,• ^r>
 
 GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 
 DR.JOHNR. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 MAR 2 4 19^, 
 
 Form L-9-1E 
 
 ' K50 
 
 M5L8 
 
 Logan - 
 
 A Mexican lav; suit. 
 
 VUpSTG/N Ct |> -g g ! ■ ij TrtT"" 
 
 MAR 5 __ti3i 
 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L I
 
 A Mexican Law Suit. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 Department of Jurisprudence 
 
 OF THE 
 
 American Social Science Association, 
 
 AT SARATOGA, SEPTEMBER 5, 1 895, 
 BY 
 
 Walter S. Logan, 
 
 FOLLOWED BY REMARKS BY 
 
 Hon. Matias Romero, 
 
 MEXICAN MINISTER TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 BROOKLYN: 
 
 Eagle Book and Job Printing Department. 
 
 1895.
 
 ^v/ 
 
 6^
 
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 ^~ A Paper Read Before the Department of Jurisprudence of the Amer- 
 ^J, ican Social Science Association, at Saratoga, Thursday 
 
 ^J Evening, September 5, 1895, 
 
 BY 
 WALTER S. LOGAN. 
 
 Saxon jurisprudence had its origin in the anarchy of the German 
 forest ; Latin jurisprudence in the despotism of the Roman Empire. 
 The old Teuton was an untamed freeman ; the Roman, a well-fed. 
 well-ordered, highly developed, and thoroughly disciplined slave. The 
 one demanded justice from his equal as a right, and was ever ready to 
 ■ fight with his own strong right arm for his cause ; the other begged for 
 C3 justice or for mercy from a superior as a boon, and took thankfully 
 whatever was graciously conceded to him. 
 
 This distinction survives the time of the Wager of Battle and of the 
 
 ■^ arbitrary decree of a despotic judge. The Common Law Declaration, 
 
 -<" the Saxon's formulation of his claim, is still the assertion of aright, and 
 
 vr.- concludes with a demand. The Bill in Equity, the typical Latin plea, 
 
 is now, as it ever was, a petition, and ends with a prayer. The Saxon 
 
 issue is sharp, clear, concise. It has a clear affirmative and a plain 
 
 negative — something that you can fight about. The Roman pleadings 
 
 are long, complicated, verbose. They disclose much to talk about, but 
 
 little to fight over. The conduct of a modern Saxon suit is after the 
 
 manner of orderly and civilized warfare. The Latin litigation is, as it 
 
 ever has been, a persistent plea for grace. The Saxon Jury is an umpire
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 empowered to decide a particular dispute within narrow lines and 
 upon well-established principles. The Latin Judge is the dispenser of 
 a favor or the almoner of a bounty, and is clothed with unbounded dis- 
 cretion. The Saxon Trial is a battle, with the advocate for a com- 
 mander, and the client, it may be, a candidate for slaughter. Latin 
 legal practice has nothing whatever in it that is at all the equivalent or 
 the counterpart of the Saxon Trial. A Saxon suitor asks only a proper 
 forum and a fair field — a chance to try. The Latin suitor ever hides be- 
 neath the protecting aegis of the judicial authority. He himself does 
 not try. The Saxon Code, where there is one— and the true Saxon is 
 always shy of codes— is but the formulation and crystalization of gen- 
 eral rules of law or practice, the result of long previous experience. 
 The Latin Code — and the law in all Latin countries is codified — is the 
 decree of a sovereign power, prescribing most minute and complicated 
 rules of life and conduct. 
 
 Latin jurisprudence is in its nature, its essence, and its form, pa- 
 ternal. Saxon jurisprudence, unadulterated, has no trace of paternal- 
 ism in it. 
 
 In England and the United States we have, to some extent, im- 
 ported Roman law into a Saxon community and grafted the Latin bud 
 upon a Saxon stock. 
 
 In Mexico, they have preserved the Latin nomenclature but adopted 
 the substance of a pure Saxon constitution. While, therefore, in form, 
 the Mexican jurisprudence is Latin, in substance it is, in many respects, 
 coming to be even more Saxon than ours. 
 
 To trace the reasons for this, it is necessary to go back to pre- 
 European America. 
 
 The Indian, like the Saxon, was born for freedom. The wild 
 breezes of his native hills were scarcely more impatient of restraint 
 than was he who was born and dwelt among them. Their chiefs were 
 but chosen leaders, and their government was wont to try rather to di- 
 rect than suppress the wildness and ferocity of their passions. The 
 forests of aboriginal America and of ancient Germany were, alike, the 
 abode of wild and rough, but free and undaunted, men. In neither the 
 Indian nor the German was there good raw material for a slave.
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 First and foremost of the inhabitants of aboriginal America, in de- 
 velopment, culture and civilization, as well as in all the peculiar racial 
 characteristics of the Indian, stood the Aztec, and other Nahua tribes, 
 ■of the plateau of central Mexico. 
 
 They had developed for themselves an orderly government, and 
 wise and well-rooted institutions. They had individual ownership of 
 property, and a complete system of conveyances. They had written 
 laws, courts with well-defined jurisdiction ; and a criminal code, severe, 
 but well adapted to the necessities of their situation. Their govern- 
 ment in form resembled a monarchy, but, in reality, it was rather a gov- 
 ernment of the people in somewhat the same sense as is the English 
 government to-day, It was necessary to have royal blood in order to 
 be eligible to the throne, but the selection from the class possessing 
 the requisite qualifications was made by the representatives of the 
 people, and no monarch was allowed to commence his reign, even after 
 his election, till he had put his courage to the test and shown conspic- 
 uous merit upon the field of battle. Around the throne was ever a 
 ■council, representative of the people and independent of the will of the 
 monarch. The last Montezuma had, it is true, surrounded himself 
 by many of the indicia and accessories of despotic power ; but his life 
 •election and all the bulwarks he had erected around his throne could 
 not save him from being removed, and did not prevent the actual sub- 
 stitution of a successor in his place when in the crucial moment he 
 showed the craven spirit and demonstrated his unworthiness for the 
 high place to which he had been elevated. 
 
 These Nahua races had never quite discovered the alphabet, but 
 they had devised a system of hieroglyphics that bore a striking resem- 
 blance to it and gave them many of the advantages of a written lan- 
 guage and a literature. They had no ships upon the sea, nor beasts of 
 burden upon the land ; but, notwithstanding this, they had developed 
 an extensive system of commerce with distant tribes and they had mer- 
 chant princes, honored there as nowhere else in the world. They had 
 ■not learned the use of iron, but they shaved themselves with razors 
 made of stone. They used copper and bronze in many of their arts, 
 and excelled even the people of the Old World as workers of gold and
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 silver. Their civilization was degraded by the practice of human sac- 
 rifice, but I do not know that the honorable death upon the temple top 
 as the chosen victim of the gods, which the Spaniards abolished, was 
 worse than the horrors of the Auto de Fe, which they introduced. No 
 man, at any rate, was ever killed in the land of the Aztecs for what he 
 thought, till the Europeans came and taught them to do it. They had 
 slavery, but the condition ot the slave in Aztec land was far better than 
 it was in Europe, and his children were free. In all aboriginal America, 
 no man was ever born a slave. 
 
 It was upon the horizon of such a social and political organization 
 that the Spaniards, with the alphabet, gunpowder, beasts of burden and 
 European discipline and civilization, appeared. 
 
 The Indian was dazed. What he saw was not only new but beyond 
 his power of comprehension. After a fitful and ill-organized resistance 
 at first, he was wont to submit. His mental faculties were paralyzed^ 
 and he accepted the new order of things as the decree of inevitable 
 fate. For three centuries Mexico was ruled entirely by the Latin race. 
 The language, the habits, the religion and the institutions of the people 
 became Latinized. There was no longer freedom, even in the barren- 
 ness of her deserts or the wildness of her forests. The habit of self- 
 reliance was lost, and people came to look to the powers above them 
 for guidance, and without questioning to submit their wills to those of 
 others. Paternalism in State and Church reigned supreme. 
 
 Meanwhile, a new race was growing up to take its place among the 
 peoples of the earth. 
 
 Montezuma had in his coffers vast stores of gold, and in his palace 
 the most beautiful women of all Tenochtitlan. The first thing the 
 Spaniards did was to appropriate the gold ; the next, to take the women ;. 
 and the foundation of the present Mexican race was laid. 
 
 Few women ever came from Spain to Mexico to stay. Few men 
 came who did not form some sort of connection, lawful or otherwise — 
 and to their credit be it said it was usually lawful — with some Indian 
 woman. It was the bravest, the most manly, and the best of the Span- 
 iards who came. There was no place for cowards or sluggards in the 
 new world. They were popular with the other sex and had their choice
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 of the women. The Indian maiden preferred even a common Spanish 
 soldier to an Indian king; and so it was the most beautiful, the most 
 accomplished and the best of the Nahua women who became the mothers 
 of the new race. 
 
 The reason why the pure Indian degenerated after the European 
 conquest, or, at the most, only held his own, was that his best blood, 
 through his fairest daughters, was beginning to course in Creole veins, 
 and the reason why the Spaniards as a race never gained such a foot- 
 hold in Mexico as the English did in the colonies north, or as they 
 themselves did in the more southern colonies, was because their racial 
 characteristics were ever being modified and lost or merged in the union 
 of blood out of which the new race was growing. 
 
 Nowhere else in America has the aboriginal blood been preserved 
 and the Indian racial characteristics been perpetuated as in Mexico. 
 
 The pure aborigine was of a stolid and immobile race. He had not 
 the generations of culture which enables the European to adapt himself 
 to any climate and all conditions ; he had not the mobility which gives 
 the negro the power to survive and multiply alike in frozen Canada or 
 equatorial Africa, as a slave under the lash on the plantations of Cuba 
 and as a freeman under the benign influence of the Stars and Stripes 
 and the Thirteenth Amendment. 
 
 Truly did Francis Parkman say of this child of the American 
 forest : 
 
 "The Indian is like a rock. You can rarely change the form with- 
 out destruction of the substance." 
 
 The blessings of European civilization were not for the unmixed 
 natives. In the farther South, the Indian tribes were usually too low 
 to attract the white man, and in the far North, in what is now the 
 United States and Canada, the product of the occasional union of the 
 Englishman and Frenchman with the Indian, was simply Indian. The 
 half-breed of either of these races seemed generally to combine only the 
 aggregate vices of his ancestors. 
 
 But in Mexico, the Aztec maiden was well worthy of her Spanish 
 lord. She was usually taken for a wife, and always honored as a wife, 
 and so she became the mother of a race and a nation.
 
 A 3IEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 We come now to 1800. Three centuries have passed. The new 
 race has multiplied and prospered. It numbers 5,000,000 souls. New 
 race characteristics differing radically from those of either Spaniard or 
 Indian have been acquired and Mexico and the Mexicans are about to 
 take their place among the nations and the races of the earth. 
 
 It has been three centuries of Latin domination. For three hun- 
 dred years Spain and the Spaniards have ruled the new land. The Indian 
 had the stolid indifference of age. The Mexican, as a race, was acquir- 
 ing his growth, developing his character and learning his first racial 
 lessons. Indian and Mexican alike submitted unquestioningly to the 
 Spaniard. No man, unless of pure Spanish blood and born in Spain, 
 was allowed to hold ofifice of trust or emolument in Spanish-America. 
 Birth in Mexico, even of pure Spanish ancestry, was a disgrace, and 
 even parents taunted their children with their inferiority because born 
 in the New World ; so jealous was Spain and the Spaniards of their race 
 and their rule. 
 
 It is 1810. The new race is growing and learning. Foreign books 
 are denied them. Foreign teachers are kept away, and foreign ideas 
 prohibited. The ruling Spaniard would sooner introduce a viper into his 
 parlor than a foreign suggestion into a Spanish colony. 
 
 But, nevertheless, foreign ideas came, germinated and grew. Down 
 through Louisiana and Texas kept coming the news that a people in the 
 north had raised the glad cry of freedom and independence, and won a 
 glorious victory over European oppression, and that an earnest, thought- 
 ful and self-reliant nation, the architects and the artisans of their own 
 destiny, were prospering as no other nation ever prospered before, with 
 liberty of thought and action as the corner-stone of their new republic. 
 Across the ocean came the news of the French revolution — the revolt 
 of nature against centuries of wrong, French and English books were 
 smuggled in and read even though the terrors of the Inquisition were 
 threatened against any one in whose hands they were found. Even 
 Spain, whose bigotry had hitherto been as stern and unyielding as the 
 rocks of that Gibraltar that England had wrested from her, was begin- 
 ning to think that she might herself enjoy a little of that liberty which 
 she would not then or ever consent that Mexico should even know
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 about. For a few months, the astonished world was permitted to gaze 
 upon the strange spectacle of the existence of something they called a 
 republic in the land of Philip II, and the news even of this came tO' 
 Mexico. 
 
 And so the Mexican revolution came. 
 
 It has sometimes been compared with the American revolution, but 
 there is really no comparison between the two. Ours was the movement 
 of a country for independence ; theirs, the struggle of a people for 
 existence. We sought to give birth to a nation ; they, to baptize a race. 
 We fought for a trifling change of constitution ; they, for the right, there- 
 tofore always denied them, to establish institutions. Ours was a struggle 
 of Englishman against Englishman, a child against its unnatural mother ; 
 theirs, a war of races. The Englishman in the colonies had more freedom 
 even than in England, and, having brought his Saxon institutions with 
 him, he had only to maintain them. The Mexican had yet the very 
 alphabet of freedom to learn, and he had to build his institutions new 
 from the foundation stone. 
 
 In 1821 the army of the " Three Guaranties," with the dashing and 
 gallant Augustin Iturbide, and that old hero of heroes, Vicente Guer- 
 rero, at their head, entered the Mexican capital, and Mexico had won 
 her independence. .But she had gained only the right to learn how to 
 establish her freedom, and half a century more was yet to roll over her 
 head before she obtained established institutions and was able to main- 
 tain a well-ordered government. 
 
 Full of interest and pathos those fifty years ! The student, the 
 statesman, the philosopher, the patriot, the man who loves his species 
 and hopes for a better civilization and a higher life for mankind, may 
 well dwell upon this period and study intently the struggles of this new 
 race. 
 
 For thirty years and more, Mexico was still a Latin country. She 
 early adopted a constitution, in form modeled somewhat after our.*^. It 
 provided for a federal republic with a president, two houses of con- 
 gress, a supreme court, and a division of sovereignty between the 
 nation and the state very much such as we have. 
 
 But constitutions do not make states. There is a supposed place 
 2
 
 lo A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 said to be paved with good resolutions, and history is full of schemes 
 of government promising enough on paper, but in fact impracticable 
 or bad. Here was a people brought up under the most jealous of 
 despotisms, suddenly finding themselves free. As a blind man sud- 
 denly restored to sight plunges in the light to which he is unaccustomed 
 even worse than in the darkness with which he has become familiar, so 
 will a people unused to freedom make most unfortunate mis-steps and 
 receive painful wounds before they learn to order their lives, restrain 
 their emotions and organize their social and political relations so that 
 freedom will be a blessing. 
 
 For thirty years, Latin Mexico had all the evils of freedom without 
 its benefits, and all the terrors of despotism without its security. Re- 
 public overthrew empire ; constitution succeeded constitution ; and 
 government followed government. Now it was a federal republic, now 
 a centralized military despotism. Occasionally there was a regularly 
 elected president, more often a self-appointed dictator. Congresses 
 came and went ; administrations changed ; pronunciamentos appeared 
 so often that they ceased to attract attention, and one rarely knew 
 when he went to bed at night who would be his ruler in the morning. 
 
 In their political relations, in their experience in self-government, 
 in their knowledge of how to build and preserve institutions, the Mexi- 
 can people were children and the child must have many a fall before 
 he can learn to stand alone. 
 
 Their institutions, such as they had, during all this time, were Latin. 
 The Church was really the only stable power, and it was the unmodi- 
 fied and unmodernized Latin Church. The administration of justice, 
 such as they had, was after Latin forms, and their jurisprudence was 
 inherited from the Spanish colonial state and was Latin to the core. 
 The customs, the habits, the manner of life and the modes of thought, 
 the whole form of their civilization, were Latin. It could hardly have 
 been otherwise. Children need the guidance of the paternal hand and 
 a race in its childhood instinctively turns to a paternal government. 
 
 We come now to 1853. Mexico, as an independent Latin nation, 
 had started in 182 1 with an absolute Church and it ended in 1853 
 with an absolute State as well. It commenced with Iturbide ; it
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 ended with Santa Ana. They had had the Constitutions of 1824 and 
 1S36 and the Constitutional Convention of 1842. They had had the 
 Siete Leyes and the Bases Organicas. They had had the conscien- 
 tious civil administration of Guadalupe Victoria, Arista and Herrera. 
 They had had far seeing statesmen such as Gomez, Farias, Rosa 
 and Pedraza. They had had military dictator after military dic- 
 tator, but all had run their course and now they had Antonio Lopez de 
 Santa Ana alone. 
 
 We who are so accustomed to Saxon methods can scarcely under- 
 stand what a Latin revolution means. Our race has had occasionally 
 to dethrone kings and even to cut off their heads. We have fought for 
 independence and won it upon the dikes of Holland and upon the fields 
 of Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown. We have set up one govern- 
 ment in the place of another and modified and changed our constitu- 
 tions whenever it has become necessary, but the ordinary life of the 
 community has gone on all the time just the same. It has been an alter, 
 ation of constitutions but not a destruction of institutions. We have 
 re-clothed our government in new attire, and sometimes manacled its 
 limbs, but there has been no disruption of the living and breathing 
 body. It has been a change of appearance to the world outside and 
 occasionally more or less of a reformation of the relations of society 
 inside, but, nevertheless, the progress of our civilization has been a 
 gradual, persistent growth, sometimes slower and sometimes faster, 
 sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another, but always grow- 
 ing. There has never come a time when we have had to stop and com- 
 mence over again. We have never had to pull down and re-build, to 
 destroy in order that we might create. 
 
 But in Mexico it was entirely different. Prior to their revolution, 
 they had no institutions except an absolute Church and an absolute 
 State. Absolutism was everywhere. There was no opportunity to 
 make their change from absolutism to freedom, from despotism to 
 liberty, gradually. When Iturbide and Guerrero entered the City of 
 Mexico at the head of the triumphant army of the nation, all that had 
 been was swept away and they must commence and build anew from 
 the bottom foundation stone up. The old ship of Latin absolutism was
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 broken in pieces upon the rocks. There was nothing left for them to 
 cling to except the floating planks and rigging, and these could at the 
 best only keep their heads above the water for a little time. They 
 were entirely unfit to be worked into, or become a part of, the new ship 
 of a free State. 
 
 And now, in 1853, all her efforts seemed to have failed. The earlier 
 Federal Constitution and the later central constitution had both been 
 discarded. States had become provinces, had asserted their independ- 
 ence, and some of them had won it, and the whole foundations of 
 society and government seemed to have been broken up. In their des- 
 peration the people had, with a sort of unorganized unanimity, recalled 
 Santa Ana from exile, and intrusted him with the work of framing 
 a new constitution and scheme of government and had given him 
 absolute power while this was being done ; and Santa Ana, thorough 
 Latin as he was, had abused his trust. With the ostensible 
 purpose of preserving order, he had organized a large army 
 which he used only to crush the liberties of the people. He had 
 incited a counter-revolution which had pronounced against the 
 present adoption of any constitution and had proclaimed him 
 dictator for life, with power to appoint his successor. He had 
 overthrown the state governments and trodden under foot all 
 municipal authority. He had dispersed congress and made his cabinet 
 only the personal instruments of his own will. He had destroyed all 
 political machinery and every vestige of the elective franchise. He 
 set about killing or driving into exile every patriot who opposed his 
 rule. He repudiated the very plan that had elevated him to his posi- 
 tion, and, having thrown down the ladder by which he had climbed up, 
 he sought to say, as said the great Louis of France : "I am the State ;" 
 and he had an army of ninety thousand men to enforce his imperial will. 
 
 Another year passes away. On the first of March, 1854, a small, 
 but brave and earnest band of patriots, who had escaped the bullet of 
 the executioner and the decree of exile, met at the little town of Ayutla 
 in the south of Mexico, and proclaimed the plan under which the 
 present government of Mexico is organized ; and on the eleventh of 
 the same month the plan, somewhat amended, was re-promulgated from
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 13 
 
 the larger town of Acapulco. The movement spread like wild-fire. The 
 people arose everywhere. The exiles came back and took up arms for 
 their country and for freedom, and old Mexico, Catholic Mexico, abso- 
 lute Mexico, Latin Mexico, ceased to be. 
 
 The Spaniards had long before been driven from the country and 
 there were few people in it in whom European blood predominated. 
 The inhabitants were in the main either Indians, or Mexicans with an 
 Indian ancestry. Thenceforward, Mexican civilization was to be devel- 
 oped on other than Latin lines, and for the result, whether good or bad, 
 Latin methods and Latin civilization are no longer responsible. 
 
 Go back with me to 1806. In the little hamlet of Gelatao San 
 Pablo, in the mountains of Oaxaca, in a hut of straw, was born an 
 Indian boy. There was no drop of European blood in his veins and 
 scarce any trace of European culture did he inherit from his ancestors. 
 His tribe, the Zapotecs, are not known to have been related to the 
 Nahuas in blood, but they were near neighbors of the Aztecs, inhabi- 
 tants of the same elevated plateau, and akin to them in the courage of 
 their people and in the degree of their civilization. The Zapotecs had, 
 however, lived in a more inaccessible region, had been able to make a 
 more effectual resistance to the Spaniards, and had had their racial 
 characteristics less affected than had the Nahuas by the European 
 invasion. The Zapotecs of 1806 differed but little from the Zapotecs 
 of 1520. For whatever Benito Juarez did or was, the credit is due 
 neither to Saxon lineage nor Latin influence, but to the pure Indian 
 blood of one of the bravest and best of the Indian tribes of North 
 America. 
 
 Young Juarez arrived at the age of twelve years without ever 
 having spoken a word of any language except his ancestral Zapotec. 
 Spanish was as foreign to his ear as is Zapotec to ours. Then, by 
 chance, he had an opportunity to go to school, and no blue-eyed Saxon 
 or dark-haired Latin ever applied himself more assiduously or gained 
 knowledge more rapidly than did this copper-colored son of the wild 
 Oaxacan forest. They set him to studying for the Church, but his 
 logical mind refused to accept either its dogmas or its superstitions, and 
 he chose for himself the liberal and elevating profession of the law.
 
 14 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 He had moved to the city of Oaxaca, and while still a youth was elected 
 a responsible officer of the municipality. Then he was a member of 
 the State Legislature, Secretary of State and Attorney-General of the 
 State government, and several times representative of his state in the 
 National Congress. Still later, he was repeatedly chosen governor of 
 the state, and so successful were his administrations that while all was 
 anarchy and discord and revolution in the other parts of the Republic, 
 the State of Oaxaca — the Massachusetts of Mexico — was all the time 
 growing and prospering under an orderly and peaceful government, 
 and life and property were as safe there as anywhere in the world. 
 
 When Santa Ana became dictator in 1853 and attempted perma- 
 nently to subvert the liberties of his country and make himself its 
 absolute despot, to the honor of Benito Juarez be it said that he was 
 chosen one of the first victims. Santa Ana had a keen scent for the 
 stalwart foes of despotism. Juarez was thrown into a dungeon at Vera 
 Cruz, and afterwards, as an exile, lived two years in the United States. 
 He was poor and had to earn his own livelihood, and it is said that he 
 did it as a cigar-maker in New Orleans ; but, whatever his hands may 
 have been doing, his mind was ever active and alert for his country's 
 interests and the cause of human freedom. He was all the time study- 
 ing the Saxon institutions of the United States and qualifying himself 
 for the great part he was to play in the regeneration of Mexico. The 
 moment he heard the call of freedom from Ayutla he started back for 
 his native land, soon found himself the leader of his people, and for 
 twenty years — the twenty years most critical in Mexican history, the 
 twenty years during which the race emerged from childhood into the 
 full vigor of manhood, the twenty years during which it won its free- 
 dom, developed its character and established its institutions — this 
 Zapotec Indian from Oaxaca was the faithful and trusted leader of the 
 Mexican nation and the Mexican people. 
 
 Fortunate was it for Mexico that this leader was a lawyer rather 
 than a soldier. 
 
 We Saxons owe much to our great generals and our soldier-statesmen. 
 They have done noble work for freedom and humanity, but theirs has 
 not been the most important work. The foundation stones of our free
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. '5 
 
 Saxon institutions have been laid by the members of the profession of 
 the law, and the structure of Angelican and American liberty has been 
 reared by lawyers. 
 
 Juarez, though born in these mountains of the South, the scene of 
 Mexico's most severe and desperate struggles in all the Indian Wars 
 and the great War of Independence, though he passed his boyhood 
 there during all those years between the defeat of Hidalgo and the 
 triumph of Iturbide, though he lived in a land where the soldier alone 
 seemed to have rank and influence and power and where the military 
 profession was favored above all others, and though he belonged to a 
 race of such valiant fighters that they, almost alone in all Mexico, had 
 been able to persistently resist the power of Spain, yet he himself never 
 bore arms. 
 
 It was not because he was not brave. He always displayed the 
 most sublime courage in the time of danger and never flinched in the 
 most desperate of crises. Few men have faced death oftener or with 
 sublimer indifference to personal fate than he. It was not because he 
 lacked the qualities of a great commander. In all those troublous 
 times, he was the coolest and most self-reliant man in the nation, ever 
 ready to strike a telling blow for his country and his cause when the 
 occasion permitted, and equally ready to do that still harder thing- 
 wait for the opportunity when he could best serve by waiting. 
 
 It was only because his broad view and clear vision early saw that 
 if Mexico was to be saved and the cause of freedom to triumph there, 
 it must be the work of the lawyer and the statesman, rather than the 
 man of arms. 
 
 In 1855, Juarez came back from his exile and commenced the work 
 of de-Latinizing Mexico. The Indian boy of Oaxata had been among 
 the first to see that free institutions must be built on some other founda- 
 tions than those on which the structure of despotism in State and 
 Church, through twenty centuries, had been so carefully reared and 
 developed. 
 
 And now we come to the most trenchant and far-reaching social 
 and political revolution that the world has ever seen. 
 
 Other nations have often substituted one dynasty for another, and
 
 i6 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 changed their constitutions and forms of government ; other nations 
 have curbed the power of despotism and given the people constitutional 
 liberty in the place of absolute rule ; other nations have substituted 
 republic for empire, the will of the people for the fiat of the king. 
 
 But in Mexico, the revolution went far deeper than all this. It was 
 a change in the very structure of society — even in the relations which 
 neighbor bore to neighbor, husband to wife, and parent to child ; a change 
 in their hopes and in their aspirations ; in everything that pertains to 
 life and to living. When complete, it will be in deed and in truth not 
 only a reorganized and regenerated, but a new and entirely different 
 Mexico. There will be the same old lofty mountains, broad tablelands 
 and fertile valleys, but they will be inhabited by a freer and happier 
 people blessed with a far higher civilization and infinitely more benig- 
 nant institutions. 
 
 That all this must be, Juarez, the Indian boy of Oaxaca, the 
 prophet of his race and nation, saw when he came back from New 
 Orleans and silently took the hands of his companions in hope and dan- 
 ger at Acapulco in 1855. 
 
 The first step was the law to which history has given the name of 
 its author. It is called the Ley Juarez. 
 
 Half the property in Mexico was owned by the Church. The 
 Church could not be sued, even in an action of trespass or ejectment, 
 except in its own priestly tribunals, and it could sue any citizen for any 
 cause of action in the same tribunal. Litigation in the Church, in ref- 
 erence to Church property, was, therefore, a one-sided affair. The 
 Church sat in judgment in its own case and, it is needless to say, always 
 won. 
 
 Half the adult, able-bodied men in Mexico were soldiers, and the 
 army, like the Church, had its own tribunals, not limited, as by our mil- 
 itary law, to the punishment of military offences, but giving special 
 protection to the soldier in all his relations in life. Only a soldier sat 
 in judgment between soldier and citizen. Class feeling ran high and 
 the soldier, too, always won. 
 
 Juarez had been born among an Indian tribe where there was 
 always equality of rights. He was just back from exile in a land where
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 17 
 
 equality before the law was the foundation stone of their constitution. 
 He was himself a careful student of the principles of jurisprudence, and 
 privileges like these permitted to the Church and the army he knew to 
 be subversive of all law. 
 
 The Ley Juarez abolished all such tribunals, and made every man 
 priest, soldier or citizen, amenable to the law of the land and equal in 
 its courts. 
 
 Instantly the Church took up the gauntlet, and turned all its bat- 
 teries, all the terrors it could. pronounce in this world and the next,, 
 against the Ley Juarez and its supporters, and from the promulgation of 
 this law until the consummation at Queretaro in 1867, the battle cry of 
 the reactionist party was " Religion y Fueros'' — " The Church and the 
 Privileges." It was truly a battle between liberty and oppression, law 
 and anarchy, right and wrong. 
 
 Equality before the law is the fundamental principle]of Saxon juris- 
 prudence, and the final triumph at the Cerro de las Campanas was the 
 triumph of Saxon liberty over Latin oppression. 
 
 But I am twelve years ahead of my story. Twelve most fateful 
 years were to intervene between the beginning and the end, between the 
 Ley Juarez and the Hill of the Bells. 
 
 The Ley Juarez was followed by the Ley Lerdo, named after Don 
 Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Secretary of the Treasury at the time of its 
 promulgation. Not only did the Church hold half the property of the 
 nation in its hand, but it was a dead hand. It took but never gave. It 
 acquired in whatever way it could, even by purchase, if driven to the 
 dread necessity of payment, but it never sold. Property, when once it 
 reached the possession of the Church, might as well, so far as the purposes 
 of trade, development and improvement were concerned, have been wiped 
 out of existence. 
 
 Half the people of the nation were the forced tenants of a Church 
 which owned allegiance only to a pope five thousand miles away across 
 the ocean. 
 
 The Ley Lerdo allowed the tenants to purchase at a fair valuation 
 fixed by law and calculated upon its rentals. A few years later, durino- 
 the presidency of Juarez, the Ley Lerdo was sui^plcmcnted by a law 
 3
 
 1 8 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 nationalizing all Church property and authorizing its sale for the bene- 
 fit of the people. 
 
 Some have called this robbery. I call it restitution. It gave to 
 the people only what they themselves, by three centuries of grinding 
 toil, had fairly earned. 
 
 Then came the Constitution of 1857, which, with its later amend- 
 ments, is the fundamental law of Mexico to-day. 
 
 Almost every line of this Constitution shows that the Saxon idea was 
 uppermost in the minds of its authors. 
 
 It is more Saxon than ours, and is the most liberal and advanced, 
 and I think the best, written constitution in the world. 
 
 Article I declares that : 
 
 " The Mexican people recognize that the rights of man are the 
 basis and the object of social institutions." 
 
 Of Article II, I give a literal translation : 
 
 " In the republic all are born free. Slaves who set foot upon the 
 national territory recover, by that act alone, their liberty, and have a 
 right to the protection of the laws." 
 
 This was not a new provision in Mexican Constitutions, being 
 copied from earlier instruments, but even this was two years before 
 Harper's Ferry, six years before the Emancipation Proclamation, and 
 nearly ten years before our Thirteenth Amendment. The Indian boy 
 of Oaxaca certainly antedates John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Article III provides that instruction in Mexico shall be forever 
 free. It is now forty years since Ayutla, and we, the great, liberal, free 
 United States, have not entirely learned ^/lis lesson yet. 
 
 Articles IV and V provide that every man may adopt and follow 
 whatever honest calling or occupation he chooses, and that no one shall 
 be obliged to give personal service without compensation and without 
 his full consent. 
 
 " The State," says Article V, "shall not permit any contract, pact 
 or agreement, to be carried into effect, which has for its object the 
 diminution, loss, or irrevocable sacrifice of the liberty of man, whether 
 it be for the sake of labor, education, or a religious vow. The law, con- 
 sequently, may not recognize monastic orders, nor may it permit their 
 establishment, whatever may be the denomination or object with which 
 they claim to be formed."
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 19 
 
 By a later amendment, the necessity of religious oaths is abolished, 
 marriage is made a civil contract, the State and Church are declared to 
 be absolutely independent, and Congress is not allowed to pass laws 
 " establishing or prohibiting any religion." 
 
 Every lover of free institutions may rejoice that these are no idle 
 words, and that in fact, as well as in theory, there is absolute, practical 
 religious liberty all over Mexico to-day. 
 
 Articles VI and VII give Mexico a free press, and declare that 
 " the liberty to write and publish writings on any subject whatsoever is 
 inviolable." 
 
 Not only is the right of petition declared to be inviolable, but 
 every respectful petition addressed to the powers that be must have a 
 respectful answer returned to it. No petition in Mexico can be pigeon- 
 holed and ignored. 
 
 The right of public agitation and organization is amply protected 
 by Article IX. 
 
 Every man has a right to possess and carry arms, and to enter and 
 go out of the republic, travel through its territory and change his 
 residence, "without the necessity of a letter of security, passport, safe 
 conduct, or other similar requisite." 
 
 No hereditary honors, titles of nobility, or prerogatives are per- 
 mitted. 
 
 The Ley Juarez is imbedded in the Constitution in the following 
 words : 
 
 " In the Mexican Republic no one may be judged by special law 
 nor by special tribunals. No person or corporation may have privileges 
 or enjoy emoluments which are not compensation for a public service 
 and established by law." 
 
 Article XIV reads : 
 
 " No retroactive law shall be enacted. No man may be judged or 
 sentenced, except by laws made prior to the act and exactly applicable 
 to it, and by a tribunal which shall have been previously established by 
 law." 
 
 This is broader than the similar provision in our Constitution. 
 
 Another section provides that, 
 
 " No one may be molested in his person, family, domicile, papers
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 and possessions, except in virtue of an order written by the competent 
 authority which shall establish and assign the legal cause for the pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 In Mexico, a man's house is, under the Constitution, as much his 
 castle as in any Saxon country in the world. 
 
 There can be imprisonment for crimes only. Arrest for debt of any 
 kind is prohibited, nor can a prisoner be detained for the non-payment 
 of a simple fine. The prisons of Mexico are intended for rich as well 
 as poor wrong-doers, and for wrong-doers only, and there is no provi- 
 sion in their law that payment may take the place of punishment. 
 
 There can be no detention of a prisoner for any cause beyond the 
 term of three days without "a writ showing cause of imprisonment and 
 other requisites which the law establishes," and " the mere lapse of this 
 term shall render responsible the authority that orders or consents to it, 
 and the agents, ministers, wardens, or jailers who execute it." In every 
 criminal trial, the accused must be confronted with his accuser and 
 with the witnesses who testify against him, and the grounds of the 
 accusation, with full data relating thereto, must appear in the process 
 against him and be fully made known to him. He is entitled to be heard 
 in defence by himself, or by counsel, or by both, and in case he is not 
 able to pay counsel, he may himself select any lawyer in the republic, 
 who must serve him faithfully without compensation. 
 
 They do not allow, as we sometimes do, young and inexperienced 
 advocates to experiment on a poor prisoner. 
 
 Extraordinary punishments are prohibited as with us. 
 
 The post-office is inviolate. It ought to be so here. Better 
 occasionally let a criminal escape than allow, as we sometimes do, 
 Mulberry street detectives to invade the sanctity of private correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 Private property cannot be appropriated except for public use and 
 vfith previous full indemnification. If elevated railroads are built in the 
 City of Mexico, they will have to pay their damages before they com- 
 mence running their trains instead of a quarter of a century afterwards 
 as in the City of New York. 
 
 No municipal or ecclesiastical corporation, " whatever may be its 
 character, denomination or object," has legal capacity " to acquire in
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 proprietorship or administer for itself real estate, with the single excep- 
 tion of edifices destined immediately and directly to the service and 
 object of the institutions." 
 
 Monopolies of all kinds are prohibited. Mexico has not yet reached 
 that high state of civilization under which trusts can flourish as they do 
 with us. 
 
 The privilege of Mexican citizenship is extended not only to those 
 who are born within the republic or become naturalized as with us, but 
 to every parent of a Mexican child and to every man who owns an acre 
 of land in the republic, no matter where he may reside. 
 
 Article L out-Saxonizes the Saxon. It reads : 
 
 " The supreme power of the federation is divided for its exercise into 
 legislative, executive and judicial. Two or more of these powers shall 
 never be united in one person or corporation nor the legislative power be 
 deposited in one individual." 
 
 The law-making power is vested exclusively in the congress of the 
 republic, which consists of two chambers, and a simple majority of each 
 body can enact a law over the president's veto. 
 
 There is a division of sovereignty between the Nation and the 
 States similar to that provided for in our constitution. 
 
 The federal judiciary consists of a supreme court and circuit and 
 district courts, with powers similar to those of our federal judiciary, and 
 the state courts throughout the republic are generally organized very 
 much as our state courts are, and with similar jurisdiction. 
 
 It will be seen that this constitution is patterned a good deal after 
 ours, and that wherever there has been a departure from the precedent 
 we set, it has been in the direction of more liberal provisions and more 
 stringent guarantees of individual liberty and private property. We can 
 well imagine it to be such a constitution as our forefathers would have 
 framed if our constitutional convention had sat in 1857 instead of 1787. 
 
 If you judge the two constitutions — theirs and ours — by their simple 
 intrinsic merits, Mexico would have no reason to fear the result of the 
 judgment. 
 
 But if vou consider the circumstances under which the two consti- 
 tutions were framed, Mexico may well indeed be proud of what was 
 done for her by the patriots of Ayutla.
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 In our Constitutional Convention sat some of the wisest and most 
 learned statesmen of all the world, men who had learned their states- 
 manship not so much in books as in the practical administration of 
 affairs in their own states and in the Continental Congress. They came 
 of a race of men who had been accustomed to govern themselves for 
 centuries back ; a race which had been educated in the town meeting, 
 and had acquired self-reliance in the hard school of Saxon liberty. They 
 had before them the writings of all the great philosophers and thinkers 
 of Europe ; and they sat in a time of profound peace, years after the 
 country had securely won its independence, and when they could delib- 
 erate with perfect leisure. 
 
 The Mexican Constituent Congress was composed of men belong- 
 ing to a race which had little history behind it and no experience in 
 self-government. They were providing a constitution for a people who 
 had known only three centuries of absolutism and thirty years of an- 
 archy, and as they sat in their convention hall the cannon of their re- 
 actionary enemies boomed on half the hills of Mexico, and they knew 
 that they must lay down their pens to take up their swords. They 
 must fight in battle to establish all that they then resolved in conven- 
 tion. 
 
 If they had been wise and learned and experienced Saxons, their 
 work would be entitled to the world's commendation. How much more 
 should we honor them when we remember how utterly without experi- 
 ence and without precedent they were. Our Constitution-makers fur- 
 nished us with good bricks for the temple of liberty, but they were 
 made with an abundance of straw ; their constitution-makers made just 
 as good bricks out of nothing but stubble. 
 
 The partisans of reaction and absolutism — an absolute Church and 
 a Latin State — turned instinctively to the Latin Monarchies of Europe 
 for help and protection against this idea of Saxon liberty which the 
 Mexican people, under the guidance of their wise, brave, and true 
 Indian-lawyer leader, were accepting as the foundation of their hopes 
 and aspirations. 
 
 Louis Napoleon had stolen the proudest Latin throne in Europe 
 and he was quite willing to be a party to the larceny of another on this 
 side the ocean, on which a Hapsburg and a relative of Philip II might
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 9$ 
 
 sit in theory, while he, the nephew of his great uncle, might rule in 
 fact. 
 
 And so came the War of the French Invasion, as cruel, as uncalled 
 for, as unjust, as any war in history. 
 
 Its avowed object was to overthrow the free Saxon institutions 
 that the Mexican people had chosen for themselves and to restore 
 Latin absolutism in Church and State. 
 
 Louis Napoleon, from Fontainebleau, writes General Forey, about to 
 set out for Vera Cruz, July 3, 1862, that it is not for the interest of 
 France that Saxon institutions, such as they have in the United States, 
 shall be established in Mexico, but that " if a stable government be 
 established there with the assistance of France, we shall have restored to 
 the Latin race from the other side of the ocean, its strength afid prestige * * 
 and we shall have established our beneficent influence to the center of 
 America." 
 
 " Now, therefore," continues this upstart emperor of the Latin race, 
 " our military honor pledged, the exigency of our politics, the interest 
 of our industry and our commerce, make it our duty to march on 
 Mexico, to plant there boldly our standard, to establish there a monarchy." 
 
 And it was as Latins, and for the advancement of Latin absolutism, 
 that they set to work to accomplish their fell purpose. 
 
 The French emperor had arranged his course of procedure with 
 Almonte, a "reactionist exile from Mexico. It had been agreed 
 between the two — the Mexican monarchist and the Latin monarch — 
 that a French army of invasion should land in Mexico and that what- 
 ever force was necessary should be used to establish there a monarchy 
 with the perhaps well-meaning, but certainly incapable, and ill-fated 
 Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. 
 
 General Forey, as commander of the French forces, called an as- 
 sembly of notables, carefully selecting, with Almonte's advice, the men 
 who were to compose it. Naturally, there was not a known republican 
 or a constitutionalist in the assembly. 
 
 And they, this so-called assembly of notables, selected by the com- 
 mander of a foreign army of invasion and conquest, from which every 
 patriot and every lover of freedom was excluded with the most extreme 
 care, went through the form of decreeing as follows :
 
 24 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 ^' First. The Mexican nation adopts a monarchial, temperate and he- 
 reditary form of government, under a Catholic Prince. 
 
 "Second. The Sovereign shall take the title of Emperor of Mex- 
 ico. 
 
 " Third. The imperial crown of Mexico shall be offered to his Impe- 
 rial and Royal Highness, Prince Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, for 
 him and his descendants. 
 
 " Fourth. In case, from circumstances which cannot be foreseen, 
 the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian should not take possession of the 
 throne which is offered to him, the Mexican nation shall place it under the 
 consideration of his Majesty, Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, 
 that he may indicate another Catholic Prince to whom the crown shall 
 be offered." 
 
 The last paragraph was rendered necessary by the fact that Max- 
 imilian — it seems alone of all these conspirators against the peace and 
 freedom of Mexico — had a conscience and might give them trouble. 
 He really would not accept even a throne from the lavish hand of 
 Napoleon unless he was first convinced that he had been elected to 
 it in some way by the Mexican people. 
 
 To satisfy him, they had to go back to Mexico and pretend to hold 
 an election, though no election was, in fact, ever held. They simply 
 took over a lot of petitions and doctored returns, and really buncoed 
 this high-minded, but exceedingly gullible, Austrian Prince. 
 
 It might be inferred from the language of this decree that some 
 limit was to be imposed upon the power of the monarch, arid that it was 
 intended that the country should have some sort of constitution — 
 although Latin sovereigns are not very much given to constitutions 
 unless they are forced upon them — but no constitution ever came, and, 
 while Maximilian ruled, it was with a sway as absolute as that of the 
 Czar of Russia. The infamous decree or statute of the 3d of October, 
 1865, under which the best blood of Mexico flowed and the stanchest 
 and most devoted patriots of the nation met their death, and which was 
 the just cause of his own execution, was issued by " Maximilian, Em- 
 peror of Mexico, our Council of Ministers and our Council of State, with 
 one accord decreeing." 
 
 The Council of Ministers and the Council of State referred to were 
 of his own arbitrary selection. In the government of Maximilian the 
 people had no voice whatever.
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 This bloody statute provided that every patriot taken in battle, or 
 with arms in his hands, or who was a member of any patriotic band or 
 armed gathering, " whether or not they proclaimed a political pretext," 
 and every man who furnished food, clothing or shelter, whether volun- 
 tarily or by force, to a patriot band or a patriot soldier, should suffer 
 death within twenty-four hours after capture. 
 
 Some of our ancient Saxon ancestors have won and deserved a 
 fierce and bloody name in history, but they were never quite so fero- 
 cious or blood-thirsty as these Nineteenth Century Latins in Mexico, 
 
 There was a Saxon republic just north of Mexico that was quite 
 occupied with its own affairs at the particular time when Maximilian 
 came over to teach the people of the American continent the science of 
 Latin government, but, one day at Appomattox, they settled up this 
 business of theirs so that then they had more time to devote to his 
 majesty, the Emperor of the French, and by almost the next mail, our 
 great secretary, William H. Seward, wrote to Louis Napoleon that the 
 French soldiers must be withdrawn from Mexico, or our soldiers, just 
 then out of business, would go there too and take a hand in the quarrel ; 
 and so Louis Napoleon went home and Maximilian met his fate at 
 Queretaro on the 19th of July, 1867. 
 
 And thus ended Latin absolutism, and thus was established Saxon 
 freedom in the Mexican nation. No Latin prince has since shown any 
 eagerness to follow in Maximilian's foot-steps. 
 
 But no one knew better than the wise and far-seeing statesmen 
 who were responsible for the Constitution of 1857 that the customs, 
 habits and modes of thought of a people cannot be changed by the 
 formal adoption of a new constitution. 
 
 It takes an hour, or a day, or a month to enact a law ; it takes gen- 
 erations to establish institutions. A people whose ancestors for hund- 
 reds of years have been educated in Latin absolutism cannot become 
 fully developed Saxon freemen all at once. The Mexican statesmen of 
 1857 saw this then quite as clearly as we see it now, and in nothing is 
 their wisdom and foresight better shown than in the fact that they were 
 careful not to attempt too much at once. Tiiey had, indeed, laid the 
 corner-stones of their free institutions 011 a broad, secure and enduring 
 foundation, but the superstructure they left for time and the system of 
 4
 
 26 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 free education they so carefully provided for, to complete. And so 
 Mexico continued really Latin in form, though in reality her institutions 
 have been since then much more after the Saxon than the Latin idea. 
 
 But we are concerned to-night with jurisprudence, and the juris- 
 prudence of a nation is the supreme test of the practical excellence of 
 its civilization. That people has made the most progress that knows 
 best how to try a law suit. The provision of a proper forum in which 
 private controversies may be settled is the most important sphere of 
 government. On the proper and actual administration of justice between 
 man and man depends more than on anything else the degree of a 
 nation's prosperity and the happiness of its people. 
 
 A law suit in Mexico furnishes, perhaps, the best illustration of the 
 union of Latin forms with Saxon realities. I have already shown how 
 in criminal trials, the substantial rights guaranteed by our Saxon Magna 
 Charta are imbedded in the Mexican constitution. The accused is con- 
 fronted with the accusation, the accuser and the witnesses. He is 
 defended by counsel of his own selection, and even so entirely Saxon an 
 institution as trial by jury has won its way into this as well as other 
 countries educated in Latin ideas. 
 
 But the Saxon guaranties and the Saxon jury are under the control 
 of a judge who has been educated in Latin forms, acquired his learning 
 from Spanish books, and who is not always fully imbued with the true 
 Saxon spirit, and, moreover, he is apt to be enveloped by an atmosphere 
 from which the old taint has not been altogether removed. The Saxon 
 statute light which is intended to direct his course is still often seen 
 through Latin spectacles, and we must not expect or desire too close an 
 imitation of our favorite methods, nor must we be too sure that the lusty 
 food that suits our northern stomachs and ponderous vital mechanisms 
 is always the best for all people all over the world under all condi- 
 tions. 
 
 The Saxon criminal procedure, especially as administered in the 
 United States, is inclined to be somewhat slow and dilatory. It takes 
 time to wrap around the accused, and very probably guilty, citizen all 
 the guaranties of the Magna Charta and to convict and punish him 
 without doing violence to our i'nherited ideas of criminal procedure. If 
 you have but a little crime to punish, it is all right ; but in a condition
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 27 
 
 of society where offences against the law become for any reason pecu- 
 liarly prevalent, our system shows at its worst. 
 
 The condition of things in Mexico has been such that celerity and 
 certainty of punishment have often been more important than a nice 
 observation of the provisions of the Magna Charta or even of their own 
 most excellent constitution. The civil wars had left the roads full of 
 bandits, the mountains infested with robbers, the streets teeming with 
 highwaymen, and had so confused many people's ideas of meum and 
 tuum, that portable property was likely to change hands very rapidly, 
 and a cross by the roadside was often the only record left of the resist- 
 ing owner. Violent diseases may require summary remedies, and Mexi- 
 co's statesmen saw that Mexico must be cured of the bandit fever at no 
 matter what cost. Fortunately, the bandits usually resisted and were 
 killed while being arrested or while attempting to escape, instead of 
 being saved for more regular execution afterwards ; but even if brought 
 before the magistrate, the bandit was given but short shrift, and convic- 
 tion followed accusation, and execution conviction, with a celerity which, 
 I fear, left little room for an abstract discussion of the rights of either 
 Englishmen or Mexicans, or of the guaranties of their Constitution or 
 ours, and which is at least not usual in the city of New York where I 
 practice law. 
 
 I cannot say that this method was entirely peculiar to Mexico. In 
 states and territories of the American Union similarly situated the 
 people, even the most pronounced of the Saxons, were wont to imitate 
 their brethren on the other side of the line and adopt methods similar 
 to theirs when methods ideally better would not work. 
 
 We may, and we do, criticise the methods of enforcing the criminal 
 law which were at one time quite prevalent among our western and 
 southern neighbors, both in Mexico and the United States, and they are 
 doubtless fit subjects for just criticism, but it is due to Mexico that 
 it should be said that in the last twenty-five years— the only twenty- 
 five years she has ever had of real self-government— she has done so 
 much to rid the country of her criminal classes that life and property 
 are as safe there to-day as anywhere in the world ; and it does not 
 become the generation that reaps the benefit to criticise too much the 
 methods of those who did the work.
 
 28 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 As the criminal classes have been suppressed, as the country has 
 become quiet, and peace and order have taken the place of the preced- 
 ing anarchy and war, criminal trials are coming more and more to con- 
 form to the true spirit of the Mexican Constitution and the ideas of 
 Saxon freemen, and no one who has watched the progress of events in 
 Mexico since she first began so stand erect and breathe the inspiring 
 air of freedom, can have any doubt as to whither it is tending. 
 
 The continuance of Latin forms is even more prevalent and more 
 marked in civil than in criminal cases. 
 
 The proceedings to commence a suit are especially peculiar. 
 
 There had been imported from Spain in the old colonial days a 
 practice of summoning a proposed defendant first before the Court of 
 Conciliation, presided over by a judge who was nof, and was not allowed 
 to be, a lawyer, and who heard no evidence, summoned no witnesses, 
 and had no jurisdiction to determine any question in dispute. His duty 
 was simply to see if he could not induce the parties to settle or com- 
 promise their differences before they plunged into the vortex of an 
 actual law suit. His good offices were placed at their services whether 
 they sought them or not, and it was only on a certificate from him that 
 the dispute could not be compromised that they were admitted to the 
 ordinary tribunals. 
 
 When the republic was established, this practice was continued and 
 there was actually a provision in the Constitution of 1824 that no civil 
 suit could be commenced in a Mexican court until the parties had first 
 been summoned before the Court of Conciliation, and that court had 
 found that the difficulty would admit of no amicable adjustment. 
 
 The practice is still continued, though now without the sanction of 
 any constitutional requirement, but it is coming to be more and more 
 only a form. This Court of Conciliation is entirely paternal in its 
 origin and its character, and adapted only to a people accustomed to 
 submit themselves to the kind care of a paternal government. It is a 
 common feature of Latin legal procedure, and now exists in most of the 
 Latin nations of Europe. 
 
 We Saxons never had anything of the kind. It is contrary to our 
 ideas and the genius of our institutions. If we wish to compromise a 
 difficulty, we do it as fi-eemen, rely on our own judgment, take the
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 29 
 
 responsibility ourselves, and prefer to make our own compromises with- 
 out the assistance of an official compromiser. 
 
 In its inception, the Court of Conciliation was a most important 
 part of the structure of the government, and was constantly called upon 
 to perform its important function. The fact that it is degenerating now 
 into a form only shows, as perhaps nothing else can, that far-reaching 
 and beneficent Saxon influences are at work in the rising Republic south 
 of the Rio Grande. 
 
 In nothing is the difference between their way and ours shown 
 more clearly than in the method of disposing of the issue. 
 
 We try it. It was always the Saxon practice to try it. They had 
 somewhat rough and uncouth and unsatisfactory methods of trial in the 
 early days. The cross examiner, as an institution of the court room, is 
 a product of modern evolution. Before his advent, if one man asserted 
 the affirmative of a proposition of fact and another had a different 
 recollection, they settled the question by challenging one another and 
 fighting it out, and the most skillful fencing master was the one whose 
 story was credited. The substitution of the trained advocate, the 
 learned judge, the impartial jury and modern methods for eliciting and 
 discovering the truth was a long step in advance, but we have still clung 
 to the fn'a/ as a distinctive and never-to-be-abandoned feature of Saxon 
 self-reliance as applied to the administration of orderly justice. 
 
 There comes a time in the history of every Saxon law suit when the 
 plaintiff and the defendant must face one another with their witnesses 
 and their advocates in the forum of justice, and finally submit their dif- 
 ferences to the arbitrament there provided. 
 
 Under the Latin practice there was nothing at all the equivalent of 
 our trial. From the commencement of the litigation, the judge took 
 entire charge of the case. He summoned the parties and the witnesses 
 before him, one at a time, as suited his convenience, and in the privacy 
 of his own closet they each poured their story into his receptive ear. If 
 he was a peculiarly honest and scrupulous man, he took nothing at these 
 interviews but testimony, but if he was simply an ordinary judge, he 
 took what he could get, and if the case was an important one his oppor- 
 tunities were by no means insignificant. Having gone through tlif i)ro- 
 cess of hearing the testimony till he was tired of it or until his harvest
 
 30 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 was all gathered, he, sooner or later — usually later — decided the case. 
 If he was a learned man skilled in the law, he decided it himself ; other- 
 wise — and it was usually otherwise, for the judges were seldom lawyers 
 — he got some one else to decide it for him who knew how better than he. 
 
 As neither party had heard the evidence on the other side, no one 
 could dispute the wisdom of the decision. 
 
 In Mexico, they retain in form the old Spanish methods of deter- 
 mining an issue of fact. The statement of the parties and the testimony 
 of each witness is taken by the judge in private ; neither party nor 
 witness is confronted with his adversary or with other witnesses, or 
 submitted to the ordeal of an oral cross-examination, and the judge 
 decides the case, when he gets ready, in his own way ; but counsel are 
 allowed to submit questions and cross-questions to the judge, to be 
 propounded by him to the witnesses and the parties, and this is the 
 usual practice. The testimony is all reduced to writing, and when com- 
 pleted submitted to the other side and counsel are heard upon it, usually 
 in writing, but sometimes orally. 
 
 Mexican judicature appears here at its worst. No one appreciates 
 the weakness of the system more than the good lawyers — and the 
 country is coming to be full of them — who practice in their courts, and 
 there will doubtless soon be a change for the better. It is beginning to 
 come already in some of the states of the republic, and an oral cross- 
 examination is, in some cases, permitted. 
 
 But even now, the practice is infinitely superior to the old Latin 
 system. Publicity, the best of all security against wrong-doing, is 
 secured ; the calcium light of public opinion is turned upon the action 
 of the judge in every case, and if he commits an error the courts of 
 appeal are ready and prompt to give redress. 
 
 There is still a good deal of delay, unavoidable to the system, but I 
 do not know that there is any more than there is with us under our 
 better system. It is, at the worst, far better than it ever was before, 
 and in the practical administration of justice there are fewer annoying 
 delays and grievous abuses. In many respects it compares very favor- 
 ably with the administration of justice in the United States. 
 
 In former years it was the exception rather than the rule to select 
 a judge from the bar, but now the lawyers among the judges are
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 31 
 
 getting to be in the great majority, and, so far as my acquaintance 
 goes — and it is quite extended — the judges are usually men of high 
 character and anxious to do equal and exact justice between man and 
 man without fear or favor. 
 
 At the time of the adoption of her Constitution, the condition of 
 Mexican society was not such as to make an extensive use of the jury 
 system practicable, but, as the work of education goes on — and it is 
 going on very rapidly ; as the level of public intelligence is raised — and 
 it is being raised very fast ; and as the people become more and more 
 accustomed to managing their own affairs and relying upon their own 
 efforts, there will come the material for a jury system, and trial by jury 
 will undoubtedly be generally introduced in civil, as it is already in 
 criminal cases, and with the Saxon jury must go the other concomitants 
 of a Saxon trial. 
 
 This is a consummation which the best statesmen, the best patriots, 
 and the be%t lawyers in Mexico devoutly hope for, and it is pretty sure 
 to come. 
 
 The feature of Saxon jurisprudence most important, however, is the 
 independence of the judiciary. 
 
 Few people fully appreciate the far-reaching nature of those pro- 
 visions of our National and State Constitutions dividing government 
 strictly into the executive, legislative and judiciary departments, and 
 prohibiting ex post facto laws and laws impairing the obligations of 
 contracts. 
 
 The law must be general in its operation ; must precede the offense, 
 and be determined and applied only by permanent and regularly ap- 
 pointed judicial officers, who have neither executive nor legislative 
 powers. There n\a.y he. privi/e^s:;es and immunities without these guaran- 
 ties, but there can be no rights. They are necessary foundation stones 
 in every temple of freedom. 
 
 With the Latins all authority over the bodies or the souls of men 
 came from some superior power — King or Pope — and the same authori- 
 ty might enact the law, interpret and determine it, and carry it into ex- 
 ecution, ir no law or tribunal was found that fitted the case, a new 
 one might be manufactured for the occasion, or an old one re-interprcteil 
 to new uses.
 
 32 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 The Mexican Constitution of 1857, as we have seen, contains pro- 
 visions more stringent even than ours for the protection of the independ- 
 ence of the judiciary. It provides that government shall be divided 
 into legislative, executive and judicial departments, and that "two or 
 more of these powers shall never be united in one person or corpora- 
 tion." It forbids forever retroactive laws, and provides " that no man 
 may be judged or sentenced except by laws made prior to the act and 
 exactly applicable to it, and by a tribunal ivhich shall have previously been 
 established by latv," and special laws and special tribunals are expressly 
 interdicted. 
 
 No words could be more broad and decisive than those used by the 
 makers of the Mexican Constitution in protecting that bulwark of free- 
 dom, judicial independence. They knew well their prevailing danger 
 and they guarded against it with all the means at their command. 
 There is no doubt that their action produced an immediate and most 
 beneficial effect, and that Mexico's relief from the evils which had been 
 hanging over her so long began at once. 
 
 A true and impartial statement of the case requires, however, two 
 additions to what has already been said upon the subject : 
 
 1. The executive power of Mexico down to very recent times has 
 had, and still has, in practice, more influence upon the judiciary than is 
 consistent with the letter and the spirit of these most admirable provi- 
 sions of the Constitution of the Republic, and the judicial power is not 
 as independent as it ought to be. 
 
 2. The influence of the executive over the judicial power is grow- 
 ing less and less every year, and the judiciary are becoming more and 
 more independent The evil yet exists, but it is infinitely less than it 
 was; it is all the time diminishing, and it bids fair soon to disappear 
 altogether. 
 
 Let us not complain or criticise too much. When a people are 
 traveling, as the people of Mexico are, with accelerating speed in the 
 right direction, we can well afford to give them time to reach the goal 
 they have so firmly and heroically set for themselves. We must remem- 
 ber that it is scarcely more than a quarter-century since Queretaro. 
 
 In the phraseology of deeds and forms of contract still in use 
 in Mexico the paternal theory of jurisprudence is well shown. In
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 33 
 
 ancient Spanish times, when one person wished to make a conveyance to 
 another, the two v;ent before a notary public and stated the whole case 
 to him. The notary inquired into the most minute details of the trans- 
 action, investigated the value of the property, passed upon the suffi- 
 ciency of the consideration, looked into the circumstances of the parties 
 to see if the affair was one which was in every way to the advantage of 
 the parties, and, in general, acted the paternal to the fullest degree. 
 Then finally came the deed. It was not, as with us, a simple instrument 
 signed and acknowledged by the grantor and containing in terse form 
 words of grant, but it was a most prolix and tedious affair. It was in 
 the form of a recital by a notary that the parties had come before him 
 and the one said so and so, and the other said something else, and that 
 he had looked into everything connected with the transaction, ques- 
 tioned their neighbors and investigated their business ; and he tells, 
 with a detail that is sickening if you are in a hurry, as we Saxons always 
 are, all the conclusions to which he arrives, and finally states that the 
 one party says he is willing to convey, and the other to accept, the 
 property ; and the notary, not the parties, signs the deed, with about 
 the same degree of solemnity that a priest would perform the marriage 
 ceremony. Then some magistrate goes out with the parties, walks 
 around the property and fixes its metes and bounds, and it is the 
 magistrate, not the vendor, who actually delivers possession to the 
 purchaser. 
 
 Some of these forms are still kept up in Mexico, but as forms only. 
 The notary copies the deed, questions, answers and everything, from a 
 form book, barely changing the necessary details to fit the circumstances, 
 and the parties sign and deliver it just as we do. There is still kept up 
 also the form of exchanging possession in the presence of the magis- 
 trate, but this is likewise coming to be mere ceremony. Some day they 
 will enact the most excellent statute we have in New York State for 
 short forms of deeds and their system of prolix conveyancing will be 
 at an end. 
 
 In contracts, as in deeds, the magistrate in form plays the old 
 paternal part. The statutes still retain many of the ancient provisions, 
 such as giving a party the right of rescission, etc., if the consideration is 
 not such as to satisfy the mnid of the protecting and fatherly magistrate,
 
 34 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 or if something should happen that had not been thought of, or if there 
 was some other reason which appealed to the Latin conscience ; but 
 all evil results are now avoided and the teeth of paternalism in the 
 transaction effectually drawn by inserting in the contract an express 
 statement, as is now always permissible, that the parties waive the 
 benefit of these well-intentioned, but mischievous and meddlesome, 
 provisions of the law, and choose to stand upon their responsibility, and 
 attend to their own business as freemen. 
 
 The spirit of Saxon self-reliance is really spreading in Mexico 
 faster than the casual observer can imagine, and with it are coming 
 stronger and prouder men and better citizens all over the land. 
 
 I cannot leave you to-night without saying a word about the mem- 
 bers of our profession in the Republic of Mexico. 
 
 Upon the advocates of a country, more than upon its judges, de- 
 pends the administration of its justice. They form the only reservoir 
 from which an able and accomplished judiciary can be drawn ; they 
 form the only background upon which a pure judiciary can be projected; 
 and they make the atmosphere, fair or foul as it may be, which the judi- 
 ciary must ever breathe. 
 
 The Latin judge sat in the silence of his closet. There was no 
 opportunity for the persuasive eloquence of the advocate. 
 
 The Saxon judge sits in the forum, where the advocate is at home. 
 
 In Latin Mexico there were many men learned in the law, but few 
 lawyers. The advocate was not there. In the first republic, the repub- 
 lic before Ayutla, anarchy rather than law reigned, and arms and not 
 advocacy was the favored profession. The war of the French Inter- 
 vention occupied men's minds till it was ended at the Hill of the Bells. 
 Then, for the first time, was there a proper field for the advocate in the 
 Mexican nation. 
 
 And so the lawyer in Mexico is just beginning to be a power and 
 to make his influence felt. 
 
 It is my good fortune to be favored with the personal acquaintance 
 and friendship of many of Mexico's able and accomplished lawyers and 
 advocates, and I can say of them, from my personal knowledge, that 
 their eloquence would delight any audience, and their learning grace 
 any court house in these United States of ours.
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 35 
 
 SEROR ROMERO'S REMARKS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : While I feel very thankful 
 for the honor you have bestowed upon me in inviting me to the pres- 
 ent session of the Law Department of the American Social Science As- 
 sociation, given up to Mexican Jurisprudence, I, at the same time, ex- 
 ceedingly regret that in the printed program of this evening's proceed- 
 ings I appear as making an address after Mr. Logan's paper. I would 
 feel greatly honored to follow our distinguished friend if I had had the time 
 and opportunity to prepare something worthy of this assembly, but the in- 
 vitation I received came to me too late ; and, besides, I did not under- 
 stand that it was an invitation to make an address to-night that I had ac- 
 cepted, and, consequently, have made no preparation. You can readily 
 imagine, therefore, my embarrassment when I have to speak in a lan- 
 guage that is not my own, after the very able paper we have just heard 
 and before such a distinguished audience as is here present. Instead of 
 making an address or anything \Vhich would be worthy of that name, I 
 will only enter into an unceremonious conversation with you on some 
 topics that may be a,f interest to you, as they are connected with Mex- 
 ican Jurisprudence, and of which I am reminded by the able paper just 
 read. 
 
 But before doing so, I wish to express my admiration for the mas- 
 terly manner in which our friend, Mr. Logan, has treated the subject of 
 Mexican Jurisprudence, under his chosen title of " A Mexican Law 
 Suit." It is really remarkable that, with the comparatively few oppor- 
 tunities he has had for obtaining practical knowledge of Mexican laws 
 and the habits and usages of the people, he should have mastered his 
 subject in such a wonderful way and have expounded it in the able and 
 comprehensive manner in which he has done here to-night. It is very 
 difficult, as you can all realize, to understand the laws, habits and cus- 
 toms of a foreign country, unless you have been a long-time resident of 
 it and have made a special study of that particular subject, and it is, 
 therefore, surprising that with such scanty facilities as Mr. Logan has 
 had he should have accomplished so mucii and shown it so clearly as 
 he has here to-night. 
 
 There are, however, a few points upon which I would like to dwell, 
 not in criticism of Mr. Logan's paper, because that is unassailable and
 
 36 A MEXICAN LA W SUIT. 
 
 because it would not be becoming in me to attempt such a criticism, 
 even if there were ground for it, but rather by way of amplification as 
 to some of the different characteristics of the laws of Mexico which he 
 discussed. 
 
 In referring to the provision of Article II of our Constitution of 
 1857, which decreed that "everybody is born free in Mexico and that 
 any slave obtains his liberty by stepping on Mexican soil," Mr. Logan 
 correctly stated that our Constitution made slavery forever unlawful in 
 Mexico five years before Lincoln's famous proclamation which abolished 
 it in the United States, although in fact, the abolition of slavery was 
 accomplished in our country a great many years before. In fact, Hidal- 
 go, the promoter of our independence, issued, on December 6, 1810, 
 not quite three months after he had proclaimed independence from 
 Spain, a decree abolishing slavery in Mexico, and our first Congress, 
 which met in Chilpancingo in 1813, issued some bases for a constitution 
 and decreed at the same time the abolition of slavery. The abolition, 
 of course, could only be enforced then in the few places which were 
 occupied by the insurgents, but when independence was achieved, one 
 of the first acts of the first Mexican Congress, convened at the City of 
 Mexico to adopt a constitution, was to issue a decree on July 13, 1824, 
 which abolished slavery in Mexico, and it was then actually abolished. 
 In fact, every Mexican is born a strong anti-slavery man, so much so that 
 we could not understand why this country should have accepted slavery 
 and should have tried to sustain and extend it ; or why you should 
 engage in a tremendous civil war about it, which imperilled the very 
 existence of the United States and the great influence that they were 
 exerting upon the destinies of mankind ; especially when the very 
 Declaration of American Independence contains the principle that all 
 men are born free and equal, and slavery is a contradiction of that great 
 principle. But fortunately, slavery has been abolished here as it was in 
 Mexico over seventy years ago, and the stain, which for so long a time 
 tarnished the fair name of this country, has in that way been entirely 
 obliterated. 
 
 Mr. Logan has enlightened us considerably about the advantages 
 of the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence prevailing in the United 
 States as compared with the Roman system, which prevails in Mexico, 
 and I confess that that subject has always had a great deal of interest
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 37 
 
 for me, because, having been educated at home as a lawyer, I always 
 desired to study and compare the various systems of jurisprudence of 
 different countries, as one of the best ways to understand the philosophy 
 of jurisprudence. I regret, however, that my public duties have 
 deprived me of the opportunity to practice law at home, and hence of 
 becoming better acquainted with all its provisions, and that the same 
 cause has prevented me from studying the practical workings of the 
 Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence as practiced in the United States. 
 
 I always thought that it would be very pleasant for me to spend a 
 few days in visiting the courts in this country, especially in the city of 
 New York, with a view of getting better informed as to the practical 
 workings of your system of jurisprudence, but, unfortunately, I never 
 had enough time at my disposal to do so. It is, therefore, with great 
 reluctance that I approach such a difficult subject as this, as I do not 
 believe I am fully competent to treat it as thoroughly as I would like 
 to. Even in regard to the Mexican laws I am not so well informed as I 
 should be if I could have practiced law at home, for, while I know the 
 general tenor of its legislation, I have been absent many years from my 
 country and am not so well acquainted with all its details as I would 
 like to be. While I would not say any word derogatory of the Anglo- 
 Saxon system of jurisprudence, I think the Roman system, being the 
 result of several centuries of study and experience by one of the most 
 enlightened and cultivated nations on earth, is also entitled to some re- 
 gard, as is shown by the fact that the Anglo-Saxon nations are adopt- 
 ing some features of the Roman jurisprudence. A careful study of 
 both would very likely lead to a conclusion in favor of an elective 
 system, combining the best features of each. 
 
 A great deal has been said about the advantages of the Anglo- 
 Saxon jury system, but while I am not disposed to criticise it, I will 
 only remark that eight hundred years ago, when England was divided 
 into different classes, and baron and commoner were struggling for the 
 mastery each over the other, it was undoubtedly a great conquest for the 
 rights of the people that a man should be tried by a jury of his peers. 
 The commoners were undoubtedly oppressed both by the king and by 
 the barons, and during the reign of King John they obtained the Magna 
 Charta, which was then a great conquest for human rights and human 
 liberty, and which has proved to be the corner-stone of free institutions
 
 38 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 throughout the world. The commoners realized that the best way to 
 protect their rights and to prevent any abuse of authority by either 
 king or baron, was to establish that they could not be arrested, except 
 in accordance with the law of the land, or punished unless it was by a 
 jury of their peers ; but times have advanced considerably during the 
 eight centuries which have since elapsed, and the condition of the 
 commoner in England is not now the same as it was then, and we might 
 say now that the barons are merging into the commoners. Certainly, 
 so far as this country, where there are no classes, is concerned, there is 
 no reason at all to fear that the white people will be oppressed by those 
 in authority. The Constitution of the United States is so careful about 
 this that it does not clothe even the President of the United States 
 with the right to make arrests, unless it is in a very few cases specially 
 provided by the laws, or by the treaties, as when the extradition 
 of a fugitive from justice is required, under a treaty, by a foreign 
 power. 
 
 For the reasons above stated, I will not express any decided con- 
 victions upon this subject, but I might say that the conditions under 
 which the jury system' was established do not prevail at the present 
 time, even in the country of its origin, and it cannot have now the im- 
 portance it once had. Its insufificiency to punish criminals is shown, I 
 think, by its practical workings which have unfortunately often brought 
 about what is called Lynch Law, which is really the complement of 
 criminal proceedings under the Anglo-Saxon system. When a com- 
 munity is satisfied that a crime has been committed, that somebody is 
 the author of that crime, and that the criminal cannot be punished 
 under the regular proceedings of a common law trial, they take the 
 law into their own hands and they administer swift justice in a way 
 you may call barbarous, but in the only way left to them. 
 
 But the force of example, and the great credit which the Anglo- 
 Saxon system has obtained in the world on account of its respect for 
 human rights, has induced some of the American nations of Latin 
 origin to adopt the jury system, and we have done so in Mexico. Senor 
 Mariscal, our present Secretary of State, who lived in the United States 
 from 1863 to 1877 — up to 1867 as Secretary of the Legation and after- 
 wards as Minister from Mexico in Washington — and who is a great 
 jurist, a thorough student, and a careful observer, made a special study
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 39 
 
 of the jury system in the United States, and when he returned home 
 and became Secretary of Justice, he established the jury system in 
 Mexico for criminal cases, changing it somewhat with a view to adapting 
 it to the peculiar conditions of the Mexican character. He provided, 
 for instance, that the majority of the jurors should render a verdict, 
 while, under the Anglo-Saxon system, a unanimous vote of all the jurors 
 is required. It is the practice in Mexico that all the preliminary pro- 
 ceedings in a criminal case shall take place before the judge who 
 presides over such proceedings, without a jury, but when this is finished, 
 then the jury is convened and they hear the statement of the District 
 Attorney, the defence of the accused, and such witnesses as they desire 
 — both their direct testimony and their cross-examination — and finally 
 give their verdict, declaring the accused innocent or guilty. It is pro- 
 vided, besides, with a view to preventing the failure of justice, that if 
 in the opinion of the presiding judge the verdict is clearly against the 
 facts as established by the evidence, he should report to the higher 
 court, and if that court sustains his opinion, the verdict of the jury 
 should be entirely set aside and a new trial should take place. Even 
 with all those alterations in the truly Anglo-Saxon Jury system, I have 
 seen cases in Mexico in which criminals have been left unpunished 
 because their attorneys with their eloquence have influenced the jury in 
 favor of the accused. 
 
 I do not think it is entirely correct to say that the proceedings under 
 the Roman law are secret and that the accused does not know what the 
 witnesses have said against him. This misunderstanding is sometimes 
 carried very far. One of the difficulties that the Spanish-American 
 countries have to contend with in Washington, in cases where citizens 
 of the United States are tried by the local judges in any of those coun- 
 tries, is the great difference between their legislation and criminal pro- 
 cedure and the system prevailing in this country. In the United States 
 all trials have to be public ; the accused has a right to appear in person 
 or to be represented by an attorney and to hear and refute all the evi- 
 dence against him ; he has the right to be set at liberty on bail, what- 
 ever may be the crime imputed to him, except wilful murder ; and he 
 has finally the right to be tried by a jury of his peers ; while in the 
 Spanish-American countries there prevails a legislation of Roman 
 origin, which may or may not be better adapted to ascertain the facts
 
 4° A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 and to do justice, but which is entirely different from the English or 
 common law system. 
 
 In the Roman system every criminal trial is divided into two 
 stages : the summary (suman'o), which is secret, and the purpose of 
 which is to find out the facts connected with the case, the testimony of 
 the accused being taken down when he may not know who appears 
 against him, and sometimes not even of what crime he is accused ; and 
 the plenary (j>/e/iario), or second stage, in which the proceedings of the 
 summary are made public, and all the other proceedings are public, and 
 then the accused has the same rights as are guaranteed to him by the 
 common law. He is allowed to go out on bail only in a very few lim- 
 ited cases, determined by law, and never if he is liable on conviction to 
 bodily punishment. He is not allowed to hear the testimony against 
 him until after the summary is over. 
 
 As my only object is to mark the principal differences between the 
 two systems, I will refram from saying anything about their respective 
 advantages. 
 
 The secret proceedings of the sumario are very much criticised 
 in the United States, without remembering that the English law has 
 also a secret proceeding very similar to the smnarto. Before anybody 
 is indicted in this country, the case is heard secretly by a grand jury, 
 a court composed of persons designated also secretly. The Grand 
 Jury hears such testimony as is offered, or as they may deem sufficient, 
 without allowing a hearing to the accused, and if there is in their judg- 
 ment sufficient ground for it, the indictment is made, and after that the 
 public trial begins before the proper court. The sumario corresponds, 
 therefore, in countries of Latin origin, as far as that is possible 
 between two legislations based on such widely different principles, to 
 the Grand Jury indictment in the Anglo-Saxon nations. The substan- 
 tial difference between the two is that under the Latin system the 
 accused is arrested when the sumario begins, while in the common law 
 system he is not arrested until after the indictment is made ; but the 
 Latin law has provided some remedies for any possible abuse in such 
 cases. 
 
 In the countries where the Latin system prevails, testimony is 
 taken down in writing, read to the witness and signed by him if found 
 correct, as a proof that he was exactly reported. There is no room,
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 4i 
 
 therefore, for the judge to pretend that the witness has said something 
 different from what he really did say. When the summary is over, the 
 whole testimony is passed over to the accused for examination, and the 
 accused has the right to cross-examine the witnesses, if he thinks proper 
 to do so. The cross-examination is an old Spanish proceeding which 
 we call "careo," meaning in Spanish to confront personally the witness 
 before the judge for the purpose of cross-examination. Therefore it is 
 not correct to say that the accused does not know anything about the 
 evidence taken against him, because while in the first stage he does not 
 know it, in the second stage he has full opportunity to know all that 
 has been said and full opportunity to refute it, either by presenting his 
 witnesses or by cross-examining such witnesses as have been presented 
 by the other side or called by the judge. 
 
 Some American citizens tried in Spanish-American countries ex- 
 pect that the proceedings will be conducted in accordance with the 
 legislation of their own country, or some other country with a similar legis- 
 lative policy, and when they find that it is not so, they complain bitterly, 
 considering the Latin proceeding as inquisitorial, as an outrage and 
 even barbarous ; just as if the legislation of the United States ought to 
 be in force in those countries. My experience has shown me that this 
 is the cause of difficulties and misunderstandings between the United 
 States and some of the Spanish-American republics. 
 
 They complain, too, that the trial under the Roman system goes on 
 very slowly and they aver that criminal trials in the United States 
 come to an end more speedily. I am not prepared to say which of the 
 two systems of criminal proceedings requires the longer time. When 
 the trial actually begins, it may take a shorter time in the United 
 States, because, once the trial begins, it cannot be interrupted ; but it 
 often takes a long time before it begins, and longer when it is followed 
 by a new or second trial. It must be borne in mind 'that the courts in 
 this country hold their sessions for but a few weeks or months at a 
 time, and only during the session do they hear cases ; while in the 
 Latin-American countries they are open and working all the year 
 round. Then, as a trial here takes the whole time of the court, only 
 one case can be tried at a time, while in the Latin-American countries 
 the judge tries several cases at the same time ; and as a consequence 
 of this, every trial here has to be postponed until its docket number is
 
 42 .4 MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 reached, and that sometimes requires the lapse of several months, while 
 in the Latin countries it begins at once. 
 
 I do not know which system of criminal jurisprudence is, on the 
 whole, best calculated to do justice in the establishment of the fact, 
 whether by a judge with long experience and proficiency in his profes- 
 sion and having no personal interest' in the cases tried by him, or by a 
 jury of men who have no experience in criminal jurisprudence. If the 
 judge may sometimes be derelict in his duties, the jury occasionally are 
 controlled by their emotions. If the judge fails to do his duty, his 
 failure will be corrected by the Superior Court, as all trials have to go 
 to a Court of Appeals ; but for an improper verdict of a jury, there is 
 often no adequate remedy. The Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence follows 
 the principle that it is better to leave one hundred criminals unpunished, 
 rather than punish one innocent person. 
 
 There is a remark in Mr. Logan's paper which needs some explana- 
 tion, and it refers to the summary way in which criminals are some- 
 times punished in Mexico. Our Constitution commences with a state- 
 ment of the rights of man, taken in a great measure from the declara- 
 tion of the French National Assembly during the Revolution — and this 
 was in a great measure taken from your Declaration of Independence — 
 and those rights secure the most ample liberty and immunity to the 
 person and property of the inhabitants of the country, as Mr. Logan 
 has informed us by quoting fully from that instrument. It was repre- 
 sented, however, while the Constitution was being discussed, that on 
 extraordinary occasions, as in case of war or other serious danger to 
 society, such rights as have been guaranteed by the Constitution, stood 
 very much in the way of speedy punishment. To avoid that, the Con- 
 stitution itself, in its Article XXIX, provided that the rights of man, as 
 guaranteed by that instrument, excepting such as secure a man's life, 
 can be suspended for a short time, in certain emergencies, provided the 
 President asks Congress to suspend them and Congress agrees to do it, 
 and that the suspension embraces a class, and not an individual. If it 
 is found, for instance, that the crime of the derailing of railway cars, 
 either to rob them or for some other purpose, becomes frequent, and it 
 is thought that the emergency requires an extraordinary measure, the 
 President asks Congress for the suspension of the personal guarantees 
 of such criminals for a limited period, say six months, and if Congress
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 43 
 
 sanctions the suspension, a summary criminal proceeding is established, 
 for the purpose of inflicting punishment without delay, and therefore 
 frighten others who might be disposed to commit the same crime. At 
 the end of the six months, for instance, the public confidence is restored, 
 and there being no further need of a speedy trial, the suspension of 
 constitutional guarantees comes to an end. It will be seen that our 
 constitution provides a speedy way of punishing criminals in extra- 
 ordinary cases, without the unfortunate need which the condition of 
 things has made necessary sometimes in this country — especially in Cali- 
 fornia in former years — of establishing a committee of public safety to 
 preserve order, by which the people took the law in their own hands 
 and acted without any form of law, very much as is done where Lynch 
 Law prevails. 
 
 We have copied from you the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the great 
 conquest of the Anglo-Saxon, which guarantees life and liberty to man, 
 and which places under the control of the judicial courts the otherwise 
 arbitrary orders of those in authority ; but we have gone considerably 
 farther in that direction, and our Writ of Habeas Corpus is not limited 
 to the protection of personal life and liberty, but extends to all the 
 rights guaranteed to man by the Constitution — embracing his personal 
 property — even covering judicial decisions. If a man, for instance, finds 
 that his property, or any other constitutional rights, are interfered with 
 by either civil or military authority, or even by a judicial sentence of a 
 federal or State court, he applies to the respective federal district court, 
 which has jurisdiction to suspend at once the act complained of by the 
 plaintiff and finally to decide the case either in his favor or against him, 
 the decision always going for revision to our Supreme Court. 
 
 So far as the Conciliation Act of which Mr. Logan spoke to us is 
 concerned, it was intended to avoid civil suits, and for that reason the 
 Mexican Constitution of 1824 established that before any civil suit 
 began, the plaintiff should present a certificate that he had attempted, 
 without avail, to settle his difficulties amicably ; but that provision was 
 not repeated in our present constitution of 1857, and therefore it is not 
 now in force 
 
 To understand the condition of things in Mexico is very difficult 
 for foreigners who are not quite familiar with the country, and even for 
 Mexicans themselves who have not paid any special attention to this
 
 44 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 subject. The general impression of the outside world is that because 
 Mexico has been troubled by a long series of civil wars, which lasted for 
 over half a century, we were constitutionally disposed to fight and did 
 so without any plausible cause or reason ; but such a view is a great 
 mistake, and a few remarks will explain the philosophy or the real rea- 
 sons of our civil wars. 
 
 During the Spanish rule in Mexico, which lasted for three centuries, 
 there were three controlling privileged classes, the people counting for 
 nothing at all. The first was the clergy, which, by obtaining bequests 
 from persons who were dying, and in several other ways, had accumu- 
 lated a very large fortune, owning almost two-thirds of the whole real 
 estate of the country, and so absorbed the banking and other business. 
 Its power depended not only upon its immense wealth, but on its religi- 
 ous influence and on its being the only educated class, for though it 
 knew but little, that was a great deal more than the other classes knew, 
 for they were kept in the most profound ignorance. Its discipline 
 assisted the clergy in wielding great influence. The clergy had so much 
 influence during the Spanish rule, that once a Viceroy tried to enforce 
 his authority on a recalcitrant Archbishop of the city of Mexico by 
 arresting him and sending him to Spain. He succeeded in making the 
 arrest ; but the moment it was known that the Archbishop was on his 
 way to Vera Cruz, the people rebelled in such serious manner that he 
 was soon back in the city of Mexico, and the Viceroy had to leave. 
 
 The second privileged class were the Spaniards by birth, who formed 
 a kind of aristocracy, some of them having titles, and who were the 
 only ones holding office in the country, and who monopolized the princi- 
 pal business, and were also a rich class. This class was so jealous of the 
 native Mexicans that even the children of a Spaniard by a Mexican 
 mother, if born in Mexico, were not considered on the same footing as 
 the Spaniard ; they were called Creoles, had no rights at all, and could 
 not fill any public office, nor have any position. But few Spanish women 
 ever came to Mexico. The men came while they were young, grew up 
 in the country, and married Mexican women, very seldom pure blooded 
 Indians, and generally the daughters of Spaniards by Mexican mothers, 
 born in Mexico. 
 
 The third class was the army, which was comparatively small, but 
 was a very important element in the country, and native Mexicans were
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 45 
 
 usually in very subordinate positions, and in a few cases only admitted 
 among the commissioned officers. 
 
 The opposition of the Clergy to independence and the alarm it felt 
 at that movement were so great that the Bishop of Oaxaca, forgetting 
 the rudimentary duties imposed upon him by his religion, organized his 
 clergy into a regiment to fight against the insurgents, which was called 
 the "Purples," because that was the color of the regiment's uniform — 
 the same as the Bishop's vestments, but I understand that that martial 
 Prelate had no occasion to come in conflict with the insurgents. 
 
 The Spaniards disregarded so much the interest of their colonies, 
 that they would not allow us in Mexico to raise the same fruits they had 
 at home, like vine-yards and olive trees, etc., and that is the reason why 
 we do not produce yet as much wine as we otherwise could. It was only 
 after our independence was accomplished that we began to cultivate 
 those fruits. 
 
 These three classes were, of course, decidedly attached to the Spanish 
 rule, because under it they prospered and had all the wealth and power 
 they could possibly wish, while any change might endanger their posi- 
 tion and welfare. The only educated class was the clergy, and that was 
 too the only profession open to native Mexicans. The higher clergy 
 was, of course, heartily loyal to Spain, while a few members of the lower 
 clergy, those who had some patriotic feelings, were the only ones who 
 could appreciate the condition of things and long for a change. 
 
 Independence was proclaimed in Mexico on September 15, 1810, in 
 an Indian village in the State of Guanajuato, by Miguel Hidalgo y 
 Costilla, the curate of the town, and quite an old man, assisted by two 
 inferior officers of the Mexican militia. His enterprise was bound to 
 fail, for the leading classes of Mexico were against it. He collected a 
 very large number of peasants and poor people, who followed his lead. 
 To raise the public enthusiasm on his side, he had to put his cause 
 under the protection of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is supposed to 
 have preternaturally appeared two hundred years before to a humble 
 Indian, near the city of Mexico, and was highly reverenced in the 
 country. His men were unorganized, without arms, ammunition or dis- 
 cipline, and although he captured some towns and made some headway, 
 the organization and discipline of the Spanish army soon prevailed and 
 he was defeated, captured, degraded by the higher clergy, and shot in
 
 46 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 July, 1811. He was succeeded by another priest, a full-blooded Indian, 
 Jose Maria Morelos, who had in him the elements of a great warrior, 
 who organized a government, convened a Congress at Chilpancingo, 
 which issued a constitution, defeated the Spaniards in several drawn 
 battles and sustained for several months, against great odds, the famous 
 siege in Cuautla, near the City of Mexico, which siege was the subject 
 of one of Mr. Logan's most interesting papers on Mexican history. 
 Morelos fought the Spaniards from 1810 to 1815, when he was cap- 
 tured, degraded and shot. After that the War of Independence was 
 almost over. Only a few leaders remained and those were principally 
 in the southern part of the country where it was quite mountainous and 
 there was a bad climate, so that it was easy to keep up the insurrection 
 for some time, and the Spanish troops could not make much headway 
 there. 
 
 Such was the condition of things when, in 1820, the Spaniards at 
 Madrid restored the liberal constitution adopted by the Cortes in 181 2, 
 when King Ferdinand the VII had fled from Spain on account of the 
 French invasion, and that fact alarmed very much the Spanish element 
 in Mexico, who, fearing that liberal principles might find a foothold in 
 that country, thought that the best plan for them to follow was to pro- 
 claim independence from Spain and establish a Catholic monarchy 
 under a Spanish king, so that they would not be subject to the obnox- 
 ious changes which liberal ideas, that had begun to permeate Spain, 
 might bring about. They went, therefore, to Iturbide, who, although a 
 native Mexican, had been one of the leaders of the Spanish army 
 against the insurrection, was a good soldier and an ambitious man. 
 Iturbide accepted their plan, and when appointed by the Viceroy to 
 command the army sent to subdue the southern revolutionary leaders, 
 he took all the forces and money of the Viceroy and joined Guerrero 
 and the other revolutionary leaders. After that independence was 
 accomplished almost without a blow, and Iturbide was then crowned 
 Emperor of Mexico. 
 
 And thus it was that the movement for independence which, in the 
 other Spanish colonies, came from the higher classes, in Mexico came 
 originally from the lower classes, with the higher classes opposing it, 
 and thus it was that the first movement was an apparent failure. As 
 soon as it became for the interest of the higher classes themselves that
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 47 
 
 Mexico should be independent of Spanish rule, their influence turned 
 the scale, and independence was achieved. The Mexican patriots who 
 had been fighting for ten years in favor of independence, material pro- 
 gress, and liberal principles, could not be satisfied with the establish- 
 ment of an empire. They thought that this was depriving them of the 
 fruits of their victory, and so they rebelled against Iturbide and inau- 
 gurated a revolution which finally overthrew the empire and made 
 Iturbide fly from the country. That renewed the old hostility between 
 the two parties — the Liberal party, which had been the promoter of in- 
 dependence and desired progress, and the Conservative or ("hurch 
 party, which intended to maintain the statu quo and was decidedly 
 averse to any changes. It is not strange that the conflict between these 
 two parties, representing such antagonistic ideas, should have lasted 
 so long. 
 
 After Iturbide's downfall, the Liberals summoned a national con- 
 gress, which issued, on January 31, 1824, the preliminary basis of a 
 Federal Constitution. Finally, on October 4th, of the same year, the 
 Constitution itself, as finally promulgated, was adopted. It was pat- 
 terned after the Constitution of the United States and was almost a 
 copy of it, and I do not know whether, in imitating your institutions so 
 closely, we did not make a mistake. The constitution of a country 
 should be adapted to the conditions of that country. Here, in your 
 northern country, there were thirteen independent colonies, which made 
 war against England, achieved their indepencffence, and then found 
 themselves little more than a confederacy of infantile nations, with all 
 the weaknesses which ever have attended a simple confederation. 
 They, therefore, decided to consolidate themselves into a strong nation, 
 under the name of "The United States of America." The federal sys- 
 tem of government was the only solution of the problems which con- 
 fronted your people then. It was the natural and inevitable outgrowth 
 of the condition of things existing before the adoption of the constitu- 
 tion. In Mexico, there was a united country, subject to the same au- 
 thorities and laws, and with only one head. In adopting a Republican 
 federal system there, the nation had to be artificially divided up into sep- 
 arate sections, to be called States, which had no separate existence be- 
 fore, and no individual history or experience in self-government. It is 
 not to be wondered at, therefore, that when this Constitution went into
 
 48 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 operation, it caused great disturbance. It is easy to find in this con- 
 dition one of the causes of our prolonged civil wars. We were not 
 alone in our misfortunes, for almost every other nation on this continent 
 followed in our footsteps and tried to adapt the republican-federal sys- 
 tem to a condition of things to which it was not adaptable. Brazil, 
 alone, escaped this period of chaos a'nd experiment by establishing an 
 empire, with a scion of the reigning house of Portugal on the throne, and 
 did not adopt a federal-republican form of government until nearly a 
 century later, after thepeople had acquired some ideas about self-gov- 
 ernment, and some capacity for it ; and it is probably for these reasons 
 that she has suffered less by civil commotions than any other country 
 of the same origin in this hemisphere. 
 
 Our Constitution of 1824 was a decided victory for the Liberal 
 party, but it was very far from being a final one. The Church Party, 
 though then defeated, was really the stronger of the two. The Liberal 
 victory did not last long and the Conservative or Church Party pre- 
 vailed upon some of Mexico's numerous military leaders to rebel against 
 the government and inaugurate a revolution which ended in 1835 in 
 the overthrow of the Constitution of 1824. As that party was so rich 
 and so strong and had so much influence in the country, it could very 
 easily bring about a civil war of such seriousness that it was very dififi- 
 cult for the Liberal side to overcome it ; but as time elapsed, the 
 Liberal Party, which really represented the patriotic element of the 
 country, grew stronger with education and contact with foreign nations 
 and was materially assisted in its task by the demoralization of the 
 clergy and their unpatriotic conduct during our foreign wars — besides 
 the civil wars, we had, in 1S28, a war against Spain, who sent an ex- 
 pedition to conquer Mexico ; in 1838, a war with France ; in 1846 and 
 1847, war with the United States ; and from 1861 to 1867, the war of 
 the French Intervention. It was not difficult, therefore, for the Liberal 
 Party to inaugurate in their turn a counter-revolution which was at last 
 successful and which finally restored them to power. 
 
 It was in that way that the period of our civil wars continued so 
 long and that we came to have many different constitutions. While the 
 Church Party had the ascendency, they issued on October 23, 1835, 
 some bases for a constitution which was finally proclaimed on December 
 29, 1835, under the title of Constitutional Laws, and which abolished
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 49 
 
 the Federal system of Government and several of the Liberal features 
 of the Federal Constitution. This constitution did not seem to be con- 
 servative enough to the Church Party, and they issued on June 13, 1843, 
 what we called the " Organic Bases," and these are the two constitutions 
 to which Mr. Logan referred in his paper. It happened therefore that 
 when the Liberals were in power, a Federal Constitution was issued or 
 the old one restored, and when the Church Party had the ascendency 
 they proclaimed a Conservative Constitution or established a dictator- 
 ship. Finally, on May 18, 1847, the Federal Constitution of 1824, with 
 some amendments, was restored, and the Liberal Party regained power 
 which they kept until 1853, when Santa Ana returned to Mexico, called 
 back by a successful revolution of the Church Party, notwithstanding 
 that in former years he had been a leader of the Liberal Party. It was 
 then that he established the dictatorship which Mr. Logan has described. 
 But the Liberals rebelled against him again, proclaiming the plan of 
 Ayutla, and in 1855 Santa Ana fied from the country. A Federal 
 Government was then established under General Alvarez first, and 
 General Comonfort afterwards. General Alvarez appointed Benito 
 Juarez Secretary of Justice, and it was on November 23, 1855, that 
 Juarez, as such Secretary, issued the first law against the clergy which 
 deprived them of the privileges they had enjoyed before. Under the 
 Spanish rule and also after the independence of Mexico, up to that date, 
 the clergy had special courts made up of clergymen, to try them for 
 any offence that they might commit. This was a privilege which insured 
 them almost perfect immunity and exempted them from the control of 
 the laws of the country. The Liberals thought that that was a great out- 
 rage, but they could not change the condition of things until the Juarez 
 law was issued in 1855. The army enjoyed the same privileges, of which 
 the Juarez law deprived them by restricting the jurisdiction of military 
 courts to military offences only. 
 
 The Juarez law was succeeded by the Lerdo law, which provided that 
 no corporation— meaning the clergy, as the Church was the only corpora- 
 tion existing in Mexico — could hold real estate, and that such as was 
 held by any corporation should be sold to the actual tenants at a price 
 which was to be arrived at by capitalizing the rent on the basis of six 
 per cent, rate of interest. Thereafter, the tenant was to be the owner 
 of the property, the corporation retaining a mortgage equal to the
 
 5© A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 price fixed in this way. These two laws were the cause of another 
 insurrection promoted by the Church, and which was subdued by 
 President Comonfort. But unfortunately, he afterwards wavered and 
 allowed himself to be influenced by the clergy. The Constitution 
 of February 5th, 1857, had been issued during the administration of 
 Comonfort and he had just taken tfie oath to support it, and under it 
 had been elected Constitutional President for a term of four years. 
 Notwithstanding this and the fact that he had successfully subdued one 
 insurrection of the Church, he finally allowed himself to be used as the 
 tool of the clergy, and headed a revolution against the very constitu- 
 tion which he had proclaimed and by virtue of which he held his power. 
 
 Juarez, after the enactment of the law which bore his name, had, 
 for a time, been Governor of the State of Oaxaca, and, while holding 
 that office, he had been elected Chief Justice of the Republic and ex- 
 officio Vice-President, and was, at the time of the Comonfort rebellion, 
 also acting as Secretary of the Interior. 
 
 He became Comonfort's successor and undertook to stem the tide 
 of rebellion and reaction. In the City of Mexico, most of the old 
 regular army of the country were in favor of the Conservative or 
 Church Party. The City, therefore, fell into the hands of Juarez's 
 enemies and he had to fly from it. He went to the interior where he 
 established his government, first at Queretaro, afterwards at Guana- 
 juato and Guadalajara. Finally he sailed from Manzanillo, a Mexican 
 port on the Pacific, to Panama, New Orleans, and back to Vera Cruz on 
 the Atlantic coast, where he remained for some time. Vera Cruz was 
 the stronghold of the Liberal Party. It was naturally a strong place 
 and well fortified. It was protected also by its bad climate and the 
 prevalence of yellow fever there, and was the best place he could have 
 selected to establish his government. He remained at Vera Cruz from 
 March, 1858, to December, 1S60, during which time the principal cities 
 of the country were in the hands of the Church Party. The Liberal 
 army, though often defeated, was never destroyed, for the people were 
 with them and recruits came in abundance. After a defeat, they reor- 
 ganized their armies and were soon ready to meet the enemy again. 
 Their courage and persistence were finally rewarded, and they were vic- 
 torious in the decisive battle of Calpulalpan on the 24th of December, 
 i860. During the terrible struggle which we call the War of Reform,
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 5i 
 
 Juarez issued from Vera Cruz our Reform Laws, which had for their ob- 
 ject to destroy the political power that the clergy had exercised before. 
 The church property was declared national property and was sold by 
 the government to the occupants of it at a nominal price, payable par- 
 tially in national bonds, then selling at a very great discount. Thus 
 was the clergy deprived of all political rights. Their convents, both of 
 monks and nuns, were suppressed. The number of churches existing 
 in the country was considerably reduced. Complete independence be- 
 tween the Church and the State was proclaimed. A civil registry of 
 births, marriages and deaths was established, taking from the clergy all 
 interference with such subjects which had been up to then under their 
 sole supervision. 
 
 Processions and all other religious demonstrations outside of the 
 church, as well as the ringing of bells, were prohibited. The number of 
 feast days, which then amounted to nearly one-fourth of all the days of 
 the year and tended to keep the people in idleness, was reduced to not 
 more than two or three for the whole year. The wearing outside of 
 the church of the priest's peculiar habit was prohibited and many other 
 stringent measures against the Church were adopted, with a view to 
 destroy its political power and to deprive it of the means to bring 
 about another insurrection against the government. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that most of the Liberal leaders were law- 
 yers. It was lawyers, who, influenced solely by patriotism and a desire 
 for the success of the Liberal cause and without any military education, 
 had to lead our armies during the long civil wars. Some of them be- 
 came very distinguished soldiers in our war, as in yours here in the 
 United States. Mr. Logan is therefore correct when he says that the 
 final success of the Liberal cause in Mexico was due in a great measure 
 to the jurists of the nation, so much so that they incurred the special 
 hatred of the Church party, and the name of "lawyer" was wont to be 
 used by them as a contemptuous designation for the Liberal leaders. 
 
 After the battle of Calpulalpan, where General Miramon, the last 
 Church Party President, was defeated, Juarez left Vera Cruz and estab- 
 lished his government at the City of Mexico. He then convened con- 
 gress, ordered an election, and in 1861 he was elected President for his 
 first constitutional term. The Reform Laws did not become operative 
 until after Juarez occupied the City of Mexico and his rule extended
 
 52 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 over the whole country. The Church Party did not give up the struggle, 
 but began it again with renewed vigor and started a new insurrection in 
 1861 especially against the execution of the Reform Laws. This insurrec- 
 tion was not of a serious character, because they could not capture any 
 important places or defeat the government troops, but they did succeed 
 in keeping up an unsettled conditioh of things throughout the country. 
 When the Church Party became satisfied that the Liberal Party had 
 grown so that they did not have strength enough at home to overcome 
 it, they went to Europe and began an intrigue with European courts to 
 secure a European intervention in Mexico. Unfortunately, about that 
 time the civil war in the United States broke out. The French emperor 
 seemed quite certain of the success of the Confederacy, and was very 
 well disposed to avail himself of the opportunity offered by the Mexican 
 Church Party of gaining a foothold in Mexico and of effectually aiding 
 in the permanent division of the United States. He had, besides, his 
 dreams of establishing a French empire in America bordering on the 
 Pacific. Under his influence, an alliance was made between France, 
 England and Spain, and Maximilian was persuaded to come to Mexico. 
 England and Spain withdrew before the war actually began, and Napo- 
 leon's army was defeated at Puebla on the 5th of May, 1S62 ; but after 
 being considerably reinforced, he succeeded in occupying both Puebla 
 and the City of Mexico in 1863, and so began the French Intervention. 
 You are familiar with the details of that intervention and I will not say 
 anything more about it. When peace was restored in this country, after 
 the collapse of the confederacy, Napoleon, of course, understood that 
 he could not continue for an indefinite period his occupation of Mexico, 
 and that he had to give up his Mexican plans, and withdraw his army 
 from the country. Maximilian well knew that he could not remain in 
 Mexico after the withdrawal of the French, and he decided to leave the 
 country as soon as he heard that the French army was to be withdrawn ; 
 but unfortunately he was not a man equal to the occasion. He was not 
 steady in his resolutions, and he was persuaded by the leaders of the 
 Church Party to return to the City of Mexico. He had already started 
 on his homeward journey and gone so far as Orizaba, very near Vera 
 Cruz, where the " Novara," the same Austrian man-of-war which had 
 brought him to Mexico in 1864, lay ready to take him back to his native 
 country, having been sent over at his request by the Emperor of Aus-
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 55 
 
 tria. It was in March, 1867, that he returned to the City of Mexico. 
 Shortly afterwards he went to Queretaro, where he was finally captured 
 and shot, as you all know. In July of that year, the Juarez government 
 was again restored to the City of Mexico, and another election took 
 place, in which Juarez was almost unanimously elected by the people 
 for another term from 1S67 to 187 1. 
 
 After the French Intervention, believing that it would be good to 
 establish some competition to the Catholic Church in Mexico, by which 
 she would profit herself, I sold, as Secretary of the Treasury, to a 
 Protestant congregation, of which I was not a member, for the nominal 
 price of 84,000 in government bonds, the finest church in Mexico, after 
 the cathedral. It was very well situated, and I think could not be 
 built now for $1,000,000. I have just heard that the building has been 
 recently sold for a large amount of money and is to be opened again as 
 a Catholic church. 
 
 In a country where civil war had lasted for such a long time every- 
 thing was demoralized, and so, even after our complete success against 
 the French Intervention and the so-called Empire of Maximilian, some 
 uprisings took place, which were now headed by dissatisfied Liberal 
 leaders, and although they were of no serious nature and were easily 
 subdued by President Juarez, they kept the country in an unsettled 
 condition and contributed to support the view that we were unable to 
 maintain peace. President Juarez died on July 18, 1872, and President 
 Lerdo de Tejada, who succeeded him, first as Vice-President and after- 
 wards as constitutional President, held the office until November, 1876, 
 when General Diaz became President. Among the many distinguished 
 services that General Diaz has rendered to Mexico, perhaps the prin- 
 cipal one is to have restored complete peace to the country. During 
 the several terms during which he has filled the executive office, he has 
 earnestly encouraged the material development of the country and 
 firmly established peace and order. Material development always fur- 
 nishes the best of security that the public peace will be maintained. 
 
 It will be readily seen by this incomplete synopsis that the causes 
 which brought about the civil wars in Mexico are now over. Ours was 
 a contest for supremacy between the vital forces of the nation, between 
 the old and the new ideas, which in other countries has taken long 
 years, and even centuries, to be settled ; but now our political problem 
 is solved, the Church party has completely broken down as a political
 
 54 A MEXICAN LA W 80 IT. 
 
 organization and cannot cause again any serious disturbance, and the 
 elements of civil war are now lacking. Mexico, now for nearly twenty 
 years, has been at peace and enjoyed all the advantages of a permanent 
 peace. Such persons as took part in former revolutions have either 
 died, disappeared, or are now interested in the maintenance of peace, 
 because they are thriving under the development of the country. 
 Even in case President Diaz's guidance should fail Mexico, I am sure 
 that peace would be preserved, because the interests in its favor are 
 very strong. Railways and telegraphs are great preservers of peace. 
 In case of an insurrection, it was not long ago that it took months 
 before the government could reach the insurgents, and in the mean- 
 time they could organize and fortify themselves and make considerable 
 headway before they were confronted by an enemy. Now the govern- 
 ment can send troops at once to quell it. 
 
 It is only necessary to understand the philosophy of the disturb- 
 ances with which we were afflicted for over fifty years to see that the 
 causes which produced them no longer exist. I consider, therefore, 
 that peace in Mexico is as secure as it is in any other country, and that life 
 and property are as safe there as anywhere else. Public opinion seems to 
 share this view, and capital, especially foreign capital, which is so con- 
 servative and timid, is now being freely invested in Mexican enterprises. 
 
 Before finishing my conversation, I beg of you to allow me to say a 
 few words about Juarez of whom Mr. Logan has spoken with such 
 encomium. His career was really remarkable. He was a full-blooded 
 Indian, born in a small town inhabited only by Indians, and where there 
 was but one man — the parish priest — who spoke Spanish and could read 
 and write. Juarez was so anxious to learn Spanish and to acquire an 
 education, that he offered his services to the priest under condition that 
 he should be taught. The priest found him so intelligent that he sent 
 him to the city of Oaxaca to be educated. From such humble begin- 
 nings, he rose to be a prominent lawyer and a foremost statesman. He 
 was, at different times. Secretary of State of his own state, Member of 
 the State Legislature, State Senator, Governor of his state for several 
 terms, Representative to the Federal Congress, Secretary of Justice and 
 of the Interior, Chief Justice, Vice-President, and finally President of 
 the Republic. His principal characteristics were his profound conviction 
 of liberal principles, his very clear mind, his remarkably good common
 
 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 55 
 
 sense, his great moral courage, his unimpeached integrity and honest)', 
 his great patriotism, his tenacit}- of purpose and devotion to civil gov- 
 ernment. In time of war, when the destinies of the country were in his 
 hands and depended on the result of a battle, and when many others in 
 his place would have led an army, he purposely abstained from exercis- 
 ing any military duties. These he left entirely to those of his associates 
 who had shown talent for war, and he himself set the example of a 
 purely civil government. He had as much personal courage as any man 
 in the world. I saw him more than once, facing death as near and sure 
 as any man ever did, with perfect calmness and almost indifference, but 
 without bravado. I am sure he felt that it is best for a patriot to 
 die in the service of his country, because in that case he wins for him- 
 self immortality, and it is on this theory that I account for the fact that 
 he was never afraid to die if he died while in the performance of a 
 patriotic duty. His physical courage was as great as his moral cour- 
 age, and it was by no means easy for him to resist the temptation to try 
 to win for himself some military laurels during the War of the French 
 Intervention. He had been in this country as an exile, living for some 
 time in New Orleans, where he supported himself by working as a cigar 
 maker. He admired your free institutions, and it was his earnest wish 
 to establish them in Mexico and to see everybody there as happy and 
 free as he had seen the people of the United States. 
 
 Another of his characteristics was his tenacity of purpose and 
 his devotion to the right. His saying that " peace is respect for the 
 rights of others" has become an axiom among us. There was a time, 
 during the French Intervention, in which many seemed to despair of the 
 fate of Mexico, and that feeling was not entirely unreasonable, consid- 
 ering that the country was invaded by a very large French army — some 
 sixty or eighty thousand men, I think. Besides, Napoleon and Max- 
 imilian had contrived to have an Austrian Auxiliary Corps, besides a 
 corps from Hungary, and another from Belgium — Maximilian's wife was 
 a daughter of the former King of Belgium and a sister of the present 
 King — and he had also one contingent from the French colony of Algiers 
 and the command of the troops of the Church party, which were on his 
 side and embraced most of our old regular army, and, finally, he had all 
 the aristocratic elements of Mexico in his favor. Altogether, the array 
 was so great that it was no wonder that many of our public men had, 
 sometimes, little hope of success. Hut Juarez never dcspaircil for a
 
 56 A MEXICAN LAW SUIT. 
 
 second. He was as certain of final success as we are now that, after 
 the great darkness of this night, the sun will rise to-morrow, to shed its 
 brilliant light upon us and give new life to the earth. 
 
 His sense of duty was so rigid that, having established his govern- 
 ment during the French Intervention at El Paso del Norte, a small 
 town on the right bank of the Rio Grande, where he remained for about 
 three years, he never crossed the river to visit the opposite side, for 
 fear that such visit might be considered as a desertion of his post. 
 
 Mr. Seward's estimate of the character of Juarez, shows how the 
 Anglo-Saxon was impressed by the little Indian. When Mr. Seward 
 visited Mexico on his trip around the world, he was heartily welcomed 
 by my country and in a remarkable speech that he made in the City of 
 Puebla, he said that Juarez was the greatest man that he had ever met 
 in his life. His speech was taken down in shorthand and Mr. Thomas 
 H. Nelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, then United States Minister to 
 Mexico, noticing this phrase and thinking that in the excitement of the 
 moment Mr. Seward had gone further than he intended and further 
 than he would like to have repeated after a sober second thought, took 
 it to Mr. Seward and said to him, " Governor, will you be willing to 
 stand by what you said in your speech, about Juarez being the greatest 
 man you ever knew ? Remember that you have been the peer and con- 
 temporary of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and many other distinguished men 
 of our country, and that you place Juarez above them all." Mr. Seward 
 answered, " What I said about Juarez was after mature consideration, and 
 I am willing to stand by my opinion." I think to quote this opinion is 
 the best thing I could say of Juarez before an Anglo-Saxon audience. 
 
 I could enlarge this conversation, mentioning a great many other 
 incidents about the condition of Mexico, which support the views I have 
 presented here this evening, and I could say a great deal more about 
 the remarkable life of President Juarez and other topics which have 
 been touched upon in Mr. Logan's paper ; but I feel that it would be 
 intruding too much upon your valuable time. I understand that most 
 of the ladies and gentlemen present here have other engagements for 
 the evening which are awaiting them, and I have already spoken longer 
 than I intended. I will, therefore, close my remarks by again thanking 
 you very sincerely for the great honor that you have conferred upon me 
 in inviting me to be present at this meeting and to address you to-night.
 
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