every four months, and holding office for three years. They are to be assisted by three secretaries, for war, finance, and government, and in the provinces by intendentes, appointed for three years, and presiding over the financial boards which form branches of an intendencia general at the capital. Administration of justice is to centre in a supreme court of five judges, chosen like the executive, and retiring gradually within five years. So long as any province is occupied by the enemy, existing deputies select a suplente to represent it. Peace once established, a formally elected congress shall assume the sovereignty and adopt the present or a new constitution, and establish the laws, local governments, and other features so far left unchanged. The present imperfect document was intended therefore only as provisional. Following the French ideas enunciated in the opening, we find the regulations proper to be chiefly modifications of the Spanish constitution, with a sprinkling of features from colonial laws.[1]
- ↑ As intimated in a manifest of the congress to the nation, of Oct. 23d. Hernandez y Dávalos, Col. Doc., v. 720-3. For greater satisfaction I add a more complete synopsis of the document. It consists of two parts: principles and form of government, comprising 6 and 22 chapters respectively, the whole divided into 242 articles. The first article declares the Roman catholic the sole religion. The following chapters of the first part dwell on sovereignty and equality. Mexican America is divided into 17 inseparable provinces: Mexico, Puebla, Tlascala, Vera Cruz, Yucatan, Oajaca, Tecpan, Michoacan, Querétaro, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Potosí, Zacatecas, Durango, Sonora, Coahuila, and Nuevo Reyno de Leon. The sovereignty of the people is vested in the representative supreme Mexican congress, besides which are created two bodies, the supreme government and the supreme tribunal of justice, all to reside in one place, but in separate palaces and with special guards.
The congress shall consist of one deputy from each province, elected for two years. Deputies must be 30 years of age; no two close relatives can sit at the same time. Their election is indirect. Every person above the age of 18 born in the country, and naturalized foreigners, vote for electors, one for each parish. These unite to choose partido electors, who again meet to elect the deputy, each voter in both cases depositing a ticket with three nominees, the majority of votes deciding. While the provinces are occupied by the enemy, existing deputies choose suplentes for them. The congress is to have a president and vice-president, selected every three months by lot. The body is entitled majesty, and each deputy excellency. The congress elects the members of the supreme government, supreme court of justice, residencia tribunal, etc., appoints envoys, chooses generals of division from a trio nominated by the government, decrees laws, subject to criticisms from government and supreme court, fixes taxation, etc.
