CENTRALIST REPUBLIC (MEXICO): ANTECEDENTS, RULERS - HISTORY - 2025

The Centralist Republic of Mexico was a system of government established for the first time in 1936, after the Seven Constitutional Laws were established by Santa Anna. Officially, the Mexican centralist period was in effect on two occasions: from 1836 to 1841 and from 1843 to 1846.

Each period was known as the First and Second Centralist Republic, respectively. Mexico's centralism was not a particularly successful historical period for the country. Rather, it arose as a consequence of a series of political problems that had been dragging the nation since its independence a short time before.

Also characteristic were the strong political differences between liberals and conservatives, in addition to the independence of Texas and its subsequent annexation to the United States.

Mexican centralism is seen as the consequence of a political experiment by the conservatives. It is thought that they simply wanted to re-establish their absolutist laws, which federalism sought to eliminate.

Background

First Mexican Empire

The establishment of the First Mexican Empire occurred as a direct consequence of the independence of Mexico. It was a monarchical government system that was tried to establish in the newly independent country, which was not very successful and had a short duration.

This and the Brazilian Empire were the only systems of government of a monarchical court that were established in America.

The little success of the Mexican Empire resulted in the formation of the First Republic, and the possibility of Mexico being controlled as a monarchy was completely ruled out. This gave way to the later establishment of centralism.

First Republic of Mexico

The First Mexican Republic was plagued with a great number of political problems. The differences between ideologies were clearly marked between both sides, from its establishment in 1824. Mexico remained federally organized until the establishment of the centralist regime in 1836.

The Federalists feared a single control of the country, as had happened during the Mexican Empire and during the colonial control of Spain.

However, conservative politicians welcomed the establishment of a centralized republic. The conservative vision grew as the years went by until it became a reality at the hands of Santa Anna.

During the First Federal Republic, Mexico maintained certain traditional laws in its Constitution, but power was exercised by three different entities (Executive Power, Legislative Power and Judicial Power).

During the administration of the first president of the Federal Republic, Guadalupe Victoria, the economy of Mexico suffered a quite forceful collapse. This occurred as a consequence of the lack of income contrasted with all the expenses that the country had.

The maintenance of the army and the payment of the foreign debt caused that Mexico was practically bankrupt. However, in 1827 an uprising by the conservatives caused more instability within Mexican politics, which led to the establishment of centralism in the country.

The changes of Gómez Farías

One of those in charge of appeasing the uprising of the conservatives during the First Republic had been the then General Santa Anna.

In fact, when the conservatives managed to gain control of the government for a short period of time, Santa Anna himself took it upon himself to expel them thanks to his military might.

When elections were called to elect a new president for the Federal Republic in 1833, the votes were in favor of Santa Anna. However, the general made the decision to leave the post and delegate presidential responsibilities to his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías.

The decisions made by Gómez Farías were highly against the conservative principles that had been present in Mexico, even during the federal government. Farías established a new system in which the State was in charge of appointing new members of the Church.

In addition, he made the payment of church tithes an optional action. Until now, tithes were mandatory in Mexico. Gómez Farías' reforms did not stop there: he also decided to reduce the size of the army.

First Centralist Republic

The direct consequence of the establishment of centralism in Mexico was the reformist mentality of Gómez Farías. After all the changes proposed by the president were established, the Church, the army and the conservative militants rose up against the federal government.

The caudillo Santa Anna, who was practically retired from political activities, went over to the side of the conservatives to oppose Gómez Farías.

The general obtained the power of the country promptly; One of his first actions as president was to dissolve Congress and establish a centralist dictatorship in Mexico.

Santa Anna's influence during Mexican centralism was quite pronounced. He was in command of the country on more than 10 different occasions, not only during the First Centralist Republic, but also during the second.

Constitution of 1836

As soon as he assumed power in Mexico, Santa Anna abolished all the reforms imposed by Gómez Farías and established the Constitution of 1836.

With this Constitution, the previous document promulgated in 1824 by means of which Mexico was organized federally was rendered invalid. This new constitution was also known as the Seven Laws.

Through the Seven Laws, Mexico became a centralist Republic, in which power rested exclusively with the president (Santa Anna) and all his immediate subordinates. The reason this Constitution was known by that name was because it changed seven fundamental elements in Mexican law.

Citizenship was guaranteed to any inhabitant of Mexico capable of reading and writing, with an income of more than 100 pesos a year.

The president was allowed the ability to suppress any decision of Congress, as well as the ability for the same government entities to elect deputies and senators.

Two other laws were based on the organization of the government in a more centralized way, and it was also prohibited to reverse these changes for six years after the decree. The federal states became departments, controlled by the centralized government.

Texas uprising

Santa Anna was president of Mexico when the first problems with the state of Texas began to arise. The proximity of this region to the United States caused more than 25,000 American emigrants to occupy the Texas region, which itself had few Mexican inhabitants.

This deeply concerned Santa Anna, as he thought that a high presence of North American settlers would make the region seek independence from Mexico. The caudillo made the decision to close the Texas border in 1830 (6 years before the establishment of centralism).

However, that decision brought consequences that were reflected in Mexico, when the centralist government had already been imposed with the Constitution of 1836.

In fact, the promulgation of the Constitution of 1836 caused Texas to declare itself an independent nation as a result of the lack of rights that were established in the document.

After Texas declared itself an independent nation, the United States annexed the territory in 1845. However, Mexico had not recognized the independence of Texas.

This caused both countries to break diplomatic relations and, subsequently, the war between Mexico and the United States broke out.

Second Centralist Republic

In 1836, a general and former president in exile, Anastasio Bustamante, was called back to Mexico to fight the war against Texas. However, Congress decided to appoint him president of the republic.

Bustamante found a country with little money and an army weakened by the war; its action potential was very low. During this presidential term, there were a lot of internal and external conflicts that made Bustamante's presidency even more difficult.

He had to deal with the French costal blockade and the subsequent Cake War; also with the invasion of Chiapas by the Guatemalan general Miguel Gutiérrez.

In addition, the uprising of the rebel José Urrea in Tamaulipas caused Bustamante to leave the presidency to dedicate himself to fighting against him, leaving Santa Anna in charge of power again.

Bustamante returned to power in 1839. He established a series of diplomatic laws with the United States, reestablishing contact with the country after the Texas conflict.

He negotiated diplomatic pacts with other European countries and during this period the first Spanish diplomat after independence was allowed to enter.

Start of the Second Republic

In 1841 Santa Anna overthrew Bustamante to return to power. He exercised such action in an authoritarian manner, but allowed the election of a new Congress to draft a new Constitution.

Given the precarious state of centralism after the fall of Bustamante, a series of ideas were proposed to reorganize the power of Mexico.

They tried to reestablish federalism at the hands of Gómez Farías, but the centralists opposed this idea. In addition, they wanted to establish a monarchy again, but this idea was also rejected.

The new Congress, elected by Santa Anna, betrayed him and established a series of laws by means of which Mexico became federalist again. However, Santa Anna dissolved the change.

In 1843, the new Organic Bases of the Republic came into force, through which centralism was reinstated and the Second Centralist Republic began.

New laws

The new laws by means of which Mexico came to be ruled, although they were centralist, gave the states a diversity of freedoms that did not exist during the First Centralist Republic. The states began to have a much greater national representation, but the final decisions were made by the central government.

According to these new laws, all the power of the Supreme Court and the government entities passed into the hands of Santa Anna, who again remained as centralist president of Mexico. In fact, the elections that took place in 1843 gave Santa Anna himself the victor.

The new Mexican Congress acted quite independently, especially for a centralized country. This made Santa Anna mobilize to dissolve it; members of Congress boasted of legislative immunity, going into exile.

Santa Anna was overthrown in 1844 by a series of officers who had had enough of his actions. According to the Constitution, the overthrown Santa Anna was replaced by José Joaquín de Herrera.

Herrera's decisions

After the conflict that occurred shortly before, Herrera recognized that Mexico had lost Texas and now they acted as an independent republic. For this reason, Herrera sought to open diplomatic negotiations with Texans to prevent his nation from joining the United States.

However, because Herrera recognized the independence of Texas, his political opponents accused him of trying to sell Texas and the Upper California area to the United States. This led to a coup that ended the Herrera government.

War with the United States and the end of centralism

After the United States annexed Texas, diplomatic relations between Mexico and the American country came to an end. Hostilities between the two countries grew on the border, until the armed conflict finally broke out in April 1846.

During the course of that year (even before the start of the war), the conversion of Mexico to a monarchy headed by the brother-in-law of the Queen of Spain was again proposed. Such a proposal caused a revolt that finally ended the centralist government.

The one who acted as president at that time, Mariano Paredes, was dismissed by a liberal movement carried out in Mexico City. The executor of the revolution was José María Yáñez, a general who raised his troops against the government in Jalisco.

José Mariano Salas took the capital, and on August 4, 1846, Mexico again became a federal republic. Santa Anna returned to power, this time on the side of the Liberals. The war against the United States culminated in the defeat of Mexico in September 1847.

The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which marked the official end of the war between the two countries.

Rulers

Antonio López from

Santa Anna was one of the most influential politicians in the history of Mexico. His decision to overwrite the Constitution of 1824 with a new constitutional document in 1835 changed the course of Mexico's political history and led the country to centralism.

Anastasio Bustamante

Bustamante was not very successful during his presidential period, but he was one of the first rulers of Mexican centralism and, in turn, one of the conservative presidents who held the position the longest during the ten years of centralist rule.

During the Bustamante government, an invasion of Guatemala in Chiapas was suppressed and France was fought in the War of the Cakes.

José Joaquín de Herrera

Although Herrera ruled Mexico during the transitional stage between the two different centralist republics, it was his reformist mentality that brought about the reestablishment of centralism.

The changes that he wanted to establish in the country generated such discontent that the centralist forces regained control of the republic in 1843.

Other rulers

The Centralist Republic also had other rulers who remained in power for a short time or who did not make significant changes to the country. Among them are: Nicolás Bravo, Francisco Javier Echeverría, Valentín Canalizo and Mariano Paredes.

References

1. History of Mexico - Empire and Early Republic, 1821-55, Area Handbook of the US Library of Congress, (nd). Taken from motherearthtraveler.com
2. Mexico, Encyclopaedia Britannica, (nd). Taken from birtannica.com
3. The Early Republic (1823-1833), Mexican History Online, (nd). Taken from mexicanhistory.org
4. Seven Laws, IPFS, (nd). Taken from ipfs.io
5. Mariano Paredes, Wikipedia in English, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org
6. The Centralism in Mexico, H. Hernádnez, (nd). Taken from historiademexico.org
7. Anastasio Bustamante, Wikipedia in English, 2018. Taken from Wikipedia.org