New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-04-21
Iic.uism and selfeovsrnment is evinced BY the fact
that thess are the two portions OF Spanish America


been most violent and most frequent-so much so
az to have constituted for near forty years past the
chronic condition of those unhappy and unfortunate
countries.
Nor have these civil wars been to any consider
able extent contest of opposite principles or ideas
in religion or politics, even struggle OF castles
for which latter conflict the elements OF the
population in which the old Aboriginal stock
greatly predominstes, 50 far as numbers are con-
cerned, over the Spanish engraitment, would seem
to afford ample occasion-they have been for the
most part mere selfish and personal struggles be-
tween rival chiefs, who have contended for the
honor Of being at the head Of affairs with zeal
very much out OF proportion TO any appar-
ent glory or profit to be derived from 1t.
Ii is true that the Mexican ecclesiastics have often
been greatly mixed up in the civil commotions OF
that country-as in the recent affair of the revolt
of Puebla, which has just been suppressed-but
this has been not 20 much in their character OF
ecclesastics in that Of great propretors, anxious
10 have share in the administration Of public al
fairs proportionste to their wealth and territorial
importance, and especially anxious to shield their
property from being seized upon BY more success
full rivals.
The amount OF Improperly belonging to the Ae1i-
can clergy like every thing else relating TO the wealth
of that country, is good deal exaggerated BY the
popular imagination, which all the experience of
the Mexican war has not yet been able to diSabuse
them of the error of estimating the wealth of that
country by the nature of its principal product for
export-whch is silyer-rather than by the total
amount of all its products. Yet what ever exag.
geratOus there may be as to the absolute value Of
the Mexican church estates, there can be no doubt
that they bear very large proportion to the entire
wealth of the state. This circumstance alone,
according to law of universal application, would
lead the pOssessors of such mass OF property to
take an active part in the politics of the country;
but the Mexican clergy have additional and still
stronger call for engaging in politics. and that Is
the existence of party in the state which regards
the secularzation of the ecclesiastical estates as es
sentia at once TO the economical and political re-
generation of the country, and the probability that
any administration over which they did not exer-
else direct and potent influence, or with which,
at least, they did not have q coed understanding,
would fall in with the views of this party and at
tempt to put its schemes into execution.
In several respects there is a striking analogy
between the relations Of the Mexican clergy to
Mexican politics, and the relations Of our
Southern shareholders to our politics. Both
are comparatively small body, holding q
large amount of property; both stand in deadly
terror-the Mexican clergy Of the radical party
which advocates the secularizatiOn of the church
estates, the Southern shareholders of the Abolition
lists; both believe that their only salvation is in
keeping up an absolute control over their respective
National Goyernments both are ultra-c conservative
in their political and social ideas, and violently op-
posed to all Innovations; both are indignant at the
idea that anybody should presume to discuss their
claims, or question their rights. The Mex.
lean clergy have generally found support
and vindcation of their claims in the standing
army, which is another of the institutions Of Mex
leo of not less questionable character 20 far the
welfare and progress Of the country is concerned,
than the church itself; while our shareholders have
found no less certain reliance in our great standing
army of federal officehOlders, whose principal
chiefs have espOused their quarrel and cultivated
their favor, doubtless from much the same selfish
motives that brought Santa Anna into such intimate
relations to the Mexican clergy
Tie hold, however, which our shareholders have
upon the administration Of political affairs if
not less graspiDg and tenacious, is perhaps less
steady and reliable than that of Mexican ecclesi-
sstcs upon the politics of Mexico. The influence
of the Mexican clergy, not merely their influence
as propretors but their influence as priests, per-
yades every part alike of the Mexican territory,
while with us, however the influence Of our slave
holders may have sustained and even aggrandized
itself in the States in which their property is it is
rapidly diminishing in our Northern States, where
churches and tract societies even, as we'll as poll
ticians, are fast learning to speak to it the Chris
tan anathema-Get the behind me, Satan The
Mexican clergy carry with them the entire relig-
ious sentiment Of that country-fOr the Mexcans
who are not Catholics at heart as well as exter-
nally, have probably no religion at ally whereas
with US, though the heads and leaders Of our prin
cpal religious organizations do not appear to
regard the being STAKEHOLDER as in any way incon.
sistent with Christian sanctity yet it is none the
less true that the deeper, more fervid, and active
religious as we'll as moral sentiment Of the cOun-
Try is every way hostile to the whole institution of
Slavery, whether in the shape of slayehOlding
merely, or in is more active forms Of slayebuying,
slaye-selling, or slave. breeding. There is also
in the nature of the property which is the basis Of
the political power of the Mexican clergy, come