Justin H. Smith - The Mexican-American War (Vol. 1&2)

This was obviously wrong, but in a sense the judges merited such treatment, for they seem to have lacked even the most necessary qualifications. To make the situation still worse, the executive authorities had a way of stepping in and perverting justice arbitrarily. Even the Mexicans were accustomed to say, “A bad compromise is better than a good case at law”; but it was naturally aliens who suffered most. “The great and positive evil which His Majesty’s subjects, in common with other Foreigners, have to complain of in this country is the corrupt and perverse administration of justice,” reported the minister of England in 1834.6

Criminal law was executed no better than civil. The police of the city are a complete nullity, stated the American representative in 1845. A fault, a vice and a crime were treated alike; and the prisons, always crowded with wrongdoers of every class, became schools in depravity, from which nearly all, however bad, escaped in the end to prey upon society. Well-known robbers not only went about in safety, but were treated with kindly attentions even by their late victims, for all understood that if denounced and punished, they would sooner or later go free, and have their revenge.6

Adverting formally before Congress in 1841 to the “notoriously defective” administration of justice, the Mexican President said, “the root of the evil lies in the deplorable corruption which pervades all classes of society and in the absence of any corrective arising from public opinion.” In large measure this condition of things was chargeable to the low state of religion, but in part it could be attributed to the want of education. Spain had required people to think as little as possible, keep still and obey orders; and for such a rôle enlightenment seemed unnecessary and even dangerous. To read and write a little and keep accounts fairly well was about enough secular knowledge for anybody, and the catechism of Father Ripalda, which enjoined the duty of blind obedience to the King and the Pope, completed the circle of useful erudition. In the small towns, as there were few elementary schools, even these attainments could not easily be gained; and as for the Indians they were merely taught—with a whip at the church door, if necessary—to fear God, the priest and the magistrate. Religion gave no help; and the ceremonies of worship benumbed the intellect as much as they fascinated the senses.6

When independence arrived, however, there sprang up not a little enthusiasm for the education of the people, and the states moved quite generally in that direction. But there were scarcely any good teachers, few schoolhouses and only the most inadequate books and appliances; money could not be found; and the prelates, now chiefly absorbed in their political avocations, not only failed to promote the cause, but stood in the way of every step toward secular schools. A few of the leaders—notably Santa Anna—professed great zeal, but this was all for effect, and they took for very different uses whatever funds could be extorted from the nation. In 1843 a general scheme of public instruction was decreed, but no means were provided to carry it into effect. The budget for 1846 assigned $29,613 to this field, of which $8000 was intended for elementary schools, while for the army and navy it required nearly twenty-two millions. In short, though of course a limited number of boys and a few girls acquired the rudiments—and occasionally more—in one way or another, no system of popular education existed.6

Higher instruction was in some respects more flourishing. Before the revolution the School of Mines, occupying a noble and costly edifice, gave distinction to the country; the university was respectable; an Academy of Fine Arts did good work; and botany received much attention. But at the university mediaeval Latin, scholastic and polemic theology, Aristotle and arid comments on his writings were the staples, and even these innocent subjects had to be investigated under the awful eye of the Inquisition. Speculation on matters of no practical significance formed the substance of the work, and the young men learned that worst of lessons—to discourse volubly and plausibly on matters of which they knew nothing. This course of discipline, emphasizing the natural bent of the Creoles, turned out a set of conceited rhetoricians, ignorant of history and the real world, but eager to distinguish themselves by some brilliant experiment. When the yoke of Spain had been cast off, all these institutions declined greatly, and the university became so unimportant that in 1843 it was virtually destroyed; but the view that speculation was better than inquiry, theory better than knowledge, and talk better than anything—a view that suited Mexican lightness, indolence and vanity so well, and had so long been taught by precept and example—still throve despite a few objectors. Of foreign countries, in particular, very little was commonly known. While elementary education, then, was nothing, higher education was perhaps worse than nothing.6

Nor could the printed page do much to supply the lack. Only a few had the taste for reading books or opportunities to gratify the taste, if they possessed it. Great numbers of catchy pamphlets on the topics of the day flew about the streets; newspapers had a great vogue; and there were poor echoes of European speeches, articles and books; but most of the printed material was shockingly partisan, irresponsible and misleading. “Unfortunately for us,” observed the minister of the interior in 1838, “the abuse of the liberty of the press among us is so great, general and constant, that it has only served our citizens as the light of the meteor to one travelling in a dark night, misguiding him and precipitating him into an abyss of evils.”6

Only some 300,000 out of 3,000,000 white and mixed people were actual producers—three times as many being clericals, military men, civil officials, lawyers, doctors and idlers, and the rest old men, women and children. The most brilliant of their industries was mining, the annual output of which was about $18,000,000 in 1790, fell during the revolution to $5,000,000, and by 1845 rose again—despite the unwise policy of the government—to about the earlier level. During the period of depression most of the old proprietors and many of their properties were ruined; but English companies took up the work, and although for some time their liberal expenditures went largely to waste, they gradually learned the business, and their example encouraged some Germans to enter the field. How greatly the nation profited from the mines was not entirely clear. About as much silver went abroad each year as they produced, paying interest on loans that should not have been made, and buying goods for which substitutes could usually have been manufactured at home. But the government laid valuable taxes on the extraction and export of the precious metals, and there was also a profit in the compulsory minting of them—though, as all the inventiveness of the nation expended itself in politics, the processes at the mints were about as tedious and costly in 1845 as while Cortez ruled the country.7

Little more can be said for the cultivation of the soil. When Mexico separated from Spain, the vine and the olive, flax and certain other plants formerly prohibited were acquired, and coffee soon became important; but on the other hand agriculture had met with disaster after disaster in the course of the revolution. “Up to the present,” said a ministerial report in December, 1843, “agriculture among us has not departed from the routine established at the time of the conquest.” A cart-wheel consisted still of boards nailed together crosswise, cut into a circular shape and bored at the centre; a pointed stick, shod sometimes with iron, was still the plough; a short pole with a spike driven through one end served as the hoe; the corn, instead of going to a mill, was ground on a smooth stone with a hand roller; and no adequate means existed of transporting such products as were raised to such markets as could be found. Most of the “roads” made so much trouble even for donkeys and pack-mules that it was seriously proposed to introduce camels; and the most important road of all, the National Highway from the capital to Jalapa and Vera Cruz, was allowed to become almost impassable in spots. Besides poor methods, bad roads, brigands, revolutions and a great number of holidays, there were customhouses everywhere and a system of almost numberless formalities, the accidental neglect of which might involve, if nothing worse, the confiscation of one’s goods. In short, how could agriculture prosper, said a memorial on the subject, when he that sowed was not permitted to gather, and he that gathered could reach no market?7