No. 350.
Mr. Foster
to Mr. Evarts.
Mexico, August 3, 1878. (Received August 27.)
Sir: On Sunday, the 30th of June, the primary or first elections were held, and on Sunday, the 14th ultimo, the secondary elections occurred throughout the republic for members of the House of Deputies and for one-half of the senators of the national Congress, as also for magistrates to fill vacancies in the supreme court, occasioned by the resignation of two members of the cabinet of President Diaz.
Under the Mexican electoral system, at the primary election a certain number of electors are chosen in the different polling precincts or districts by popular universal suffrage, and these electors constitute a college, [Page 568] which assembles in each precinct on the second Sunday after the first or primary election, and votes for the officers to be chosen, as in the recent election for the members, or deputies, and senators to the federal Congress, and magistrates of the supreme court. So that all elections in this country are by the indirect or secondary method, the people choosing the electors and the electors voting for the different candidates for the offices to be filled.
Loud complaints are made by the press that there was no real expression of public sentiment in the elections just held, that the people did not participate in them, and that in almost all cases throughout the nation the official list made up in this capital has been returned.
The new Congress will be composed almost exclusively of the friends and supporters of the present administration. The only opposition that will exist will be among the adherents of certain leading men of the government party, and these divisions will be occasioned by the personal aspirations for the next Presidency at the election in 1880. It does not follow, because the new Congress is almost if not absolutely unanimous for the administration, that the government has exercised coercion or intimidation in the elections. Notwithstanding the charges which have been made by the opposition press, I think the recent elections have been as free from direct executive and official interference as in the past. The result is rather to be attributed to the electoral campaign methods practiced in this country, and to the revolutions which have so systematically attended or followed general elections.
Although suffrage is universal according to the constitution, very few of the inhabitants ever participate in the elections. The political parties carry on their contests, not through the peaceful methods of the electoral campaign and the ballot, but by revolutions and pronunciamentos. The great political divisions of the country in the past generation have been the Conservative or Church party, and the Liberal party, but these rarely ever tested their strength at the polls. After many years of civil war, attended with varying fortunes, the Liberal party was completely triumphant, and since the restoration of the republic, in 1867, the Conservative or Church party has abstained from all participation in electoral affairs. This party embraces among its adherents a large majority of the property-holders and capitalists, and a very considerable portion, but possibly a minority, of the educated men of the country. Since 1867 the contests for supremacy in the government have been exclusively among the factions of the Liberal party. In that year Juarez was re-elected President almost without opposition, being recognized as the great leader of the victorious party in the war against the Conservative party and the European intervention.
In the Presidential election of 1871, the Liberal party divided into three factions, known by the names of their respective candidates for the Presidency, Juaristas, Lerdistas, and Porfiristas (adherents of General Porfirio Diaz). That election was the last one in which there has been a general participation of even the Liberal party. Juarez was declared elected; and General Diaz appealed from the ballot-box to the sword, and his revolution of “La Noria” was inuagurated.
At the death of Juarez, in 1872, the revolution of Diaz was still in progress. Mr. Lerdo succeeded to the Presidency ex officio, and a few months afterwards was elected to the place without any contest and with very little participation in the election by the people.
In 1876 the adherents of President Lerdo announced him as a candidate for re-election. The partisans of General Diaz declared publicly [Page 569] that it would be useless to carry on an electoral campaign, as the supporters of President Lerdo had control of all the State governments, and would, by official influence, intimidation, or force, prevent any free expression of the popular will; and early in the year the Porfiristas (Diaz party) inaugurated the armed revolution of “Tuxtepec,” announcing as their rallying-cry, “no re-election and free suffrage.” The old Juarez party, on account of the inauguration of the revolution, and from a fear that the State governments would be used to secure President Lerdo’s re-election, declined to nominate any candidate or to participate in the campaign. So the election was held in July in the midst of the revolution, and was participated in by the supporters of Mr. Lerdo alone, the Juaristas abstaining from the election, the Porfiristas being in armed rebellion, and the Conservatives being permanently out of politics.
Upon the triumph of the revolution a new election for President, Congress, and supreme court was ordered early in 1877. And, in turn, this election was participated in by the Porfiristas alone, the Lerdistas, Juaristas, and Conservatives abstaining from any part therein. And the election held last month was attended by similar circumstances.
I have alluded to another cause why the mass of the people do not participate in the elections, which results from the electoral campaign methods practiced in this republic. Parties or personal factions have no political organization such as exists in the United States. No nominating conventions are ever held, either for national, State, or municipal elections, and, except for President, the names of no candidates are posted or announced for the offices to be filled.
The candidates are usually agreed upon in private juntas or caucuses of a few individuals. The opposition invariably charge that the administration list is made up, in national elections, by the officials and favorites of the government in this capital, and distributed to the governors of States or military commanders, to be elected by official influence. No public meetings of the people are ever held to discuss political questions, and the candidates never address their constituents previous to elections.
The law requires that a member of Congress shall be a citizen and resident of the district which he represents in that body, but very little attention is paid to this requirement. It very often happens that Congressmen are returned from districts when they are neither citizens nor residents of the State in which the district is located and have never visited the district which they represent. For example, one of the most prominent members of the last Congress was elected from a district of his native State, but not the one in which he resided. He was also elected from a district in another State. As he and the governor of his State did not agree about local and personal questions, he took his seat in Congress as a deputy for the district of the State of which he was not a resident, and rejected the election in his native State. At the election held last month for the new Congress, this same gentleman has been returned as a senator from still a different State than either his native one or the one he represented in the last Congress.
I have given this hasty historical review of parties and sketch of the electoral campaign methods in practice in order to explain the present political condition of the country, and to enable you to form an opinion as to the significance to be attached to popular elections.
I am, &c.,