Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive/Constitution and Government
CHAPTER X
CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT
The present government reflects in form the progress of all nations, and in spirit the troubled past of Mexico. Its constitution is modelled upon that of the United States, and in its present form was adopted in 1857. All persons born within the republic are free, and, if slaves, become freemen by entering it. Personal liberty, with its full significance, is guaranteed, including liberty of the press, "with this reservation, that private rights and the public peace shall not be violated."[1] The press law, many of whose provisions are admirable, has been administered in a manner to discourage enterprise. There are, we are told, fifteen daily papers in the capital. Only two of them printed news, as we understand the word; but an association was being formed to effect a connection with our press associations for the procurement of at least a summary of European and the principal American intelligence. Financial reasons, traditions, and custom make news important in Mexico in this order: first, English; second, Spanish and Continental European; lastly, North American. The papers are very partisan, in that respect imitating the press generally of all countries. The "Times" of London, in its "opinions," is no broader than the narrowest faction print of Mexico; and the news upon which its editorial utterances are based, in affairs political and religious, is quite as trustworthy as its opinions are unbiassed. Last summer it printed from Rome a story that the Jesuits had poisoned the Pope, and that they alone possessed the antidote by which his life could be saved. They consented to save it on condition that he should issue an encyclical restoring to the order its full privileges, etc. This romance was printed with perfect soberness in the telegraphic columns; and an editorial, ponderous and a column long, declared that the Jesuits ought not to be blamed, but that the vanity of the pontiff in consenting to save his life at such a price was deplorable. We never saw that matched for fact or philosophy in any publication in Mexico.
The constitution of Mexico recognizes every right recognized by our own organic law. The federal power is vested in three departments, as with us. The legislature consists of two houses. The members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected every two years, one for each forty thousand of the inhabitants. There are two senators for each state, half of them elected every two years. Congress sits from April 1 to May 31, and from Sept. 16 to Dec. 16. The president, whose term is for four years, is aided by a cabinet composed of ministers of foreign affairs, of internal affairs, of justice and instruction, of public works, of finance, of war and marine. The judicial power resides in the supreme court and in the district and circuit courts. Formerly the chief justice succeeded to the executive office in case of the death or disability of the president. Now the succession passes to the president and vice-president of the Senate, and the chairman of the standing committee of Congress, — a small representative body peculiar to the political organization of Mexico. It sits during the recess of the legislature. The justices of the higher courts are elected for a term of six years, and associated with them are an attorney-general and a public prosecutor, similarly selected. The State governments copy the constitution of the federal government so far as their relative position permits. The president is commander-in-chief of the army and navy. The former is composed of three sections, — the active army, nominally sixty- eight thousand men, actually at present less than half that number; the reserve, twenty-four thousand men; and the general reserve, seventy thousand. The cavalry arm is well equipped, and there is a small artillery branch. The national military school at Chapultepec is one of the best institutions of the kind existing, and receives its students after the example of West Point. The navy is limited to three or four small vessels, incapable of other than coast patrol service. The national sentiment which the government seeks to promote is indicated by the national festivals, — Feb. 5, adoption of the federal constitution in 1857; May 5, victory over the French in 1862; May 8, birthday of the patriot priest Hidalgo; May 15, capture of Maximilian in 1867; Sept. 15 and 16, declaration of independence by Hidalgo, 1810.
The area of the country is 778,590 square miles, estimated, for there has never been a complete survey; with a population of ten million, estimated, for there has never been an authentic census. The political divisions are four states on the northern frontier, five on the gulf, seven on the "grande oceano," and eleven in the interior; with one territory, and the federal district corresponding to our District of Columbia, except that the federal district is represented in Congress as a state.
While the form of the government is thus approvable, the spirit of it is represented as more or less despotic. Nor is it clear how it can be otherwise. I found it everywhere asserted that the masses of the people take no interest in politics, and the official vote for president sustains this. Why, then, should not the administration be despotic? The fountain will not rise higher than the source. The people are not homogeneous; their languages serve to keep them from understanding each other; the mutual hostility of Church and State widens the chasm.Free public assemblies for the discussion of political matters are as yet unknown, and must be impracticable for some time longer. "Public opinion" is the expression of class interest; and "class" means now, in Mexico, the landlords, the professional men, the practical politicians (who are generally old soldiers and young lawyers), the students, and the generals of the armies. We were told, by patriotic persons, that the federal government is so unscrupulously centralizing that it practically controls all the state governments. On the contrary, Mr. Wells came to the conclusion that the state governments are less under federal control than in the United States. This contradictoriness embarrasses the visitor at every turn and in every thing. Many of the most intelligent Mexicans we met expressed poignant regret over the fate of Maximilian and the erection of the republic. We put to two gentlemen of equal intelligence and undoubted candor, but of different pursuits, this question: " Which would the people prefer, the empire or a republic?" They answered simultaneously; but one said the empire, and the other said the republic. Each was confident that the other was mistaken. He who preferred the empire was a German and a manufacturer. The advocate of the republic was a professor of mathematics.
The fact remains, that the republic was born of Mexican ideas, has been maintained exclusively by Mexican arms, is based upon sound principles, and must gradually awaken the entire people into a healthful and independent interest in its perpetuation. Charges of dishonesty are freely made against men in high administrative place, as well as against government officials generally. We had no means of ascertaining how much truth might be in these assertions. If they be true, Mexico cannot be accused of isolation in that, at least. No judgment upon the Government would be reasonable which does not take into account the configuration of the country; its immense foreign debt, for which the present Government should be held not responsible beyond certain moderate limits; the enormous expenditure required, and the inconsiderable revenue obtainable; the sources whence the revenue must for the present be derived; and the social state, due almost entirely to the effects of foreign misrule. "Barter and the obtaining of gold" for Spain has left a stamp upon Mexico which one generation of comparatively tranquil independence cannot be expected to efface. A traveller who passed through the country many years ago saw a face peering out of a window upon a vista of wonderful beauty. Whether prisoner or recluse he knew not, but said through the grating, "How beautiful!" "Transeuntibus," was the laconic answer, — "To those who pass by." So has it been with Mexico. Beautiful to those who robbed her, beautiful to the tourist, her real condition is one which depresses her own people, whose poverty, ignorance, and loneliness make them the most pitiable, as they are certainly the most kindly and polite, people on this continent.
- ↑ Janvier.