THE WAR WITH MEXICO
XXI
BEHIND THE SCENES AT MEXICO
September, 1846-March, 1847
The revolution of August 4, as already has been suggested, was a complex and inconsistent affair, combining most heterogeneous elements: the popular institutions of 1824 and the autocratic power of the soldier upheld with bayonets; the army and the people, whose relations had always been, and in Mexico always had to be, those of wolf and lamb; the regular troops and the National Guards, who loved each other as fire loves water; General Salas reluctantly taking orders from Citizen Fariás, and both of them doing obeisance to Liberator Santa Anna, whom both distrusted; and all cooperating to revive a federal constitution, which had been found in practice unworkable, and needed, in the opinion of everybody, to be redrawn.[1]
Such a state of things argued insincerity; and in fact many had taken up the cry of Federalism at this time simply because the failure of reactionary designs had made the word a popular appeal, and because—nearly all the former leaders of that school having been crushed by the Centralists—there seemed to be room for new aspirants; while the state of things indicated also that more troubles were soon to arrive, since evidently no final solution of the political problem had been achieved, and such a welter of principles, traditions and methods was a loud invitation to the demagogue and the schemer. Don Simplicio predicted that new stars were to flash out soon in the political heavens, and then disappear before the astronomers would have time to name them; and it added significantly, "The comets will be found to be all tails."[2]
