Hombres de Bien in the Age of Santa Anna
Michael P. Costeloe
"Mexico in the Age of Democratic Revolutions 1750-1850"
Edited by Jaime E. Rodriguez
1994
ISBN 1555874762

ONE FEATURE of recent Mexican historiography is that the traditional periodical division of history into colonial-independence-modern is no longer considered convenient or apt.(1) Recent works on institutions, the economy, and society have begun to advocate the continuity of history and to argue that although the separation from Spain was undeniably a traumatic and disruptive event, it could not and did not represent a sudden break in every respect with the past. The generation that survived the war faced economic difficulties, social, cultural and to some extent ideological issues that had been germinating long before Hidalgo's Grito de Dolores in 1810. Hence, to explain many aspects of the instability of the post-independence years, we must lock to the tensions of late colonial times and seek connections in the early republican era.

It is not my intention to enter into this debate except that it seems to me that the concept of continuity has obvious validity. It may even be said to be self-evident in as much as the problems, rivalries, ambitions, and values of merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, miners, landowners, peasants, and all the other groups and individuals who made up Mexico's estimated seven million population obviously did not disappear nor were resolved overnight. Also, to quote Eric Van Young, "Modes and social relations of production, family and gender relationships, certain characteristics of state structure and action, and so on, appear to have been substantially in place by the middle of the eighteenth century and to have altered more between 1700 and 1750, or between 1850 and 1900, than between 1750 and 1850."(2) But, and it does seem to me a necessary qualification of the continuity thesis, it would also be wrong to underestimate or diminish the consequences of Independence.

Change certainly did follow in many spheres as the institutional, economic, and, above all, social structures of the colonial era began to break down both as the result of emancipation and of the effects of change on the broader international scene. When Agustin de Iturbide and his supporters entered the gates of Mexico City on September 27, 1821, they indeed faced a new world with new problems, pressures, and unforeseen difficulties. There were questions about the form of government, the role and status of national institutions like the Church and the army, commercial policy, foreign relations (especially with the United States), internal relations between Mexican regions, civil rights, the role of the press, and so forth. In short, a myriad of issues arose to be resolved, which, if not entirely new, were certainly on a scale and complexity hitherto not experienced or anticipated.

Of all the changes brought by Independence, however, none had a greater impact than the most obvious, namely the opening of the world of politics. Freedom from colonial rule for the first time gave Mexicans what one sociologist has called "realistic political opportunities" to change their own society, to reorder the political, social, economic, and cultural structure imposed on them by the all-embracing union of Crown and Church (3). They accepted the opportunity with perhaps surprising vigor, considering that public political action and debate were virtually unknown activities in their previous history, and there was no shortage of men who sought a political career or the political power to enact or prevent change.

The adoption of the federal charter in 1824, based on an elected representative system, opened up endless opportunities for the committed or the ambitious and, over the next thirty years, literally thousands of men appeared to seek places in the numerous representative assemblies that elected its members. With the national congress renewed approximately every two years and eighteen or more state legislatures being regularly summoned, the chance of holding public office exerted a powerful appeal-and then there were the thousands of posts in the national and provincial bureaucracies to attract a never-ending flow of aspirantes. Empleomanía became just as dominant a phenomenon as it was in Spain at the time, but election or appointment to office at once came to depend on political patronage.(4) Hence, in addition to any ideological motives, there was a real incentive to join one or more of the many political parties that quickly appeared on the scene.

Furthermore, the fact that every president was a general and in some years military dictatorship prevailed, did not inhibit political activity or debate.(5) Amid the apparent military dominated world of the Age of Santa Anna, one of the most notable characteristics was not so much militarism as the development and persistence of a largely civilian political scene. Thus, while the military dominated the route to executive authority at both national and state levels through the pronunciamiento, the generals, including Santa Anna, were never able to suppress or control the national congress, which was always largely composed of civilians. Attempts to achieve control by electoral manipulation and even to suppress by force the civilian-dominated legislative power were invariably short-lived, and every military president found himself in conflict with the representative assembly-even when he had personally appointed most of its members.(6)

But who were the politicians who participated in this intense world of political action, debate, and conflict? There is little information available concerning the birthplaces, social origins, education, and personal relationships of the mass of still largely anonymous men who sought public office. The only study-the recent work of Donald Stevens-of a reasonably significant number of the more prominent who achieved high office or notoriety provides same indications.(7) Radicals tended to come from the more rural, peripheral provinces and conservatives from the more urbanized central core, and "there was a statistically significant division between radicals, moderates, and conservatives on the basis of rural or urban birthplaces."(8) On the other hand, there was no distinct regional bias, no northern dynasty of the early twentieth-century type. Nor was there any predominant occupational background, for example, of landowners, industrialists, miners, or merchants, and while occupational characteristics reveal a large proportion of lawyers, most other professions, including the military and the clergy, were also well represented.(9)

Mexico's politicians, therefore, were drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and places, but they also shared important characteristics. Independence brought decisive social change and the society, particularly of the capital, so brilliantly described by John Kicza, if it did not disappear overnight, was subject to profound pressures for change.(10) The long supreme Spanish or gachupín sector was destroyed, not just through the loss of its political and economic control but also by the departure during the years of war of many Spaniards and their families who migrated back to Europe or to North America. Those who remained survived for a time, but within a few years-in 1827 and 1829-several thousand were expelled from the republic.(11) Spaniards became just one relatively small group of foreigners who resided largely in the cities among the English, French, German, and other foreign residents. The old aristocracy also suffered a marked decline, and, with the abolition of hereditary and other privileges, the status of nobility brought little political reward or advantage. Indeed, the very word aristócrata became a term of abuse in the political lexicon of the day, applied by radicals to those who in their view represented the forces of reaction or conservatism.

In place of the old ruling elite, there appeared another category who came to dominate political life. Sometimes known as gente de orden, gente decente, or gente de frac, the most common epithet was hombre de bien, a term used throughout the 1820s to the late 1840s to describe a social and political type. Used by every writer of the time in every political context and polemic, the hombre de bien was held up as the ideal citizen, the sort of person the electorate was always urged to vote for by all parties in every election campaign.

Again, the question must be asked, what was an hombre de bien? The first immediate answer to that question is, of course, that he was a gentleman. But that answer tells us nothing because we need to know how to define and recognize a gentleman or rather, how Mexicans in the years after 1821 came to define the archetype. What were his ideas, values, attitudes, prejudices, and life-style? What occupational groups were included; what, if any, wealth or income level was required? Such questions had preoccupied some Spaniards in the eighteenth century but as far as Mexicans in the Age of Santa Anna were concerned, the hombre de bien was from the middle sector of society, neither aristocratic nor proletariat but from what they described increasingly from the late 1820s onwards as la clase media or middle class. The hombre de bien could not be recognized by his political stance, for both radicals like Valentin Gómez Farias or conservatives like Lucas Alamán were undoubtedly hombres de bien and accepted as such. In fact, according to Alamán, he was "un hombre religioso, de honor, de propiedad, de educaci6n y de virtudes.'' (12) In other words, he was a believer in the Catholic faith, with a strong sense of honor and morality, and of sufficient financial means to maintain a certain life-style. Alamán did not use the word property to mean only real estate, for although property owners were included in the type, it was equally acceptable to have an income derived from invested capital or professional employment. The liberal José Maria Luis Mora agreed. According to him, an hombre de bien was a man "que ocupe algún puesto a que deba su subsistencia, tenga alguna industria productiva, algún capital en giro o posesiones territoriales."(13)

This distinction between income and property or assets was particularly important in two respects. In the first place, individual private ownership of property was comparatively rare, especially in the cities. In Mexico City, for example, where there was a greater concentration of wealth and thus more hombres de bien than in the provincial urban centers, little more than 1 percent of the estimated 200,000 population were property owners-a mere 2,242 people.(14) While the proportion may have varied in other towns and cities where the Church, which owned almost 40 percent of the property in the capital, was less dominant, it is unlikely that the numbers were much greater. Second, both Alamán and Mora, together with many other leading conservatives and liberals, believed that election to political office should be restricted to hombres de bien who were either property owners or above a certain income level. Mora put the amount of income at one thousand pesos per annum, and Alamán was directly involved in producing electoral regulations that specified a minimum income of twelve hundred pesos for congressional candidates.

Those who earned less than that, as many of the middle class did, were not thereby excluded from the hombre de bien category but were restricted to lesser office, for example, local councillor, which required five hundred pesos annual income in the 1836 electoral law. Earning less than five hundred pesos annually, which would encompass the great majority of working Mexicans in both rural and urban areas, while not automatically implying the proletariat, was inadequate for a true hombre de bien and insufficient for a candidate for public office. Indeed, it was said in congress in 1836 that anyone with an income of less than forty pesos a month must be a vagabond.

Hence, the hombre de bien was considered to be of the middle class and, while he retained his respect if not ambition for honors and distinctions, he continued to have the traditional Spanish disdain for manual labor, "ese horror al trabajo," as one writer put it in 1837.(15) He was not impressed by the small-scale artisan of any sort whom he regarded with "algún desdén y desvio," and he did not yet have the materialistic, capitalist priorities of the Marxist bourgeois.(l6) On the contrary, as Frank Knapp puts it, "Business pursuits remained somewhat stigmatized with a medieval disdain."(17) On the other hand, he was impressed by public office, by employment in the civil or military bureaucracy, by the law and other professions.

Finally, it is noticeable that in none of the contemporary definitions of an hombre de bien is there any reference to ethnic origin. Historians have assumed that it was the white creole who took over the country after the defeat and expulsion of the Spanish rulers, and, although it is rare to find any use of the racial terminology of creole, mestizo, casta, etc., after Independence when such legal distinctions were abolished, there are signs that racial prejudice did remain a significant, if unspoken and unwritten, factor. Vicente Guerrero, who was a half-caste, is one example of a successful insurgent leader who was said to be resented by the social elite of the capital, especially the ladies, on the grounds of his color.(18)
Then, in the 1840s, U.S. diplomat Waddy Thompson remarked that "at one of those large assemblies at the President's palace, it is very rare to see a lady whose color indicates any impurity of blood." Thompson went on to say that while the same was true to a great extent of the gentlemen, "there are a good many exceptions."(19)
It seems, in other words, that racial prejudice was still important but, at the same time, probably of declining significance for the mestizos, and it did not prevent someone of mixed or non-European blood entering the ranks of hombres de bien, always provided he met all the other requirements-Benito Juárez is one obvious example.

Just as we do not know to any extent the nature or influence of racial prejudice in terms of hombres de bien, there are also many other aspects about which we know little. For example, we do not know if regional origins or accent were factors in determining class, nor if there was any urban/rural discrimination, although there are signs in this context that city dwellers, notably those born in the capital, felt some metropolitan superiority over their rural counterparts. As Calderón de la Barca amply confirms in her account of life in the early 1840s, aristocratic origins also still retained respect among the socially ambitious, and mode of dress was important as a mark of social class.(20)

This preliminary sketch indicates some of the characteristics of the hombre de bien. To explain his life-style, his values, his worries and concerns, however, requires the use of a degree of imagination, the invention, if you will, of a fictional hombre de bien.(21) Let us assume that he was born in the capital toward the end of the eighteenth century into a reasonably affluent family. He would have been educated at home in his early years and then have entered one of the colleges run by the Church, perhaps the highly respected Colegio de San Ildefonso where his fellow students might well have included Mora or the future minister of war and Santa Anna loyalist José Maria Tornel. There the hombre de bien would have acquired a thorough grounding in theology, civil and canon law, jurisprudence, and possibly the French language. After leaving the college, he may have gone to the University of Mexico to specialize in law and graduate with the prized title of licenciado. After the War of Independence, he practiced as a lawyer, which, together with the rent from some small inherited rural property, provided him with an income over one thousand pesos per annum.

That sum of over one thousand pesos enabled the hombre de bien to live very comfortably with his family in the capital where he rented the upper floors of a church-owned house near the central square, or Plaza de la Constitución (now the Zócalo). He would have several domestic servants to cater to his daily needs and possibly a carriage that he could have purchased or rented from one of several suppliers in the city. Always keen to adopt the latest in European fashion, his best clothes would be bought from one of several French tailors, his frock coat costing between thirty four and forty-two pesos; trousers, fourteen and sixteen pesos; and a good quality pair of boots, seven and eight pesos. He would subscribe to a newspaper, possibly El Siglo XIX, costing twenty reales a month, and he might also, if he were ambitious socially, belong to one of the many newly established literary societies in the city. If his interests were non-literary, he could spend his leisure time in one of the billiard halls "indulging himself in the moderate exercise of a game of billiards"(22) or at the bullfight, and almost certainly, he would be a regular attender at one of the three theaters where a good seat cost twelve reales.

He would debate controversial issues of the day with his friends in the café of the city's best-known hotel, La Gran Sociedad, "lugar de cita de la gente más acomodada," (23) and he would occasionally buy a lottery ticket that might bring a top prize of six thousand pesos but more likely one of one hundred or two hundred pesos. He would often dine out at one of the new restaurants, perhaps La Sociedad del Progreso with its ladies' room upstairs, or the Fonda de la Amistad, which would offer him, for just one real, a meal of "caldo, sopa, puchero, principio, frijoles, dulce y pan." (24)

The hombre de bien would also spend same time browsing in his own personal library or in one or more of at least eleven bookshops where he would find works on theology, political science, and history, and he would certainly have taken out a subscription to Prescott's History of Mexico, which was first published in weekly installments of thirty-two pages in 1844.(25) In common with most of his compatriots, he would be a regular churchgoer and probably a member of his parish cofradía to which he would make generous contributions. His main vice, shared by most of his friends, and considered eminently respectable, would be gambling, especially at the regular cockfights or perhaps at home in his "gaming room, which is always crowded, and not to play is to render yourself unfit for polite society."(26) One of the highlights of his year would be the very popular and well-attended Whitsuntide tapada de gallos (cockfights) at San Agustin de la Cuevas (now Tlalpan) where a box cost four reales in the afternoon and six in the evening.

At Tlalpan, he would rub shoulders with the nation's leading personalities including Presidents Santa Anna or Anastasio Bustamante, with ministers like Tornel, or generals like Gabriel Valencia, as well as with many lesser luminaries who were seeking favors or advancement in their careers.(27) If he made the right contacts, the hombre de bien might be offered a job in a government department and become an empleado. The salary might be modest, and often unpaid, but the work was not onerous and the prestige considerable.(28) Alternatively, if the hombre de bien were known to be a person of strong political ambition or conviction and had perhaps written a few articles in the press on controversial topics of the day, he might be asked by one of the political factions to be a candidate in the city council or congressional elections.

By now, it is clear that the archetypal hombre de bien was seen at the time to belong to the upper echelons of the middle class, defined in 1838 as "la gente acomodada, cuya educación, bienes o relaciones, empleos o puestos distinguidos la separan hasta cierto punto de la clase que no tiene alguna de estas circunstancias." (29) As noted, his precise political views were not significant in the social environment in which he moved, and, in any case, his opinions were likely to be fluid, changing to some extent in accordance with experience and the prevailing circumstances. He might disagree strongly with his friends on same issues-for example, on the merits of central or federal republicanism-but such disagreements never jeopardized his social standing. "Social assumptions," to use Charles Hale's words, "ran deeper than the liberal-conservative conflict"(30) At the same time, he shared many attitudes in common with his peers. Most notably, he always saw politics and society in terms of social class and he firmly believed that his own, "esa misma clase media es el más firme apoyo de nuestro cuerpo social.''(31) Equality might for him be a desirable ideal, but those who preached its virtues had to recognize that "hay siempre una desigualdad de condición, de necesidades, de talentos, de climas, de método de vida y muchas otras."(32)

Class distinctions, therefore, were very important for him, and his greatest fear in the face of all the political chaos that went on around him through out the Age of Santa Anna was what he would call "disolución social." This is another phrase used constantly by hombres de bien. Extremists like Lorenzo de Zavala who advocated radical policies such as the redistribution of wealth or a more or less unrestricted suffrage were always denounced as anarchists, sans-culottes, or demagogues and accused of bringing the nation to the brink of social dissolution. What was meant by the phrase is not entirely clear, but it certainly related to the fear of a class war in which the impoverished masses might get out of control and destroy the existing social and economic structure. Every hombre de bien was well aware of what had happened in France during and after the Revolution, and the conservative press repeatedly warned of the dangers of a Mexican "Terror" and "la terrible asamblea, llamada Convención." (33)

The history of the French Revolution, hombres de bien were warned in 1839, "nunca debe caerse de las manos de nuestros hombres de estado," and it was never to be forgotten that "los que seducidos por brillantes teorias, soltaron el torrente de la demagogia y fueron después sus victimas." (34) Nothing good came of revolution, and the inevitable consequence of Mexico's own political instability was "relajarse más y más los vinculos sociales." (35) The moderate hombre de bien wanted change, but only gradually and without violence, and he could not accept that the lower orders were ready for the full privileges of citizenship. Those radicals who advocated unrestricted freedom for what Zavala called "la baja democracia" were misleading the populace who would soon discover that "la libertad excesiva que proclamaban era una quimera".(36) Extremism in any form or sphere could only lead to violence and destruction. All social progress was slow, and that fact was "una ley invariable de la naturaleza."(37)

It was not just the French Revolution and the Terror that caused some Mexicans to fear what one general-president described in 1842 as "1os terribles y perniciosos proletarios."(38) During the War of Independence the wholesale destruction of property and the massacres of the "rich" that had occurred in the early stages of the Hidalgo insurrection were never forgotten. Then, in the early years after emancipation, there had been signs of unrest among the populace and in 1828 anarchy had reigned in the capital for several days as the poor rioted and looted in what became known as the Parián riot. The memory and fear of the scenes they witnessed during those few days long haunted hombres de bien like Carlos Maria de Bustamante.

The attitude of the middle class toward the populace was also somewhat ambivalent. Another recurrent theme of the time is expressed in the phrase voluntad popular or voluntad del pueblo. Political parties of all persuasions, not to mention the generals, always claimed to be acting to fulfill or represent the will of the people. They had read the ever popular Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and accepted the concept that society was the sum of individual wills and that it was the function of government to meet the wishes of the majority. The more radical politicians tried to mobilize popular support with their promises of equality and redistribution of wealth, but the more conservative claimed that in its uneducated and apathetic condition, it was not possible to ascertain the "will of the people," at least not by counting votes. When we talk of the majority, wrote the editor of the official daily in 1835, "no hablamos precisamente de la mayoría numérica," but rather of the majority view of "ciudadanos influyentes por su honradez, sus servicios, sus bienes, su instrucci6n, su elocuencia, su edad, su experiencia, su utilidad, sus relaciones, su concepto, su empleo, su destino, su desinterés."(39)

In between the two extremes stood the moderate hombre de bien who accepted the existence of a popular will but believed that until primary education and literacy were widespread, it was the right and duty of his social class to interpret what it was. The 1836 Constitution even went so far as to create a fourth branch of government known as the Supreme Conservative Power, a main function of which was precisely to determine what was the will of the nation in times of conflict or dispute.(40)

This long-held, paternalistic, colonial mentality toward the populace-a mixture of fear of social revolution and a sense of benevolent duty-reflected the manifest and growing economic inequalities, the dangers of which wore all too obvious to the hombre de bien. The great majority of the population, especially in the cities, lived in abject poverty, and with unemployment in the capital running at something like 50 percent, drunkenness, prostitution, crime, and vagrancy were rampant in every neighborhood. In contrast, a small minority, including the nouveau riche of generals, financial speculators, and corrupt politicians, enjoyed seemingly immense fortunes, and some were not reluctant to display their wealth in an ostentatious fashion or as one newspaper editor put it, "hasta un lujo asiático."(41) Living in their expensively furnished mansions, riding around the city in their imported carriages and gambling away large sums at cockfights, their behavior was provocative and dangerous and it persuaded some hombres de bien to warn of an explosion of anger by the poor against the rich unless a more equitable distribution of wealth could be achieved.(42) One newspaper in 1842 predicted a class war "entre los pudientes con los de medianas fortunas y con los pobres."(43)

When the hombres de bien saw what was happening around them- the political chaos, poverty, and collapse of law and order on the streets and rural highways-it is not surprising that same began to look back with growing nostalgia at the colonial era. None, even the most pro-Hispanic, favored a return to colonial status; there was never any kind of reactionary movement in that direction. Nevertheless, in the 1830s and 1840s they increasingly began to compare their impressions or memories of what they fondly recalled as being the comparative peace and stability of colonial times. They remembered, rightly or wrongly, that criminals were punished and justice was done and that things were generally more efficient under the rule of the viceroys. Even food supplies were then regular and plentiful and cheaper. Meat, bread, and pulque had never been better or cheaper than in colonial days, according to one resident in the capital in 1843.(44)

Even more important for the hombres de bien, however, than the rising cost of food was that they believed that the declining prestige of the Church was at least partly the cause and effect of changing social values and of growing lack of respect for authority within and without the home, especially among the young. They recalled a society in which personal and public values were universally accepted, a society in which the relationship between the classes was fixed and in which every man knew his place. There is no doubt that one of, if not the main, preoccupations of hombres de bien concerned changing personal morality and what they called "la moral de la sociedad." It is difficult to be precise in defining what these changes were, but those aspects mentioned constantly in the conservative press and clerical literature include lack of respect for all authority and for those who exercised it, including parents and Church; immorality with a significant growth in prostitution and the circulation of so called obscene literature or works that good Christians should not read; disregard of social conventions and etiquette; lack of respect for property and property owners, the law and legislators; and in general, refusal of the young to conform to accepted patterns of behavior within and without the family. Finally, the traditional scholastic education, which was considered to have inculcated the "proper" values in the young, was losing its appeal, and more fashionable but dangerous, progressive, and utilitarian ideas were being introduced.

Bishops often used their sermons and pastoral letters to warn the hombres de bien of the corruption of the nation's youth by these foreign, and for them, heretical ideas, and it is interesting to note that Gómez Farias was also preoccupied with, the question of individual and social morality. In his personal archive, and in what seem like jottings committed to paper in a moment of reflection, he wrote his own definition of "la moral." As one would expect from a committed Roman Catholic, he emphasized all the Christian virtues of honesty, integrity, help for the poor and disadvantaged, hard work for six days a week and rest on the Sabbath, and respect for authority and the law. As a politician, he went on to express the belief of every hombre de bien that "de nada sirven las leyes sin las buenas costumbres; la moral debe ser la base y el de toda legislación." (45)

The Age of Santa Anna is, of course, characterized by chronic political instability. Constitutions were promulgated and revoked, myriad political parties rose and fell, military intervention was the norm, and no president save the first managed to survive for the full term of his office. Such features of the time are obvious, and yet this picture of chronic instability, or anarchy as the hombre de bien considered it to be, is in one respect misleading. Throughout all the turmoil, there was a remarkable degree of continuity in the sense that the people involved did not change. Partly because of a tradition of leniency toward defeated opponents -Agustin de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero were the exception rather than the rule-rebel military and civilians wore able to live to fight another day and mostly did so. Santa Anna is the most obvious example, rising and falling from power and in public esteem continuously and yet always having the good luck or ability to survive. His case was by no means exceptional, for the majority of his age group who emerged into the limelight around the time of Independence remained leading figures on the political scene for the next thirty years.

The continuity of this generation of people, in and out of office and power over thirty years, and the relatively narrow confines of the social and political elite of hombres de bien that they constituted, had important consequences that are not always obvious. For example, many knew each other personally, and there were numerous marital and professional ties as well as political alliances. At times on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and as rivals in the struggle for advancement, personal debts were incurred as well as insults to be avenged at a later date. For example, Santa Anna was humiliated and disgraced at the end of 1844 following a rebellion initiated by his onetime loyal supporter, General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga. His hostility was at least partly motivated, according to Santa Anna, by an incident that had taken place some three years before when Paredes, who by all accounts was an alcoholic, had drunk too much and insulted Santa Anna.(46) Paredes himself blamed the incident on a follow officer who, he said, had harbored a personal grudge against him for almost twenty years. Similarly, Mora and Tornel's mutual dislike of each other was said to have its origins in their school days or "rivalidades de colegio."'(47) In other words, personal friendships and enmities, family loyalties and rivalries, and memories of past actions and events all became significant factors in the political ferment. As Mora commented in trying to explain the bitter differences between men of similar social background and ideas, "no estaban aún bien curados de las antipatias ocasionadas entre ellas por las mutuas agresiones a que habian dada lugar las revoluciones anteriores."(48)

Nevertheless, despite all the potential for conflict among hombres dc bien on this more personal level, there was loyalty to their class, a social solidarity, that allowed bitter rivals to retain respect for one another, and, it must be added, to switch their allegiances whenever it suited them. Alamán was one politician who tried to harness that class solidarity in an attempt to overcome regional tensions and political differences. He and his fellow conservatives well appreciated that the state was weak and that given the difficulties of distance, topography, and communications, there was no fully effective means of enforcing national policy or priorities on distant and diverse regional interests.

Their solution was to design the electoral process to ensure that hombres de bien who shared the same aspirations and values regardless of where they lived were in full control of every level of government. Social status and values were to supersede political differences, and hombres de bien of all shades of the political spectrum could differ on the means to achieve progress with order-provided they did not threaten or jeopardize the power and status of their class. Renegades, the so-called anarchists, demagogues, or sans-culottes who did threaten that power with their talk of democracy, popular sovereignty, reduction of Church influence and army privileges, would be suppressed.

Alamán had his opportunity to create his republic of hombres de bien in 1835 when centralist republicans, with the reluctant acquiescence of Santa Anna, gained control of the country. Their program or manifesto, set out in great detail in the newspapers in 1835 and 1836, reflected all the characteristics and concerns of our typical hombre de bien.(49) It promised to suppress radical liberalism and its supporters by creating a constitutional framework that effectively guaranteed that access to political power at all levels from congress to municipality was firmly vested in the hombres de bien. It promised an end to party factionalism, economic reform, the protection of the status and privileges of the military, the reconquest of Texas, and a halt to the rising rate of crime against both person and property. It offered a strong, reinvigorated Church that would once again command the respect and obedience of the populace and that would ensure that the spread of the increasingly fashionable radical ideas that were corrupting the nation's youth would be stopped. Above all else, it promised to restore "la moral de la sociedad " by ensuring that what hombres de bien saw as traditional civic virtues, personal morality, and standards of behavior were again preeminent. Finally, it would remove the threat of social dissolution and guarantee progress with order in a society in which every man knew and accepted his place.

Of course, despite a decade of rule by the hombres de bien, they failed to achieve their aims. In sum, they failed, if I may use a grandiloquent cliché, to stop the march of progress, to stop the changes in ideas and attitudes that emancipation had enabled to be released. Why they failed however, must remain for another symposium.

References.

I For example, see L. Arnold, Bureaucrag and B"reaucrats in Mexico City, 1742-1835 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988); B. Hamnett, Roors oiInsurReng. Mcxican Regions, 175i~1&24 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); G. P. C. Thomson, Puebla de los Angeles. Industry and Society in a Me~ican City, 1700-1850 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989); L. B. Hall, "Independence and Revoloban: Continuities and Discontinuities," in The Ind¿pendence oJMarico and the Creaiion of the New Natton, ed. Jaime E. Rodriguez 0. (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1989), 323-329

2 E. van Young, .'Kecent Anglophone 8chelarship on Mexico and Central Ametica in the Age of Revolulion (1750-1850)," Hispanic American Historical Revirw vol. 65, no. 4 (November 1985): 725-743.

3 B. R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society. A Socialogical Co~nment (London Watts 1966), 36 37.

4 Empkoman(a wes oflen denounced as one of the "funestas herencias" of the Spanish era: see, for example, the article "Honores y Distinciones" in El Siylo XIX, August 19, 1844; and "Discflrso sobre Los persiciosos ekctos de la empleomania," in J. M. L. Mora, Obras saeiras (Mexico: Editorial Porrna, 1963), 532-537.

5 Between 1821 and 1851, fifteen generals occupied the presidential of fice, some on an interim basis and some, notably Santa Anna, on several occasions. During the same period, six civilians wore interim or acting president but tiree of these for only a few days. For the full list, see F. N. Samponaro, "The Political Role of the Army in Mexico, 1821-1848" (Ph.D. diss, State University of New York, Stony Brock, 1974), 394-396.

6 For one illustration of the civilian/military conflict, see my "Generals versus Presideais. Santa Ansa and the 1842 Congressional Elections in Mexico,' Bullerin of Latin American Research 8 (1989): 257-274

7 D. F. Stevens, Origins oJlnstaóility in Ear/y Republican Mexica (Dflriam: Duie University Press, 1991).

8 Ibid., 82-85. 9 Ibid., 49-50.

9] J. E. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs: Families and Business in Bourban Mexico Citv (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, tss3).

10 H. D. Sims, The Expulsion of Mexico's Spaniards, 1821-1836 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsborgh Press, 1990).

12 L Alamán, .'Defensa del ex-minislro de Retaciones don Lucas Alamán, escrita par el mismo ex-ministro quien la dirige a la nación (Mexico 1834), in Obras. Doct~menios diversos. vol. 2 (Mexico: Pditorial Jus, 1946), 45. Alamán refers tiroughout his writings m the importance of political powcr being in the hands of hombres respetables, clase propieraria, etc 8ee, for example, his letter to Santa Anna of Febrnary 23, 1837, cited in J. C. Valadés, Alamón, estadista e historiador (Mexico Antigua Liberia Robredo, J. Porrúa e hijos, 1938), 362-368.

13 J. M L. Mora, Ensagos, ideas y retraros (Mexico: Universidad National Aut6noma de México, 1964), 45, ched in M Gay6n Córdova, Condiciones de vida y de rrahajo en la ciudad de México en el si51o x/x (Mexico: Direcci6n de Estudios Históricos, Instiluto Nacional de Antropologia c Hisioria, 1988), 41.

14 Gay6n Córdova, Co'~diciones de vida, 31.

15 Diario del Gobierno, July 4, 1837.
16 El Siglo XIX, August 19, 1844.
17 F. A. Knapp, The Life of Sebastián L~rdo de Tejada, 1823-1889 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1951), 90.

18 L. úe Zavala, Obras (Mexico: Edilorial Jus, 1969), 353.

19 W. Thompson, Rccolicction r of Mcxico (New York and London: Willy and Putnam, 1 846), 1 68.

20 F. Calderón de la Barca, l~ifc in Mexico (London: Deal, 1960).

21 The ponrail of an imaginary hombre de bien is based on an analysis of several such men of the time together with, where indicated, specific detalis from various coniemporary sources.

22 A. Gilliam, Travels in Mcxico d"ring the Ycars 1843 and 1844 (Aberdeen: Clark, 1847), 90.

23 G. Prielo, Memorias de mis tien~pos, vol. I (Mexico: Editorial Pairia, 1948), 79.

24 Delails of prices, etc., are taken from newspaper advenisemenis througLoul the 1830s and 1840s.

25 There also seem lo have been some very largc prival" libraries al this timc. Wheú thc eslale of a lawyer, José Antonio López Garcia de Salazar, was sealed in 1838, his possessions included 13.754 volumes, which were offered for sale in Diario del Gobierno, January 24. 1838.

26 Gilliam, Travels in Mexico, 90.1 am, of course, concerned here with Ihe public persona of an archeqpe. The private, including sexual, mores of the middle class remain ill defined, attiough it is noticeable fiat several of the prominent personalines of the fime fathered illegitimate children and were known to have done so.

27 The best contemporary description of the scenes at the Tlalpan cockfights is in Calderón de la sarca' Lif~ in Mcxico, 201-208, 376~390.

28 The pay of cmplcados ranged from a scnbe at five hundred pcsos per year to a chief accountant at tirce thousand per year. An of fice boy received one hundred. Fl Si~lo XIX, April 30, 1845.

29 Drario d~ Cobicrno, January 8, 1838.

30 C. Hale, Merican Liberalism in thc Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven: Yale university Press, 1968), 298.

31 La Voz del Purbio, August 2, t84s.

32 Diario del Gobicrno, luly 22, 1838.

33 El Independientc, Octaber 2, t839.

34 Ibid., October 2 and 23, 1839. See also Diario del Gobicrno, May 26, June 16 and 25, 1837.

35 Diario del Gobicrno, May 11,1837.

36 Ibid., ialy 21,1838.

37 Ibid.

38 M. Paredes y Arrillaga-J. M. Tornel, May 10, 1842, published in G. García, ed., Docu~nentos inéditos o ~nt~y raros para la histona de Mé~ico, vol. 56 (Mexico: Editorial Por~ ,rlia, 1974), 25.

39 Diario del Gobicrno, September 2, 1835.

40 Leycs conslilucionales segunda, art. 1, sección 8, in F. Tena Ramirez LcyesJunda~ncntales dc México, 1808-18il (Mexico: Edilorial Porrtia, 1971), 211.

41 E:l Siglo XlX, April 16, 1843.

42 See, for example, ibid.

43 El Cosmopolira, August 24, 1842.

44 E:1 Si~lo X/X, September 25, 1843.

45 Gómez Farias Papers, Garcia Collection in Nellie Lee Benson Library, Universily of Texas al Austin, nos. 105~1060.1 have used a mi"ofilm copy of tlis archive in which the numbers given on the manuscripts do not always co~espond to Ihe published guide. See P. M. YnsEnn, CarJlogo te Los manflscriros del Archivo te Don Vak~`fn Gómez Farfas (Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1968).

46 See my "Los generates Santa Anna y Paredes y Arrillaga en Méxic'o, 1841-1843: Rivales par el poder o una copa más," Historia Mexicana 39, no. 2 (Ociober-December 1989): 417 440.

47 El Mexicano, June 1, 1839.

48 Mora, Obras su~ltas, lo.

49 See my "Federalism lo Cenualism in Mexico: The Conservalive Case for Change, t834~1835,~' Thc Americas 45 (October 1988) 173-185.

Author's Note: This paper is drawn from the malerial in my book The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835-1846. Hombres de bien en tiempos of Santa Anna (New York: Cambridge Universily Press, t993) with permission of Cambridge Universily Press