CHAPTER XII. 



CONSTITUTIONS AND LAWS. 



VARIOUS CHANGES OF THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION. PRESENT 



ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. 



CONSTITUTION OF 1847. LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIARY NA- 

 TIONAL AND STATE. JUDICIARY ADMINISTRATION OF JUS- 

 TICE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL PROCESS MAL- ADMINISTRATION 



OF JUSTICE. PRISONS CRIME ACCORDADA. CONDITION 



OF PRISONS. STATISTICS OF CRIME IN THE CAPITAL GAR- 

 ROTTE. MEXICAN OPINIONS. 



Since the downfall of Iturbide the body politic of Mexico has 

 passed through many stages of revolutionary and factious disease. 

 Four constitutions have been formed and adopted by the people or 

 their temporary rulers independently of the Bases de Tacubaya, 

 under which Santa Anna ruled despotically until the month of 

 June, 1843. These are the Federal Constitution of 1824; the 

 Bases y Leyes Constitutionales, or, Central Constitution of 1836 ; 

 the Bases Organicas de la Republica Mejicana of 1843, and the 

 restored Federal Constitution, with amendments by an acta de re- 

 format, in 1847. Five great organic changes, in twenty-six years, 

 have thus continually swayed the people between Federation and 

 Centralism ; and we may hope that, after all these vital alterations, 

 besides all the minor military pronunciamientos or gritos, which, in 

 the intervals have vexed the public tranquillity, the country has, 

 at length settled down firmly upon the reliable basis of a great 

 but balanced confederacy. 



The Constitution of 1847 creates a Federal Republic ; and, with 

 the exception of the intolerant articles in regard to religion upon 

 which we have commented in the preceding chapter, it is a docu- 

 ment worthy of freemen who desire to avoid consolidation and are 

 anxious to preserve the distinct, responsible activity of their states. 

 This instrument, after indicating the subdivision of the whole terri- 

 tory into the states heretofore enumerated in Chapter 1st, deposes 

 the national legislative power in a Congress formed of a house of 

 representatives and a senate, the representatives being chosen 

 every two years by the citizens of the states, in the ratio of one for 

 every fifty thousand souls or for any fraction beyond twenty-five 



