Monarchism in Mexico
Monarchism in Mexico is the political ideology that defends the establishment, restoration, and preservation of a monarchical form of government in Mexico. Monarchism was a recurring factor in the decades during and after Mexico's struggle for independence.
Beginning in 1808, it was unclear near the ending of the kingdom of the Viceroyalty of New Spain what form of government—monarchical or republican—might replace the absolutism of Ferdinand VII of Spain, but the default position in that era was monarchy.[1] In 1821, Mexico declared the Independence of the Mexican Empire. However, lacking a prince to ascend the Throne of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide, a criollo royalist general who made an alliance with the insurgents for independence, was proclaimed president of the Regency. His Plan of Iguala united factions for independence and envisioned a sovereign nation, with the stated hope that new state would be led by a member of the Spanish royal family or a prince from another European royal house.
In the absence, still, of a willing or unprohibited candidate from an established royal house, Iturbide was elected Emperor of Mexico by the Mexican congress in 1822 as Agustín I. Conflicts between congress and the emperor, coupled with the emperor's struggle to pay the military which propped up his regime, led to the empire's collapse. The emperor abdicated and went into exile in 1823. Mexico established a federated republic under the Constitution of 1824, but the idea of monarchy continued among Mexican conservatives.[2]
Mexican monarchism was discredited following the First Mexican Empire’s fall, and some scholars have written that "there was no effective monarchist support in Mexico between the Empire of Iturbide and the Empire of Maximilian."[3] Nonetheless monarchists such as Lucas Alaman continued to hope that monarchy was a viable solution to Mexico's political turmoil by inviting a European prince to assume the Mexican throne, following the precedent set by nations such as the United Kingdom, Greece, and Belgium, who elected their monarchs from different countries.[4] Many in the Conservative Party continued to voice monarchical aspirations as early as 1832, with many believing that “only a monarchy could save Mexico from anarchy and the United States”.[5] Regardless, "many times, the monarchist proposals were little more than private intrigues, lacking any real support".[6]
These ideas attracted interest in European courts, culminating in a French intervention in Mexico in 1861, with the aim of helping the Mexican Conservative party establish a Mexican monarchy, this time with Archduke Maximilian of Austria as emperor. The idea of monarchy gained increasing Mexican support following the military defeat of conservatives in the War of the Reform, sparked by the promulgation of the liberal Constitution of 1857. The victorious liberal government of Benito Juárez suspended payment to bond holders, which gave European powers the pretext to intervene militarily for debt collection. In these circumstances, Mexican conservatives invited Archduke Maximilian to become emperor as French forces of Napoleon III invaded central Mexico. The establishment of the Empire by French troops, with support of Mexican Imperial forces, tainted the imperial regime's legitimacy from the start. This was further compounded by the fact that Juárez never left the national territory and was considered the legitimate head of state by the United States. Mexican conservatives expected the monarch to adhere to conservative principles, but Emperor Maximilian was politically a liberal and ratified many of the reforms of the liberal republican government that his regime displaced. The Second Mexican Empire was established when the U.S. was engaged in its civil war (1861–65), and with its end could give material support to Juárez's republican forces. With Napoleon III's withdrawal of French forces in 1866-67, the Empire collapsed in 1867. Emperor Maximilian was captured, tried, and executed. His execution by firing squad of the Restored Republic marked the end of monarchy in Mexico.
The Spanish legacy[edit]
For over 300 years, the colony of New Spain was ruled by viceroys representing the King of Spain. Only three of the viceroys were ever born in Mexico, the rest having been born in Spain, and usually going back after a few years of ruling.
During this time, two royal houses ruled Mexico. The House of Habsburg ruled Mexico from the conquest up until the War of Spanish Succession in 1714 when control of Spain and her colonies passed over to the House of Bourbon which began a program of modernization known as the Bourbon reforms.
The first serious proposal for an independent Mexican monarchy came about after Spain's support for the successful American War of Independence, Count Aranda, one of the king's ministers proposed to King Charles IV the establishment of a Spanish Commonwealth with independent kingdoms in New Spain, Peru, and New Granada as a compromise between Spain's colonial interests and the strengthening trend of decolonization.[7]
Plan of Chicontla[edit]
The Plan of the Indigenous Monarchy, proposed in Chicontla (Puebla), on February 2 of 1834 by the priests Carlos Tepisteco Abad and Epigmenio de la Piedra, sought the development of a constitutional Monarchy governed by a member of the House of Moctezuma who had was elected in a 12 Mexican Nobles of the indigenous Nobility (who would have previously been chosen by a Constituent Assembly), as a solution to the crisis during the Mexican Civil Wars.[14] The project was unpopular and did not have any relevance.
Gutiérrez Estrada's essay[edit]
The Republican system prevailed through the following decades, and the nation suffered much turmoil, including multiple coups, financial insolvency, and the loss of Texas.
In 1840, in the aftermath of the Federalist Revolt of 1840 which had led to twelve days of devastating fighting in the middle of the capital and substantial damage to the National Palace, José María Gutiérrez de Estrada published a pamphlet advocating a constitutional convention to examine what had gone wrong with the nation. He also argued that the convention ought to be given the power to suggest any form of government as a remedy for Mexico, and openly argued that in his own opinion a monarchy headed by a foreign prince was the best form of government for Mexico at the time.[15]
He strongly criticized the notion that there was one ideal form of government for all nations and all circumstances and pointed out the troubles that liberals even in France were experiencing trying to set up republic in recent times.[16] He also warned that the chaos Mexico was experiencing was inevitably leading to foreign intervention. He warned of a future American annexation of Mexico, and preferred to at least have the choice of selecting a foreign monarch who would have a vested interest in the success of Mexico.[17]
The Mexican government reacted to the pamphlet by characterizing it as treasonous and as an incitement to civil war. Multiple refutations were penned. The publisher was imprisoned, and Gutierrez Estrada was exiled to Europe.[18] Nonetheless, the Mexican–American War bore out some of Estrada's predictions, encouraging him in his continued campaign to establish a monarchy.[19] One of Estrada's critics at the time, General Juan Almonte would later change his opinion on monarchy and become a key figure in the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire.[20]
El Universal[edit]
Mexican political thinkers were in a state of exasperation following the international humiliation and dismemberment of the nation in by the United States in the Mexican–American War. The disaster of the war helped contribute to a resurgence in monarchism, to the point that in a letter between liberal thinkers José María Luis Mora and Mariano Otero, Otero opined that the monarchist party may have been triumphant in Mexico if the monarchy had not just been overthrown in France in the Revolution of 1848, thus influencing the political fashion in favor of republicanism.[31]
[32]
In the aftermath of the Mexican–American War, the cause by El Tiempo was taken up by the newspaper El Universal, once again under the influence of Lucas Alamán. It began publication in Mexico City in November 1848. It featured many of the same contributors that had written for El Tiempo, but also added Rafael de Rafael, Ignacio Aguilar y Marocho, José Dolores Ulibarri, and Father Manuel de San Juan Crisóstomo Nájera. Much like El Tiempo, it took up the tactic of implying that monarchy was the best form of government for Mexico rather than outright stating it. Its articles tended to criticize the federal organization of the Mexican Republic, as established in the 1824 Constitution.
A political pamphlet surveying the various Mexican factions in 1851 recognized the monarchists, their ties to the Conservative Party, and the leadership of Lucas Alamán, but also dismissed their success as impossible due to the nearby example of a successful republic provided by the United States.[33]
Alamán's last attempt[edit]
In 1853, a coup overthrew president Mariano Arista, and Lucas Alamán invited Santa Anna to assume the presidency of the nation, intending for him to hold power only until a foreign monarch could be found. Alamán was made Secretary of Foreign Relations, and he revealed his monarchist project to the French minister Andre Levasseur.[34] The government established contact with José María Gutiérrez Estrada and granted him official diplomatic credentials, instructing him to start looking for a royal candidate among the courts of Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Madrid.[35] Upon the suggestion of Estrada, another monarchist, Jose Maria Hidalgo was granted a diplomatic post in Spain in order to seek a Spanish candidate for the throne.[36]
Lucas Alamán died on June 2, 1853, and in 1855, a liberal coup overthrew Santa Anna, and Estrada and Hidalgo lost official government recognition, and ending the official effort to seek a monarchy for Mexico. In the wake of the controversies that arose in the subsequent, liberal administration of Juan Álvarez, Antonio de Haro y Tamariz plotted to restore the House of Iturbide to the Mexican throne, and if there was a refusal from the pretender, Haro planned to assume the throne himself.[37]