The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 3, July 1899 - April, 1900 Page: 171

THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
TEXAS STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
Vol. III. JANUARY, 1900. No. 3.
The publication committee and the editor disclaim responsibility for views expressed by
contributors to the Quarterly.
THE SPANISH SOURCE OF THE MEXICAN CONSTITU-
TION OF 1824.
JAMES Q. DEALEY.
When Mexico so nobly won its independence from Spain, its lead-
ing citizens were not practically trained statesmen, but either
enthusiastic patriots or selfish adherents to a popular cause. The
numerous revolutions that followed the establishment of the republic
after the overthrow of Iturbide's short lived empire, were due there-
fore partly to the ambition of unscrupulous politicians, but mainly
to the visionary character of the natural leaders of the people, and
to the lack of political experience in the mass of the population.
It is not at all strange that the ardent Mexicans, in the full glow
of enthusiastic feeling at having won for themselves a name among
the nations of the earth, should have turned toward their northern
neighbor for the pattern of the new political institutions about to
be formed. No antagonisms had yet arisen between the two peo-
ples; the well known sympathy of the Monroe administration for the
Spanish-American Republics had won the warm gratitude of these
embryo nations; -and the Monroe doctrine of December, 1823, seemed
permanently to cement this friendly feeling. Consequently when
in 1824 the Mexicans proclaimed in their famous constitution the
form of their government to be a Federal republic, the impression