In the preceding chapter I have glanced at the character of the people of Mexico, and I trust that the sketch I gave will be continually remembered as illustrating the people with whom we are dealing. When our first envoy, Mr. Poinsett, was despatched, he found Mexico pausing to recover breath after her revolution. The bad government of Spain had been followed by the turmoil and bloodshed of the rebellion, and that, in turn, was succeeded by the anarchy of a distracted republic. Revolution has followed revolution so rapidly since then, that the historian, at a loss to discover their causes, can scarcely detect their pretexts. For twenty years past we have been so accustomed to hear of a new military outbreak in Mexico that the familiarized act seems to be only the legitimate order of constitutional change. Passion, ambition, turbulence, avarice, and superstition, have so devoured the country, that during the whole of this period, Mexico, whilst presenting to foreign nations, the external appearance of nationality, has, in fact, at home, scarcely ever enjoyed the benefit of a real or stable government that could make an impression upon the character of the people or their rulers. It is true that, at first, she sought to adopt our federal system; but the original difference between the colonial condition of things in the two countries, made the operation of it almost impossible. The British provinces of North America, with their ancient and separate governments, very naturally united in a federation for national purposes, whilst they retained their freedom and laws as independent States. But the viceroyalty of Mexico, when it revolutionized its government, was forced to reverse our system,--to destroy the original central power, and, subsequently to divide the territory into departments, or states. Until the year 1824, nothing of this kind existed in Mexico. The whole country from the Sabine to its utmost southern limit, was under the central rule of a viceroy, with the same laws, religion, priests, judges, and civil as well as military authorities. The constitution of 1824, for the first time broke up the consolidated nation into nineteen states, and then, by the same legislative act, recomposed them in a federative union. The constitutions of these nineteen states, consequently, were creative of differences that never existed before, and the unity of power, will, and action, which previously existed was destroyed forever. This was, naturally the origin of jealousies, parties, and sectional feeling; and the result was, that the revenues of the country became wasted whilst their collection was impeded, and that a people unused to freedom and chiefly composed of illiterate _creoles_, were confounded by a scheme of government whose machinery was too intricate.[20]