The early national period in Mexico has often been characterized as tumultuous and unstable. Despite the great hopes harbored on the eve of independence in 1821, the following decades witnessed countless pronunciamientos, at least three major civil wars (1832, 1854–55, 1858–61), and four foreign interventions (1829, 1837– 38, 1846– 48, 1862–67). Mexico lost half of its territory to the United States and was occupied by a French expeditionary force that placed a Habsburg prince on its throne. The idealism of its more enlightened politicians was, as a result, understandably eroded, as their attempts to forge a lasting liberal constitutional framework failed time and again. The moderate politician Manuel Gómez Pedraza came to the conclusion that constitutions were nothing but pieces of paper written to be subsequently trampled and thrown away. The disenchantment of conservative ideologue and historian Lucas Alamán was expressed along similar lines when he came to the...

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