A good illustration of this uncertainty of affairs is seen in the treatment and fate of the grim old patriot Guerrero. Born of very low Indian parents he had climbed to the front and borne many of the burdens of the struggle with Spain. He cheerfully yielded his command to the renegade Iturbide, and fought valiantly under that leader for liberty. By a turn of fortune he became the third president in 1829. A few months later he was compelled to flee, but was soon afterwards betrayed and captured at Acapulco. At a farcical trial he was condemned to death as “morally incapable” to act as president, and shot on the 15th of February, 1831, at Cuilapa. Soon afterwards he was declared a martyr and his body removed to the capital with honours. Two monuments to this martyr now adorn that city, and a state has been named after him. Under his short rule slavery was abolished by statute. Elections eventually became a farce. The unfortunate habit was acquired of appealing to arms instead of submitting to the result of the ballot. The trouble was that the people had copied the letter, and not the spirit of the American constitution. Liberty was interpreted as license, after their exaggerated ideas of the former. The scheming politicians would hesitate at nothing—revolution or civil war—to attain private ends or personal aggrandizement. A general indolence of character, and the hindrances to the acquirement of property among the masses, made the people more willing to yield to disturbing and designing politicians. They are impetuous by nature, impatient of restraint and easily fired up. The rapid changes in government can be seen when you read that there were five different presidents in each of the years 1846 and 1847, and four in 1855—not an evidence of tranquillity at least. The two leading parties constantly at war were the “progresistas” and “retrogrados.”