Mexican Republic

“ As the period of reconstruction progresses, Mexican affairs will again assume importance not only in American international policy but in that of all the great powers. There must be created within the republic a government that can establish order, that will respect individual rights, put the great resources of the nation again at the service of those living within its borders, and enable it to contribute its due share to the maintenance of the family of nations. To make that possible all true friends of Mexico and all true friends of the United States must strive. ”

“ If the Mexican people prefer a monarchy to a republic, it is our plain duty cheerfully to acquiesce in their decision and to evince a sincere and friendly interest in their prosperity. If, however, the Mexicans prefer maintaining their former institutions, we have no reason to apprehend any obstacle to the free exercise of their choice. The Emperor of the French has solemnly disclaimed any purpose to impose on Mexico a form of government not acceptable to the nation ”

“ I was far from my native land when intelligence of this renewed confidence, and of these new obligations imposed upon me by my country was brought to me, and I saw that the imminent dangers which surrounded her on all sides, formed the chief motive for calling me to the head of the army. I now see a terrible contest with a perfidious and daring enemy impending over her, in which the Mexican republic must reconquer the insignia of her glory and a fortunate issue, if victorious, or disappear from the face of the earth, if so unfortunate as to be defeated. ”

“ Until the army and the clergy were shorn of those special privileges which enabled them to bid defiance to constitutional authority the republic would be a failure. What Mexico needed was "a government of the people for the people by the people." This thought was embodied in the famous law for the administration of justice now known by the name of its Indian author—"the law of Juarez." The key-note of progress was struck on the passage of this bill by the Mexican Congress in 1857, and millions of the long-enslaved people of Mexico joined in the shout of joy with which it was received. ”

“ This ignorance of political cause and effect is, alas! not alone confined to Mexico. There is enough of it in England, too, as in every other nation. But in the earlier days of the Mexican Republic, the baneful weed flourished with unusual vigour and rankness—to the benefit of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and the blight of his country. ”

“ The history of no civilized nation in modern times has presented within so brief a period so many wanton attacks upon the honor of its flag and upon the property and persons of its citizens as had at that time been borne by the United States from the Mexican authorities and people. But Mexico was a sister republic on the North American continent, occupying a territory contiguous to our own, and was in a feeble and distracted condition, and these considerations, it is presumed, induced Congress to forbear still longer. ”

“ We use it as an instrument and an agency, in conjunction with other instruments and other agencies of a more formidable and destructive character, to enforce the cession of Mexican territory, to acquire territory for new States to be added to this Union. We know, every intelligent man knows, that there is no stronger desire in the breast of a Mexican citizen than to retain the territory which belongs to the republic. We know that the Mexican people will part with it, if part they must, with regret, with pangs of sorrow. ”

“ It is difficult to do justice to the innate courtesy of officials and people when Americans show them so little. You can murder his beloved Spanish in attempting to address a Mexican, and he will listen with infinite patience and never a smile of amusement or expression of vexation on his face. The Mexican is polite not only to his superiors and equals, but to his servants as well.
The republic of Mexico has passed through dark days. It has suffered from the evil government of foreigners and from the reckless ambitions of its own rulers. ”

“ The history of Mexico has ever held in sacred regard the region of this ancient republic, whence Cortéz and the Spaniards derived such eminent assistance in the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Immediately after that event it was erected into a province, under which character it was always regarded until the political emancipation of Mexico from Spain, and even after that event up to the period of the adoption of the Acta Constitutiva, when Tlascala was raised to the dignity of a State, as an integral part of the Mexican Republic. ”

“ If there is shown a genuine desire on the part of the Mexican government and Mexican people to have the help of foreigners in the development of the republic and if other states make clear to their investing citizens that conditions will not be allowed to arise in which they will find themselves harassed by legislation that will practically confiscate rights worthy of protection, this help, like that to the government itself, will be forthcoming on favorable terms. Mexico will again have the possibility of becoming a strong American state. ”

“ It will only be when Americans have lost their love of freedom and pride of country that they will look with indifference upon such disturbance of our sister republic. This will never be; our wise statesmanship will see to it that the Mexican people be left to perfect their institutions according to those immutable laws that govern from the dawn to the close of a nation's life. ”

“ Up to the end of February—1885—no settlement had been reached, though Señor Romero Mexican minister at Washington, was confident of a pacific termination to the trouble. In the event of war there is little doubt that Mexico could concentrate 50,000 men [24] on the Guatemala frontier within a few days, and there could be but one ending to the embroglio, namely, the humiliation of the lesser republic, unless hostilities were averted by foreign intervention. [25]
Mexico assuredly contains within herself every element of prosperity ”

“ They took no part in the partisan revolutions which so constantly agitated the central portion of the Republic, but in 1832, jealous of the centralization of Mexican power as against the rights of States, rose in arms against the scattered Mexican garrisons. ”

“ The Mexican revolution—its struggles, endurance and success,—disclose many manly features of national character, and prepare us to appreciate that patriotic and cultivated body of men and women who form the national heart and hope of the republic.
The Mexicans have been so harshly dealt with in the descriptions of foreigners, that they are not always disposed to welcome them beyond their thresholds. ”

“ We have endeavored to analyze candidly the condition of the Mexican republic, and, in performing the disagreeable task we have been guided not only by our own personal observations in the country, but by the argumentative criticisms of native writers. Having ascertained the disease it is our duty to seek the remedy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fish by his own countrymen, whose conscience naturally revolted from a system of government which, as its chief claim to the sympathy and fellowship of foreign peoples, set up its power and willingness to banish from its jurisdiction all that was purest and holiest. Yet Mexico is as far from “general freedom and prosperity” as ever, and Messrs. Fish and Foster, the instigators of this last outrage on humanity, continue to be high and trusted officials of our freedom-loving republic.
Still, the faction that controls Mexican politics was not content with constitutional and statutory “reforms.” ”

“ On the death of the second Emperor of Mexico, the republic again came into being; six presidents had controlled its destinies up to the assassination of Francisco Madero and the assumption of the executive power by Victoriano Huerta. Porfirio Diaz, who ruled from 1877 to 1911 gave Mexico a stability that it never possessed before or since.
More than 300 successful or abortive attempts at revolution are recorded during the stormy life of Mexican independence. A confusion 159of empires, republics, dictatorships and military usurpations have succeeded each other with bewildering rapidity. ”

“ Well may the disinterested spectator have concluded, with those foreign leaders who united to intervene in Mexican politics, that the Mexicans could not—nor would they ever be able to—govern themselves. The friend of Mexico, viewing the affairs of that time at a distance, may well have despaired of the political regeneration of her people. More than a thousand men—without regarding previous revolutions—had been killed in the year 1871, in a time of peace; yet these headstrong leaders again rushed to arms, prepared to desolate the country in a prolonged fratricidal strife! ”

“ If Mexico had no other great charity than this, the fact of its existence, and that it has been allowed to carry on uninterrupted business through civil wars and changes of government, revolutions and counter revolutions, speaks volumes in favor of Mexican foresight and forbearance. ”

“ He knew, of course, that the Mexican constitution made impossible demands upon the political capacity of the people. He was himself mainly of Indian blood and he believed that he understood the temperament and limitations of most Mexicans. Knowing how tenaciously they clung to political notions, he believed that it was safer and wiser to forego, at least for a time, real popular government and to concentrate power in the hands of a strong man who could maintain order. ”

“ It was not long that this quarrelsome people could live together without fighting amongst themselves, and ten or fifteen years after the founding of the city the two parties—the Mexicans and the Tlatelolcans—separated, the latter going to a still smaller island near the main one. The Mexicans, however, kept the god, and, though their neighbors were more progressive at first, were in the end triumphant. Though for a while each faction had a separate government and its king, the Mexican is the one that finally absorbed the other, and whose history we shall mainly follow. ”

“ About that time a galaxy of Spanish colonies had declared for independence— Chili, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela. The spirit of republicanism had been spreading like fire on dry grass. Mexico for the first time decided to be a republic, and was formally recognized as such by Spain. In the constitution which the whole country then adopted, although patterned after that of the United States, the people show themselves still ignorant of the first principle of liberty. ”

“ Today, with the indigenous heart which is the dignified root of the Mexican nation, and having listened long enough to the voice of death which comes in the government's war, we call on the People of Mexico and on the men and women of the entire planet to unite their steps and their efforts with us in this stage of the struggle for liberty, democracy, and justice, through this... ”

“ With him, beneath the thin veil of imperial power, Mexico would have been likely to feel the protecting warmth of a wise and kind father's love, supplemented by the best counsel which modern science and wisdom can lend to government; as it is, under the title of a republic, she is become the battle-ground for a host of needy partisans, greedy for gain, ambitious for power, and openly parading the worst vices of a military despotism under the stolen name of liberty. ”

“ To protect the Mexican citizen in the enjoyment of his property and rights, would require the arm of a much more vigorous and centralized government than ours is at present, or than its true friends wish it to become. ”

“ We understand that the struggle for the place which we deserve and need in the great Mexican Nation, is only one part of everyone's great struggle for democracy, liberty and justice, but it is a fundamental and necessary part. Time and again, since the beginning of our uprising on January 1, 1994, we have called on all the peoples of Mexico to struggle together, and by all means possible, for the rights which the powerful deny us. Time and again, ever since we first saw and spoke with all of you, we have insisted on dialogue and encounter as the path upon which we should walk. ”

“ Can you find in the history of any people an example of greater magnanimity than that? There were heroes in those days! Our fathers fought no more fiercely in the American Revolution, nor prolonged the struggle with less encouragement, than these fathers of Mexican independence.
Soon after the death of Morelos Congress was disbanded, and the people no longer had a central point upon which to focus their gaze. ”

“ ARTICLE II. The French troops shall gradually evacuate Mexico as H.M. the Emperor of Mexico shall be able to organize the troops necessary to take their place.
ARTICLE III. The foreign legion in the service of France, composed of eight thousand men, shall, however, remain for six years in Mexico after all other French forces shall have been recalled under Article II. From that date said legion shall pass into the service and pay of the Mexican government, the Mexican government reserving unto itself the right to shorten the duration of the employment in Mexico of the foreign legion. ”