344 MEXICO. 
of which is subject to the review of the President of the Republic, and 
of a Governor appointed by the President. 
Title eighth, relates to the Electoral Power. 
The population of Mexico is divided into sections of Jive hundred irihab' 
itants for the election of primary Juntas, and the citizens M'ill vote, by 
ticket, for one elector for every jive hundred inhabitants. These primary 
electors will name the secondary, who are to form the Electoral College 
of the Department in the ratio of one secondary elector for every twenty 
of the primary. This Electoral College, again, will elect the Deputies to 
Congress, and the members of the Departmental Assembly ; and its mem- 
bers must have an income qualification of at least five hundred dollars 
per annum. 
On the 1st of November of the year previous to the expiration of the 
Presidential term, each Departmental Assembly, by a majority of votes, 
or, in case of a tie, by lot, will select a person as President for the sue- 
ceeding five years. There is no clause in the Instrument limiting the 
term or terms for which an individual may be elected, or prescribing a 
mode of supplying the vacancy occasioned by his death, resignation, or 
incompetency. 
Such is an outline of the chief features of this remarkable Document. 
At its opening, it declares the establishment of a Popular Representative 
Government, yet nothing can be less popular in its provisions than the 
Instrument itself. The people are divided into classes of Citizens and 
Inhabitants. Property qualifications are created, while domestic servants, 
and the clergy, (no matter how honest, excellent and virtuous they may 
be,) are disfranchised in the same category with gamblers and dvunkards, 
though they possess both the required income and education. 
The opinion of the people is not to be taken directly by vote in regard 
to the men who are to represent them in the Departments and in Con- 
o-ress, or to govern them in the Presidency ; but their sentiments are to 
be filtered through three bodies of Electors before their representation is 
finally effected. And, last of all, the supreme power is vested in a Cen- 
tral Government, while the people are left with scarce a shadow of au- 
thority over their homes and interests in the Departments. 
It will be at once observed, that President Santa Anna has thus sue- 
ceeded in enforcing his favorite scheme of Centralism. He must, there- 
fore, become directly responsible for its results, whether for evil or for 
good, and the glory or disgrace of his country, in the estimation of all 
foreign countries, must alight upon his head alone. 
