the viceroy--partly to gain support for himself, it is probable, and
partly to gain support for the monarchy--showed a disposition to give
the Creoles a voice in the government, upon which the leaders of the
oligarchy were so amazingly foolish as to depose him by force, and usurp
his authority. This conduct proved that much of their boasted loyalty
and supposed ability had been shams, that what they really meant was to
enjoy the wealth and power, that the cause of the Creoles was not one
of subjects against their king, but one of subjects against subjects,
and that only force could settle the issue. Dreams of independence
immediately crystallized into schemes of insurrection.[2.2]
Foremost among the conspirators was Hidalgo, commonly described by the
Mexicans as a Washington, but in reality a kindly, public-spirited,
mockingly irreligious and frankly immoral priest. His plans were
discovered; and so on the sixteenth of September, 1810, in the
desperate hope of saving himself and his associates, he called upon
the Indians, rabid with fanaticism and hatred of their oppressors, to
rise against the Spanish, who, he declared, had now allied themselves
with infidel Frenchmen against their holy religion. What followed was
like the bursting of reservoirs filled with blood and fire. Scarcely
a trace of statesmanship was exhibited by the leaders; most of their
disciples acted like fiends let loose; and their enemies did little
better. Soon many common priests, many Creole military men, and not a
few other persons who felt sore under the heel of wealth and power and
were ambitious to rise, embraced the cause, and so many of the rest
sympathized with Hidalgo's demand for independence, that probably by
good management he could have succeeded; but against a campaign like
his the substantial elements of society found it necessary to combine,
and when the heads of the insurrection were betrayed, captured and shot
in 1811, little of it remained except horrible memories and lessons in
conspiracy, treachery, hate, folly, wholesale destruction and wholesale
murder.[2.2]
In a new form, however, the cause of independence lived on. Instead of
wild hordes crying, "Death to the Gachupines!" there were now for the
most part stealthy but merciless bands of guerillas, and the government
soldiers followed close behind them in daring and ruthlessness. On the
coast near Vera Cruz an officer named Antonio López de Santa Anna won a
captaincy about this time by hunting down insurgents, and on the plateau
a handsome, dashing man with brown hair and reddish side-whiskers named
Agustín de Itúrbide, who had negotiated with Hidalgo about accepting
the lieutenant generalship of the revolutionary army, distinguished
himself on the royal side for greed and bloodthirstiness. In 1814 he
wrote to the viceroy one Good Friday, "In honor of the day, I have just
ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to be shot," and the women
among his prisoners fared no better than the men. On the other side
Nicolás Bravo, whose father had been taken and executed, won a noble
distinction by releasing about three hundred captives despite orders
to kill them; Guadalupe Victoria, as he named himself, earned renown
by living in caves like a wild beast rather than give up; and Vicente
Guerrero, operating at the south in unexplored mountains, exhibited
great resourcefulness, remarkable knowledge of men and extraordinary
courage. The principal hero of this period, however, was Morelos, an
Indian priest, who showed himself a consummate partisan leader.[2.2]
So successful were these and the many other chiefs in terrorism,
robbery, slaughter and sack, and so deep a sentiment in favor of
independence now existed, that with a little sagacity in counsel and a
little concert in action the cause might have triumphed; but ambitions,
jealousies, insubordination, disloyalty and political incompetence
ruined everything, and by the end of 1819, although Guerrero still made
head a little, the second phase also of the revolution was substantially
at an end, leaving behind it hot embers of turmoil, fighting, treachery
and massacre, and countless examples of making pillage a livelihood,
selfishly disregarding the common cause, and grossly blundering in
political management. Thought and feeling in Mexico had, however, been
so educated by reflection, experience, discussion and foreign comments
during the past nine or ten years, that a longer acceptance of the
old régime could not be expected. Absolutism, though triumphant, was
doomed.[2.2]
[ITÚRBIDE]
The fatal blow came from its champions. In 1820 a revolution in Spain
revived the liberal constitution that had been adopted eight years
before and then had been abolished by Ferdinand VII; and Apodaca,
now viceroy of Mexico, felt compelled to proclaim the new law. The
troops and the people began to dread another civil war; and the
oligarchy, especially the Church dignitaries, concluding at once that
only separation from the mother-country could save their privileges,
looked about for an instrument. One was easily found. Itúrbide's greed
had finally driven him from his post, his fortune had been wasted in
self-indulgence, and he was now desperate. Long since, his active mind
had seen that if the Creole troops could be seduced, they--supported
by the revolutionary sentiment of the people--could overmatch about
half their number of Spanish regiments; and he agreed readily to become
the champion of autocracy in order to betray it. Cleverly deceiving
the government, he obtained a command through the aid of his backers,
and, in order to clear the field, attacked Guerrero. To dispose of that
wary foe proved, however, no easy task; so he negotiated privately
with a public enemy, described himself as "destitute of ambition and
self-interest," and finally inveigled the insurgent leader into joining
the conspiracy. Victoria followed that example. Santa Anna, though
recently made a lieutenant colonel by the viceroy, came over with his
men. Other leaders did the same; and on February 24, 1821, Itúrbide felt
strong enough to announce a programme, the famous Plan of Iguala.[2.2]
This declared for independence, a limited monarchy under a Bourbon
king, the Roman Catholic church as the sole form of religion, the
old _fueros_, the right of office-holders to retain their posts, the
fraternal union and political equality of Gachupines, Creoles and
Indians, and the appointment of a committee (_junta_) to govern Mexico
provisionally. No scheme could have seemed more inviting, and none could
have been more delusive, for it ignored insurmountable difficulties
and promised incompatible advantages. In all probability Itúrbide knew
this; but prelates, troops, officials and people took the shining bait;
O'Donojú, the new Spanish general, deciding it would be useless to
fight, made a treaty with the revolutionary chief; and on September 27,
1821, Itúrbide carried the tricolor through the gate of the capital,
stopped his gallant black charger at the convent of San Francisco,
and received the golden keys of the city. Obedience, the sole basis
of Mexican society, had been swept away; treachery and perjury had
triumphed; and yet the unthinking multitude hurrahed.[2.2]
The generalísimo, violating the principle of popular sovereignty, now
appointed the junta himself, excluding all the old revolutionists; that
body in turn elected him and four associates to exercise the executive
power as regents; and a Constituent Congress was prematurely summoned
to draw up an organic law. The situation soon proved to be extremely
difficult. Resentments needed to be healed, jealousies appeased,
commerce and the industries put in motion, and the whole edifice of
society and politics rebuilt on new foundations out of incongruous
elements. Peculiarly urgent was the demand for money--the more so as
some of the taxes were abolished in order to sweeten the revolution,
while the expenses grew. On entering Mexico Itúrbide had proclaimed,
"You see me in the most opulent of capitals;" and every one expected the
new government--an independent, Mexican, popular government--to bear
an open purse. In October, 1821, some fourteen thousand claims were
presented to it.[2.3]
Itúrbide, whatever his aims and whatever his faults, was the sole
Mexican of recognized preëminence, the sole possible rallying point;
and patriotism called upon all to support his prestige and patiently
correct his errors until society could take shape. Nothing of the sort
occurred, however. The army idolized him; the civil officials counted
on him; the prelates feared him less than they did his enemies; and
the masses, ignorant of what went on below the surface, revered him as
the Father of Independence; but the cheated absolutists, disappointed
borbonistas, cajoled insurgents, distanced comrades, eclipsed leaders
and unsuccessful claimants, the patriots, indignant that a cruel
royalist should be the heir of the revolution, the republicans, few
in number but increasingly influential, the friends of those he had
massacred or plundered, and behind all the Scottish Rite Freemasons, who
were liberals yet partisans of Spain--all these hated and dogged him.
Honors and emoluments were heaped upon him to excite envy and odium; his
weaknesses were baited; his strength was provoked; his administrative
blundering was stimulated instead of corrected. When financial
necessities compelled him to decree a forced loan, paper money and other
arbitrary measures, many began to denounce him as a tyrant. Plausibly
enough he was accused of disloyalty to his pledges and of aiming to be
king. Finally his enemies, making the most of certain indiscretions that
he committed, undertook to remove him from the command of the army.
Whatever had been his purpose, he now found it necessary to strike; and
a mutiny of the troops--endorsed later by the Congress under military
and mob pressure--declared him emperor.[2.3]
Expenses then increased still more. Jealousies and enmities were
embittered. Public sentiment veered sharply. Time, strength and
funds were swallowed up in pomps that created no more illusion than
a college student in a toga. Encompassed with flatterers, foes and
traitors, financially and politically incompetent himself and guided by
incompetent advisers, well enough aware that after deceiving everybody
he could expect no one to be true, Itúrbide lost his head, sometimes
wavered and sometimes tyrannized. Finally he thought it necessary to
deprive Santa Anna of an authority that had no doubt been abused; and
this interesting young man, who had recently proclaimed that he welcomed
Itúrbide's elevation with a positively uncontrollable exuberance of
joy, "pronounced" for a republic, knowing scarcely anything about that
system, but knowing a great deal about the Emperor's unpopularity. This
precipitated a revolution; and the movement, soon taken up by Victoria,
Guerrero and Bravo, spread rapidly. Itúrbide's most intimate and trusted
general was despatched against the insurgents, but betrayed him. The
army went over. The people, who revered the Liberator but not the
Emperor, concurred. With bad faith and gratuitous outrages his enemies
crowded savagely upon him. Early in 1823 he abdicated; and in May,
forsaken by every one of the many he had benefited, the discredited hero
sailed for Europe, leaving behind him examples and suggestions of the
most demoralizing kind.[2.3]
The junta, meanwhile, had disgusted the nation with its frivolities,
political and fiscal incompetence and usurpation of powers, and there
was a feeling of relief when it dissolved in February, 1822, the next
day after Congress met. Congress, however, did no better and fared even
worse, for it earned much contempt by sanctioning under pressure the
elevation of Itúrbide; and then Itúrbide made Congress, and made all
popular government, quite ridiculous in the eyes of the people and the
army by forcibly sending the members home. When at his wit's end, he
recalled it as if inviting the _coup de grace_, and soon it not only
earned more contempt by pronouncing his elevation illegal and punishing
every mark of condolence for the fallen chief, but undertook to outrank
omnipotence by pretending that no empire had existed. Soon, too, all the
selfish ambitions that had combined against Itúrbide in this body showed
themselves so clearly as to add further discredit; and worse yet the
Congress, though chosen merely to frame a constitution under the Plan of
Iguala, held on after the refusal of Spain to coöperate had put an end
to that scheme.[2.3]
The republicans, who were gaining ground because evidently no other
Mexican could stand where Itúrbide had fallen, and the Iturbidistas, who
desired to create anarchy in order to force the recall of their hero,
clamored for new elections. Five provinces demanded them formally; and
at length, despised by every one, Congress, the firstfruit of popular
government, fell to the ground. Almost every institution that should
have enjoyed respect was now discredited--even the Church, for it had
crowned the emperor and shed its benedictions liberally on Congress. The
army, however, stood, for it had shown its power both to elevate and to
overthrow.[2.3]
The next Congress, which met November 7, 1823, had a more democratic
basis; but the members were personally inferior, intrigue and
self-seeking again prevailed, and the young orators--convinced
that winning applause from the galleries was the true object of
speaking--launched forth on all occasions with that fatal fluency
which their intoxicating idiom encouraged. After centuries of enforced
silence, men to whom liberty could only mean license were called upon
to decide the gravest questions of statesmanship. Naturally they were
eager to build before laying foundations; and naturally, too, where
nine tenths of the people could not read, it seemed like genuine
statesmanship to flourish the novel vocabulary of independence.[2.3]
Frivolous, fickle, now torpid and now running amuck, Congress found
itself compelled eventually to frame a constitution. Under Spanish rule
the provinces, each governed by an intendant, had known little and
cared less about one another; and now, stimulated by the centrifugal
tendency of the Iberian character and the dread of a tyrant, inflamed
by transcendental doctrines of liberty, disgusted with the proceedings
of the national authorities, and captivated by the thought of offices
for all, they began to claim sovereignty; and something had to be
done at once. A republic, though alien to all the habits and feelings
of the nation, seemed evidently necessary, because no possible monarch
existed, and because no other system could make it the interest of a
sufficient number of persons to maintain the government; but this did
not end the difficulties. The centralized type of republic was ardently
desired by the oligarchy as likely to prove controllable, and by all
the monarchists as a sloping path toward their goal; but the friends of
Itúrbide and the enemies of privilege--strongest at a distance from the
capital--fought against it, and at length, as the federal system, about
which only the vaguest notions were entertained, promised more offices
and seemed more likely to hold the country together, it was decided
upon.[2.3]
To meet the crisis one individual, taking the constitution of the
United States as a basis,[2.4] drafted the required instrument in
three days; and so an untrained and uneducated nation found itself
provided with a complicated mixture of democracy and privilege, liberty
and intolerance, progress and reaction, which paralyzed itself by
combining such antagonistic elements, omitted the safeguard of a supreme
court like ours, and showed its own inadequacy by providing that in
emergencies the President might be given "extraordinary powers," or in
other words become a dictator. In short, the government was organized
as a permanent revolution. There was much enthusiasm, however, over
this triumph of nationality, and on New Year's day, 1825, the first
constitutional Congress assembled. The treasury was now full of borrowed
English gold; and--as every one hoped the new system might be developed
in the direction he preferred--all agreed that an era of peace, joy and
prosperity had at length arrived.[2.3]
[VICTORIA'S ADMINISTRATION]
Victoria was elected President. His frank, ruddy, bronzed face, peering
out of gray whiskers and curly gray hair, looked happy and encouraging,
but soon the mass of the nation felt once more cheated; for although
Bravo had been the candidate of the oligarchy, Victoria--yielding to the
pressure of that element--gave it a preponderance in the administration.
A multitude of people were exasperated to find the old privileged
classes again in control, and the execution of Itúrbide under an illegal
law--for he had returned to Mexico--infuriated his partisans. Worse
yet, the oligarchy denied the practicability of the federal system for
so unwieldy a country, where the states felt so independent, where so
many men aspired to hold office and where so few were qualified, and
plotted to set up the centralized regime, with monarchy--preferably
under a Spanish prince--as the ultimate aim of many; and Victoria, a
polite, weak, indolent, easily-flattered man of small abilities, little
education and immense vanity, who idolized his country but felt she
would always need him as chief-priest, fell in with this plan, because
without a change of the constitution he could not be President a second
time.[2.5]
Disgusted and alarmed, the Federalists, who included the Iturbidistas,
began therefore to scheme gropingly for a new revolution, a new war of
independence; but at length, realizing that under the constitution a
majority could rule, they established Masonic lodges of the York Rite,
and with great skill, activity and perseverance organized their forces.
Before long their power showed itself at the voting-urns, and the
President, recognizing the logic of events and perceiving he could never
supplant Bravo in the favor of the aristocracy, changed the complexion
of the government. This in turn angered the faction displaced, and most
unwisely--being physically much the weaker side--it massed its power
in December, 1827, and revolted under a certain Montaño. Bravo, though
Vice-President, placed himself at the head of the insurgents; but the
government forces under Guerrero, attacking him during a truce, quickly
ended the revolt.[2.5]
Peace, however, did not return. The newspapers unearthed or invented so
many unsavory tales about the leading citizens that, besides proving
those men unworthy of confidence, they excited lasting resentments. The
Federalists--particularly the Iturbidistas--harshly avenged their past
sufferings, for the Mexican idea of justice meant a chance to persecute
the oppressor; and every thinking mind saw with dismay that whereas
previous insurrections had occurred in a natural revolutionary period,
the government legally established by the nation had now been defied by
a great party led by the Vice-President himself. This was the letting
out of waters, and to palliate it as chargeable to circumstances would
be to excuse all political crimes.[2.5]
Meanwhile another storm had been gathering. The Spanish element, which
not only was superior but felt so, had given much offence; and, quite
aside from grudges, many thought it unsafe to have so large a number of
Gachupines in the country--many of them active and able, not a few of
them soldiers, and some occupying high civil and military positions--at
a time when Spain was preparing to reassert her authority over Mexico.
Others argued that should the Spaniards go, their places in business
and the public service would be available for Mexicans. Still others
considered this a good way to enfeeble the oligarchy, so as to curtail
its privileges. Many demagogues perceived that here lay a splendid
opportunity to acquire a following; and the Spaniards, for their
part, long accustomed to despise and lord it over the Mexicans, often
exasperated the public by offensive and imprudent conduct. The natural
consequences followed. Many insurrections, benevolently treated by the
government, demanded the expulsion of the Gachupines; some of the states
passed laws in that sense; and finally, in 1827 and 1828, Congress
did the same. A very large number of Gachupines actually departed and
carried away their money. This drew out the strongest fibres of public
life, the army, finance, trade and the industries; while the injustice
and impolicy of these decrees and the bloody vengeance taken upon a few
silly Spanish conspirators embittered feeling in Mexico, and greatly
injured Mexican credit in Europe, where few except the Spanish merchants
enjoyed any financial standing.[2.5]
By the time Victoria's administration drew near its end, Mexico
had marked out her downward route. The parties faced each other as
implacable foes. Each perpetrated as much electoral fraud and violence
as it could; each kept up a savage press; and each worked in the dark
through secret societies. Owing to extravagance, peculation, bad
management, the backwardness of the states in paying their quotas, and
the failure of an English banking house, the treasury was empty in spite
of lavish borrowing. "Liberty" had become a by-word, for Victoria had
wielded the extraordinary powers for a year and a half, punishments had
gone beyond the laws, and the government had been given authority, not
only to expel foreigners at will, but even to banish citizens from their
states. Corruption was general and profound, commerce feeble, credit
extinct, justice perverted, reported the French agent; and, as his
British colleague added, the "Name of Patriotism" was used as a "Cloak
to cover the greatest Excesses."[2.5]
And now came something worse. Well aware they could not elect one of
their own number President against the popular candidate, Guerrero, the
Centralists looked about for an acceptable Federalist. Gómez Pedraza,
Victoria's minister of war, though narrow, harsh and passionate, was a
strict and honest man, a laborious official and a thoughtful, effective
orator. He had fought on the Spanish side in the revolution, and
naturally favored a conservative, aristocratic régime. He, therefore,
was secretly adopted in place of Bravo, now in exile. All those who
detested unseemly party strife preferred him, and as the moderate wing
of the Federalists also took that side, quite unaware that Centralism
lurked in the shadow, Guerrero's noisy and overconfident supporters
found themselves beaten. This result and the open exultation, threats
and hostilities of their old enemies, who still controlled the senate
and the supreme court, enraged them, for they perceived they had been
duped once more, and they hotly charged--no doubt with some reason--that
money and Pedraza's power as head of the war department had frustrated
the will of the people; while it disgusted Victoria to be superseded by
a man he had looked down upon as merely a useful clerk.[2.6]
[SANTA ANNA]