8th of March, 1823, Iturbide, finding that the day was lost, offered his abdication to such members of the old congress as he was able to assemble hastily in the metropolis. The abdication was, however, twice refused on the ground that congress, by accepting it, would necessarily sanction the legality of his right to wear the crown; nevertheless, that body permitted his departure from Mexico, after endowing him liberally with an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, besides providing a vessel to bear him and his family to Leghorn in Italy.
Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete entered the capital on the 27th of March, and were chosen by the old congress which quickly reassembled, as a triumvirate to exercise supreme executive powers until the new congress assembled in the following August. In October, 1824, this body finally sanctioned the federal constitution, which, after various revolutions, overthrows, and reforms, was readopted in the year 1847.
On the 14th of July, 1824, a vessel under British colors was perceived on the Mexican coast near the mouth of the Santander. On the next day, a Polish gentlemen came on shore from the ship, and, announcing himself as Charles de Beneski, visited General Felix la Garza, commandant of the district of Soto la Marina. He professed to visit that remote district, with a friend, for the purpose of purchasing land from the government on which they designed establishing a colony. Garza gave them leave to enter the country for this purpose; but suspicions were soon aroused against the singular visiters and they were arrested. As soon as the friend of the Pole was stripped of his disguise, the Emperor Iturbide stood in front of Garza, whom he had disgraced for his participation in the revolt during his brief reign.
La Garza immediately secured the prisoner, and sent him to Padilla, where he delivered him to the authorities of Tamaulipas. The state legislature being in session, promptly resolved, in the excess of patriotic zeal, to execute a decree of the congress, passed in the preceding April, by condemning the royal exile to death. Short time was given Iturbide to arrange his affairs. He was allowed no appeal to the general government. He confessed to a priest on the evening of the 19th of July, and was led to the place of execution, where he fell, pierced with four balls, two of which took effect in his brain and two in his heart!
Thus perished the hero who, suddenly, unexpectedly, and effectually, crushed the power of Spain in North America. It is not fair to judge him by the standards that are generally applied to the life of a distinguished civilian, or even of a successful soldier, in countries where the habits and education of the people fit them for duties requiring forbearance, patience, or high intellectual culture. Iturbide was, according to all reliable accounts, a refined gentleman, yet he was tyrannical and sometimes cruel, for it is recorded in his own handwriting, that on Good Friday, 1814, "in honor of the day, he had just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to be shot!" His early life was passed in the saddle and the barrack room; nor had he much leisure to pursue the studies of a statesman, even if his mind had been capable of resolving all their mysteries. His temper was not calculated for the liberal debates of a free senate. He was better fitted to discipline an army than to guide a nation. Educated in a school in which subordination is a necessity, and where unquestioning obedience is exacted, he was unable to appreciate the rights of deliberative assemblies. He felt, perhaps, that, in the disorganized condition of his country, it was needful to control the people by force in order to save the remnant of civilization from complete anarchy. But he wanted conciliatory manners to seduce the congress into obedience to his behests,—and he therefore unfortunately and unwisely played the military despot when he should have acted the part of a quiet diplomatist. Finding himself, in two years, emperor of Mexico, after being, at the commencement of that period, nothing more than commander of a regiment, it may be pardoned if he was bewildered by the rapidity of his rise, and if the air he breathed in his extraordinary ascent was too etherial for a man of so excitable a temperament.
In every aspect of his character, we must regard him as one altogether inadequate to shape the destiny of a nation emerging from the blood and smoke of two revolutions,—a nation whose political tendencies towards absolute freedom, were at that time, naturally, the positive reverse of his own.
Death sealed the lips of men who might have clamored for him in the course of a few years, when the insubordinate spirit that was soon manifested needed as bold an arm as that of Iturbide, in his best days, to check or guide it. Public opinion was decidedly opposed to his sudden and cruel slaughter. Mexicans candidly acknowledged that their country's independence was owing to him; and whilst they admitted that Garza's zeal for the emperor's execution might have been lawful, they believed that revenge for his former disgrace, rather than patriotism, induced the rash and ruthless soldier to hasten the death of the noble victim whom fortune had thrown in his lonely path.
