ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an excerpt that is drawn from Lucas Alaman’s voluminous History of Mexico from the First Independence Movements in 1808 Until the Present Day, published from 1849 to 1852. Alaman was one of the founders of Mexican conservative ideology. Alaman fully supported the Plan de Iguala of 1821, a compromise plan that finally united fighting factions of Mexican Liberals and Conservatives and ended the independence war. The Plan called for the newly independent Mexico to constitutionally centralize power in a monarchy, although politicians eventually settled, with the Constitution of 1824, on a republic with a strong executive branch. Alaman was convinced that Spanish culture and values had civilized people and created harmony among the social classes when Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire and that nascent Mexican citizens had to choose this path if they wanted peace and prosperity in the nineteenth century.
