Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/302

262 MEXICO. Purity of religion, was one of the Three Guarantees pro- claimed by Iturbide and the army at Iguala ; Union with Spain was another. The first rendered it impossible to omit, afterwards, in framing a constitution, a proviso, which might not have been thought necessary, had it been omitted at first ; and the second, by pledging the nation to adopt all such old Spaniards, as chose to remain in its territory, established a corps of observation in the very heart of the country, which examined most narrowly every act of the government, and lost no opportunity of exciting the prejudices of the people against it. If to these really difficult circumstances be added the total exclusion of foreigners from the Mexican territory, until the year 1822, it must be admitted that it was not easy for the Mexican Congress, in 1824, to avoid the adoption in the Federal Act of the Religious article of the Spanish Constitu- tion, of which the third article of that of Mexico, is, in fact, a transcript. The necessity of such a concession to the popu- lar prejudices of the day, was, and is, bitterly lamented by the more enlightened Mexicans ; and it is to time, and to the generalization of this feeling, that we must look for the re- moval of its cause. Much has been done towards it during the last three years. Foreigners have penetrated into every part of the Republic ; and, as they have been the means of giving a new existence to the mining and agricultural inte- rests, the prejudices formerly entertained against them, have subsided with wonderful rapidity. In many of the States, (each of which frames a constitution in miniature, for its own special use ;) the prohibitory clause in the religious article of the Federal Act, has been omitted. The right of sepulture, according to the forms of the Pro- testant church, which is secured to His Majesty's subjects by treaty, has not only been universally conceded, but burying grounds have been voluntarily assigned for the purpose by the local Authorities, wherever a resident foreign Consul is established. In many instances, the funerals of the more re-