146 LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIARY NATIONAL AND STATE. 



those courts shall be conducted in them to a final hearing and to 

 the execution of the sentence. Every male person either born 

 in the republic or naturalized, who attains the age of twenty years, 

 possesses the means of honest livelihood, and has not been sen- 

 tenced by legal process for any infamous crime, is declared to be a 

 citizen of Mexico, and enjoys the right to vote, to petition, to meet 

 others in the discussion of public affairs and to belong to the 

 national guard. The exercise of these rights of citizenship may 

 however be suspended in consequence of confirmed intemperance, 

 professional gambling, a vagabond life, the assumption of religious 

 orders, by legal interdict, in virtue of crimes which cause loss of 

 citizenship, and by inexcusable refusal to serve in public employ- 

 ment when appointed by the people. 



Administration of Justice. 



The federal constitution of 1824, introduced into Mexico, as we 

 have seen, two general orders of tribunals ; those of a federal or 

 national character, and those of the states. The power of these 

 judiciaries was deposited in a supreme court, and in circuit and 

 district courts ; and causes were taken from one to the other, by 

 appeals, or in other words, passed by grades from the lowest to 

 the highest, according to the nature of the transactions they in- 

 volved. The jurisdiction of these courts was of course very exten- 

 sive ; yet it was not paramount or universal over all classes of 

 Mexican society, inasmuch as large numbers of Mexicans were 

 exempted by fueros or special privileged jurisdictions, from the 

 control of the constitutional courts. The fueros were chiefly those 

 of the military and ecclesiastics. There was a common military 

 fuero in civil and criminal matters, which authorized the parties to 

 have their causes tried before the commanding generals, and, on 

 appeals, before the supreme tribunal of War and Marine, whilst 

 there was another right of trial, or jurisdiction for military misde- 

 meanors, before the council of war of general officers. There 

 were, besides these, three special fueros of war; — one of artillery, 

 one of engineers, and another of the active militia. The ecclesias- 

 tical fuero, gave an appeal from the bishop to the metropolitan, or 

 from the archbishop to the nearest prelate ; — if the metroplitan 

 commenced a cause, an appeal lay to the bishop who was his near- 

 est neighbor ; and, on a third trial, to another neighboring episco- 

 pate. Notwithstanding these military and ecclesiastical fueros 

 were permitted to exist by special favoritism after the republic was 

 formed, the Mexicans suppressed, after 1824, the fueros of the 



