The First Mexican Republic, known also as the First Federal Republic (Spanish: Primera República Federal), existed from 1824 to 1835. It was a federated republic, established by the Constitution of 1824, the first constitution of independent Mexico, and officially designated the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos, ).[2][3][4] It ended in 1835, when conservatives under Antonio López de Santa Anna transformed it into a unitary state, the Centralist Republic of Mexico.
The republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1823[5] by the Supreme Executive Power, months after the fall of the Mexican Empire ruled emperor Agustin I, a former royalist military officer-turned-insurgent for independence. The federation was formally and legally established on October 4, 1824, when the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States came into force.[6]
The First Republic was plagued through its entire twelve-year existence by severe financial and political instability. Political controversies, ever since the drafting of the constitution tended to center around whether Mexico should be a federal or a centralist state, with wider liberal and conservative causes attaching themselves to each faction respectively. With the exception of the inaugural office holder, Guadalupe Victoria, every single administration during the First Republic was overthrown by military coup d'état.
The First Republic would finally collapse after the overthrow of the liberal president Valentín Gómez Farías, through a rebellion led by his former vice-president, General Antonio López de Santa Anna who had switched sides. Once in power, the conservatives, who had long been critical of the federal system and blamed it for the nation's instability, repealed the Constitution of 1824 on October 23, 1835, and the Federal Republic became a unitary state, the Centralist Republic. The unitary regime was formally established on December 30, 1836, with the enactment of the seven constitutional laws.[7]
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.
The war would continue and be organized under Jose Maria Morelos who would gain control over much of southern New Spain. At the Congress of Chilpancingo in 1813 he renounced loyalty to Ferdinand and expounded a plan for an independent, Republican Mexico. The Constitution of Apatzingán was ratified on October 22, 1814, but it would never come into effect. The tide of war began to turn against the insurgents, and Morelos was captured and executed in 1815.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the Spanish government in exile, the liberal dominated Cortes of Cádiz had included representatives from the colonies, and taken into account many of the colonial grievances which were leading to independence. The consequent liberal Constitution of 1812, was promulgated during the Morelos insurgency. It established a system of 'provincial deputations' which granted more autonomy to local governments in the colonies while also providing for freedom of speech. The newly liberated Mexican press however simply inflamed anti-Spanish sentiment, Morelos' rebellion continued, and on the pretext of necessity for subduing the rebels, the constitution was suspended in New Spain the same year it was proclaimed, making Mexican liberals lose hope of attaining reform within the colonial system, while not forgetting the local provincial autonomy that they had temporarily been granted.
Independence was finally gained in 1821 under Agustín de Iturbide's Plan of Iguala which was a conservative reaction against the outbreak of the Trienio Liberal in Spain, but also a compromise with those Mexican liberals who sought equality before the law. Mexico was to have its independence under a commonwealth system with constitutional monarchy maintaining ties to Spain and commissioners were sent to Spain to offer the throne to a Spanish prince. The Spanish government refused the offer and a popular demonstration led to Iturbide himself assuming the throne. The Emperor immediately however began to clash with legislature and showed himself determined to have supreme authority over the government, even shutting congress down and replacing it with a body of loyalists. Iturbide struggled to pay the army, and eventually Santa Anna pronounced in favor of a Federal Republic in his Plan of Casa Mata. After being unable to suppress the rebellion Iturbide reconvened congress and offered his abdication after which he was exiled from the nation. He would attempt to return the following year while Mexico was under a provisional government only to be captured and executed.
The provisional government was led by a triumvirate consisting of Nicolas Bravo, Pedro Negrete, and Guadalupe Victoria, the latter who would eventually go on to become the first president of Mexico. Congress organized elections for a new Constituent Congress that was meant to draft a new constitution, and the newly elected body met on November 7, 1823.[11]
Controversy now raged over whether the new republic was going to be a federal system or a unitary system. A certain level of local autonomy had already been granted through a system of provincial deputations introduced through the Spanish Constitution of 1812. A de facto state of federalism to a degree already existed when the constituent congress met.[12] The most prominent opponent of sustaining and expanding the federal system however was Father Mier who had previously made a name for himself as a critic of Iturbide. He argued that the nation needed a strong centralized government to guard against Spanish attempts to reconquer her former colony, and that a federation rather suited a situation in which previously well established sovereign states were attempting to unite as had happened with the United States. Federation for Mexico, according to Mier would then be more an act of separation rather than unification and only lead to internal conflict.[13]
The arguments for federation prevailed however, motivated by the autonomy already gained, and an eagerness to reap the salaries that would accompany local bureaucracies.[14] For historian Timothy Anna, "the transition to a federal republic [as opposed to the initial triumph of independence] was the real 'revolution' because the old gave way to the new in Mexican history."[15] Mexico decided upon federation as a practical compromise between the need for effective national government and the desire for granting the provinces a voice.[16] Miguel Ramos Arizpe, former Mexican deputy to the Spanish Cortes and one of the champions of federalism was tasked with drafting the new constitution and he modeled the document on the Constitution of the United States.[14] The completed constitution was published on October 4, 1824.
In the new federated republican era, the transition from the colonial legal system was not easy. Crown edicts no longer had force and new legal codes had not yet come into being. No one knew which laws were valid, there were vacancies in the courts, and few trained lawyers. States were accorded the power over most civil and criminal legal matters. The separate court for merchants, the consulado, was abolished, but the military and church courts retained jurisdiction over soldiers and clergy respectively as part of their fuero.[17] For members of indigenous communities, the removal of colonial-era protections of their community lands and their access to the special General Indian Court made them more vulnerable in the new federated republican order.
The first presidential elections were held the same week that the constitution was promulgated and Guadalupe Victoria, war hero of independence, and one of the three members of the triumvirate was elected the first president of the First Mexican Republic.
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.[18]
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.
Tensions against the Spaniards who remained in Mexico were also rising at this time and they sought to defend themselves by supporting the Escoceses.[19] Calls to expel the Spaniards from the country challenged the tenets of the newly established liberal constitution, which stressed equality before the law. The leading liberal intellectual, José María Luis Mora, was opposed to Spaniards' expulsion as a matter of principle, but also on practical grounds, since Spanish merchants had been vital to the flourishing of the colonial economy.[20] Nonetheless, the Spaniards were expelled in December, 1827, under the pretext of suppressing sedition.
On December 23, 1827, the conservative Escoseses proclaimed the Plan of Montaño, demanding the expulsion of Joel Poinsett, the end to secret societies, and the dismissal of the current cabinet, the latter measure due to the belief that the Yorkino dominated government was about to take decisive measures to suppress the Escoceses.