MEXICO 199
capitalism. By 1843 the Banco de Avío had to close
its doors for lack of funds. The Mexican economy,
therefore, continued to be based on mining and ag-
riculture. Mexico’s principal exports were precious
metals, especially silver, and such agricultural
products as tobacco, coffee, vanilla, cochineal, and
henequen (a plant fi ber used in rope and twine).
Imports consisted primarily of manufactured goods
that Mexican industry could not supply.
POLITICS: LIBERALS VERSUS CONSERVATIVES
A liberal-conservative cleavage dominated Mexi-
can political life in the half-century after indepen-
dence. That confl ict was latent from the moment
that the “liberator” Iturbide, the former scourge
of insurgents, rode into Mexico City on September
27, 1821, fl anked on either side by two insurgent
generals, Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victo-
ria, fi rm republicans and liberals. The fall of Itur-
bide in 1823 cleared the way for the establishment
of a republic. But it soon became apparent that the
republicans were divided into liberals and conser-
vatives, federalists and centralists.
The constitution of 1824 represented a com-
promise between liberal and conservative interests.
It appeased regional economic interests, which
were fearful of a too-powerful central government,
by creating nineteen states that possessed taxing
power; their legislatures, each casting one vote,
chose the president and vice president for four-
year terms. The national legislature was made bi-
cameral, with an upper house (Senate) and a lower
house (Chamber of Deputies). By ensuring the
creation of local civil bureaucracies, the federalist
structure also satisfi ed the demand of the provincial
middle classes for greater access to political activity
and offi ce. But the constitution had a conservative
tinge as well: although the church lost its monop-
oly on education, Catholicism was proclaimed the
offi cial religion, and the fueros of the church and
the army were specifi cally confi rmed.
A hero of the war of independence, the lib-
eral general Guadalupe Victoria, was elected fi rst
president under the new constitution. Anxious to
preserve unity, Victoria brought the conservative
Lucas Alamán into his cabinet. But this era of
good feeling was very short-lived; by 1825, Alamán
was forced out of the government. The liberal-
conservative cleavage now assumed the form of
a rivalry that refl ected the Anglo-American com-
petition for economic and political infl uence in
Mexico. Founded by the American minister Joel
Roberts Poinsett, the York Rite Masonic lodge fa-
vored liberals and federalists, who regarded the
United States as a model for their own reform pro-
gram. Its rival, the Scottish Rite lodge, sponsored by
the British chargé d’affaires Henry Ward, appealed
to the Conservative Party, which represented the
old landed and mining aristocracy, the clerical and
military hierarchy, monopolistic merchants, and
some manufacturers. Its intellectual spokesman and
organizer was Lucas Alamán, statesman, cham-
pion of industry, and author of a brilliant history of
Mexico from the conservative point of view.
The Liberal Party represented a creole and mes-
tizo middle class—provincial landowners, profes-
sional men, artisans, the lower ranks of the clergy
and military—determined to end special privileges
and the concentration of political and economic
power in the upper class. A priest-economist,
José María Luis Mora, presented the liberal position
with great force and lucidity. But the Liberal Party
was divided: the moderados wanted to proceed
slowly and sometimes joined the conservatives,
whereas the puros advocated sweeping antifeudal,
anticlerical reforms.
During the fi rst decade after independence,
none of these factions could consolidate its con-
trol over the nation, but the year 1833 was a
high-water mark of liberal achievement. Aided by
Mora, his minister of education, the puro President
Valentín Gómez Farías pushed through Congress
a series of radical reforms: abolition of the special
privileges and immunities of the army and church
(meaning that offi cers and priests would now be
subject to the jurisdiction of civil courts), abolition
of tithes, secularization of the clerical University of
Mexico, creation of a department of public instruc-
tion, reduction of the army, and creation of a ci-
vilian militia. These measures were accompanied
by a program of internal improvements designed