Federated Republic of Mexico: Map & History

History

Fierce political controversy over federalism and centralism continued during the Victoria Administration, finding itself based in Mexico's Masonic lodges. Conservative supporters of centralism and surviving supporters of monarchy tended to belong to the Scottish Rite and were called Esoceses while liberal supporters of federalism tended to gather in the York Rite and were called Yorkinos. Participants in political discussions at the lodges were bound by secrecy, and there was some effort in the government to ban such secret societies, but it came to nothing.

In order to fund the government the Victoria administration had taken out a loan from a British banking house, but the bank failed in 1827, leading to a financial crisis in the Mexican government.

Government

The Constitution of 1824 began by declaring the absolute independence of the country, confirming the Roman Catholic religion as the only one permitted in the nation, and formally establishing the states that were to make up the republic Government was then divided into the three separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

The legislative branch was to be made up of a two chambered congress: a popularly elected chamber of deputies with the seats each state had dependent on its population, and a senate elected by the state legislatures, with each state represented by two senators. Certain state, federal, military, and church officials were forbidden from simultaneously holding their offices and running for congress.

Background

The Spanish Empire disintegrated in the wake of Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons in 1808. Throughout Spain and her colonies there was a widespread refusal to recognize Napoleon's brother Joseph II as the new French-backed king of Spain. The cleric Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who had long been part of a circle of intellectuals who sought to reform the colonial system triggered the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 by accusing the Spanish ruling classes of seeking to recognize Joseph Bonaparte, while proclaiming loyalty to the imprisoned Ferdinand VII. The subsequent uprising would go on to seriously threaten the capital yet it was ultimately defeated within a year and Hidalgo was captured and executed.