CAUSES OF NATIONAL ADVERSITY. 347 
has disturbed the healthful action of internal police, and consequently- 
impaired the morals of the masses. 
It must be remembered that when Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke, 
it was at first rather to get rid of her rulers than of her system ; — more 
to oveithrow foreign tyranny and colonial subjection, than to establish a 
Republic. The original Plan of Iguala, to which Iturbide adhered, pro- 
posed the offer of the Mexican Crown to Ferdinand, as a separate sove- 
reignty from that of Spain. Events prevented the fulfillment of this 
scheme ; and as soon as Iturbide became successful in his military career, 
he influenced his soldiery (contrary to the wishes of the people, as ex- 
pressed in Congress,) to proclaim him Emperor. 
Had there been intelligence, virtue, and power enough among the 
masses to resist this encroachment in the bud ; or, had Iturbide imitated 
Washington, in the possession of a limited authority together with great 
popular confidence, he might have laid deeply and firmly the foundation 
of a Republican Constitution. The people would have bestirred them- 
selves liberally in systems of National Education and improvement, and 
a free Press would have completed the project by disseminating the prin- 
ciples of freedom to every nook and corner of the country. Instead of 
this, however, the mass of good and educated men — unaided by liberal 
example from the Government — found it impossible to unleaven the mob 
of Spanish monarchism, or, to teach it to govern itself. Party spirit 
began to rage without stint and for feigned objects. The contest Avas be- 
tween the possessors of power and the aspirants. The Yorkinos repre- 
sented or pretended to represent the republican or advance party. The 
Escoceses the aristocratic, or antagonists of a too liberal grant of popu- 
lar rights and privileges. In this manner the whole country has been 
converted, by turns for twenty years, into a camp or battle-field. The army 
(without a foreign war,) is regarded as a separate body, created and sup- 
ported — not to guard the nation against invading enemies — but to protect 
the Government against the people ; and the church, in the meanwhile, 
naturally leans in favor of that powerful support which preserves its pro- 
perty and its Orders. 
A long continued disturbance of the nation, like this, has of course 
checked industry and prevented emigration from abroad. It has made 
agriculture but a menial toil ; — it has created an aristocracy of arms and 
spiritual power ; — it has covered the people with foreign debt and domes- 
tic embarrassment ; — it has taught the masses to suffer control and to 
lose independence ; — it has forced the Government to mortgage every re- 
source at ruinous interest ; — it has fostered the most extensive political 
corruption that ever beggared a nation, and has afforded an opportunity, 
amid all this turmoil, to successive bands of ambitious plunderers to grow 
rich on the public spoil. 
The lesson of chicanery and corruption taught to its colony by old 
Spain, — through her injustice and oppression, — became a principle of ac- 
tion, and duplicity was raised to the rank of a virtue. 
