Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/821

education to crush superstition and lift the mind from bondage. A phase of the decline in ecclesiastical influence is the absence from the rank of national leaders of priests who shed such lustre on the preceding period. The chiefs are now military men, as may be judged from the character of the period, with a sprinkling of lawyers, who owe their elevation partly to the accident of vice-presidential positions, partly to opportunities in the legislative field. Prominent among presidents are several heroes from the war of independence, beginning with Victoria and Guerrero, both pure, unselfish patriots, unaffected and amiable, but little fitted to direct the experimental steps of a young nation along a new path, in the face of bitter opposition. In contrast to these stand educated men with aristocratic tendencies, like Bustamante and Pedraza, the former long a pillar of centralism, and with a certain administrative ability. Gomez Farías achieves distinction in being the first president to openly assail the detrimental influence of the church; and he survives to triumph two decades later, while his opponent, Lúcas Alaman, the great leader of the conservatives, dies in the midst of his plans for establishing a monarchy. In the course of ever-seething revolutions, rulers succeed one another in rapid succession, some holding their positions only for a few days, to leave hardly a trace, while a few manage to complete a full term of office. Among them are too often mere creatures of the moment, the toys of military caprice; now vacillating and procrastinating, anon rash with defective projects, with occasional spurts of stronger and redeeming but unsustained efforts. But there are also able and patriotic men, who effect some good, only to rouse the storm by their plans for reform, and fall under the ruins of their noble though unstable structures. Among them figure prudent and well-meaning men like Herrera, the man of peace, and Comonfort, who proclaims the final federal con-