Note 11 — II THE POLITICAL EDUCATION OF MEXICO 1800–1845
Reading edition
A thoughtful Mexican analyzed the situation in substance as follows: Our people as a whole have forgotten morality, sincerity, patriotism, disinterestedness, and all the other virtues that upbuild great nations; only selfishness, base and ruinous passions, hatreds and vile revenges exist among us, and on all sides discords and rancors force themselves upon the dullest eye; the country, weakened by the parties, divided by incompatible interests and claims, has been unable to obtain order and repose, because interested persons have always promoted anarchy and disorder in every possible way; the liberty that the army achieved has been used only as brutal license; and each of us, regarding himself as a judge in the land, has felt entirely emancipated from all obligations, and fully at liberty to upset everything at his will.