with respect to the other adjoining States of the Mexican Federation.

7. The Territory of the State is divided for the present, for its better administration, into three departments, which shall be-BEXAR-which district is extended to the whole of the Territory, which corresponds to that called the Province of TEXAS, which alone is a district. MONCLOVA, which ́ comprehends the district of this name and that of the RIO GRANDE SALTILLO, which embraces the district of this name, and that of PARRAS.

8. Congress hereafter shall have power to alter, vary, and modify this division of the territory of the State, in the manner it may deem most conducive to the felicity of the people.

9. The Apostolic Catholic Religion is that of the State; this it protects by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other.

10. The State shall regulate and defray the expenses which may be necessary for the preservation of worship, in conformity with the regulation of the Concordats, which the nation shall celebrate with the Holy See, and by the laws it shall dictate relative to the exercise of patronage in the whole Federation.

11. Every man who inhabits the Territory of the State, although he be in transit, shall enjoy the imprescriptible rights of liberty, security, property, and equality; and it is the duty of the same state to conserve, and protect by laws, wise and equitable, those general rights of mankind.

12. It is also an obligation on the State, to protect all its inhabitants in the right which they have to write, print, and publish freely their thoughts, and political opinions, without the necessity of examination, revision, or censure, anterior to the publication, under the restrictions and responsibilities established, or which hereafter may be established, by general laws on the subject.

13. In this State no person shall be born a slave, after this Constitution is published in the capital of each District, and six months thereafter, neither will the introduction of slaves be permitted under any pretext.

14. It is the duty of every man who inhabits the State to obey its laws, respect its constituted authorities, and contribute to the support of the same State, in the mode which it asks.

15. To the State belongs every species of vacant goods

in its Territories, and those of its intestate inhabitants who have no legitimate successor in the manner laid down by the laws.

16. The State is composed only of two classes of persons, to wit: inhabitants of Coahuila and Texas (Coahuiltejanos), and citizens of Coahuila and Texas.

17. Those are inhabitants of Coahuila and Texas (Coahuiltejanos):-First, All men born and domesticated in the Territory of the State, and their descendants. Secondly, those born in any other part of the Territory of the Federation, or those who fix their domicile in this State. Thirdly, those foreigners who are legitimately established in the State, be they of what nation they may. Fourthly, those foreigners who obtain from Congress letters of naturalization, or have a domicile in the State, obtained according to the law which shall be passed as soon as the Congress of the Union fixes the general rule of naturalization, which it ought to establish conformably to the 26th clause of the faculties which the Federal Constitution designates.

18. Those are citizens of Coahuila and Texas (Coahuiltejanos)-First, All men born in the State, and who are domiciliated in any part of its Territory. Secondly, all citizens of the other States and Territories of the Federation, as soon as they become domiciliated in the State. Thirdly, all the children of Mexican citizens, who have been born out of the Territory of the Federation, and who fix their domicile in the State. Fourthly, the foreigners who are actually and legally domiciliated in the State, whatever may have been the country of their nativity. Fifthly, foreigners who enjoy the rights of inhabitants of Coahuila and Texas, have obtained from Congress special letters of citizenship-the laws will prescribe the merits and circumstances requisite for the concession of such.

19. Those born in the Territory of the Federation, and those foreigners resident in it (with the exception of their children), who, at the time of the proclamation of the political emancipation of the nation, were unfaithful to the cause of independence, and emigrated to a foreign country, or that dependent on the Spanish government, are neither entitled to the rights of domiciliation, nor citizenship, in said State.

20. The rights of citizenship are lost-First, By acquiring naturalization in a foreign country. Secondly, by acquiring a station of profit, or honour, under a foreign government, without permission of Congress. Thirdly, by

sentence legally obtained, which imposes personal or infamous punishments. Fourthly, by selling his vote, or buying that of another, for himself or for a third person, whether in popular assemblies, or in any other whatever; and of trust in the same assemblies, either as presidents, tellers, or secretaries, or in the exercise of any other public functions. Fifthly, for having resided five consecutive years out of the limits of the Territory of the Federation, without commission of the general government, or particular one of the State, or without its leave.

21. He that has lost the rights of citizenship cannot regain them without the express act of restoration of Congress. 22. The exercise of the same rights are suspendedFirst, for physical or moral incapacity, previously ascertained by judicial decision. Secondly, for not being twentyone years complete, except those who are married, who can enter upon the exercise of these rights from the time they contract matrimony, of whatever age they may be. Thirdly, for being a debtor to the public funds, the time of payment elapsed, legal requisition therefore made, and not complied with. Fourthly, for having been prosecuted criminally, unless the defendant is absolved of the matter, or condemned to punishment not painful or infamous. Fifthly, for not having an employment, trade, or any known method of obtaining a livelihood. Sixthly, for not knowing how to read and write; but this shall not take effect until the year 1850, with regard to those who hercafter enter into the rights of citizenship.

23. The rights of citizenship can only be destroyed or suspended for the causes stated in articles 20 and 22.

24. None but citizens who are in the exercise of their rights can vote for popular employments in the State, in those instances stated in the law; and these only can obtain the said employments, or any others in the same State.

25 Professional employments form an exception to the second part of the anterior article, which employments can also be conferred on foreigners.

FORM OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT.

26. The object of the state government is the happiness of the individuals which compose it, for the end of all political society is no other than the welfare of the associated.

27. The officers of the government, invested with what

ever kind of authority, are no more than mere agents or commissioners of the state, responsible to it for their public conduct.

28. The government of the state is popular representative federal; in consequence, it shall not have in it any hereditary office or privilege.

29. The supreme power of the state is divided for its exercise, into Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, and never can these three powers, nor two of them, be united in one corporation or person, nor the Legislative power deposited in one individual.

30. The exercise of the Legislative power shall reside in a Congress composed of deputies popularly elected.

31. The exercise of the Executive power shall reside in a citizen, who shall be denominated Governor of the State, and who shall also be chosen popularly.

32. The exercise of the Judicial power shall reside in the Tribunals and Courts which the Constitution establishes.

TITLE 1st. Of the Legislative power of the State.

SECTION 1st. Of the deputies of Congress.

33. The Congress consists of the deputies which represent the State, chosen conformably to this Constitution; its number shall be that of twelve members proprietary, and six supernumerary members, until the year 1832.*

34. The Congress in that year, and in the last of every ten years which follow, shall have power to augment the number of deputies, under the standard of one for every 7000 souls.

35. The election of proprietary deputies and supernumeraries shall be held in all and every one of the districts of the State. A law shall fix the number of deputies of one and the other class which each district ought to appoint.

36. To be a deputy, proprietary, or supernumerary, it is required to have, at the time of the election, the following qualities:-First, to be a citizen in the exercise of his rights. Secondly, to be of the full age of twenty-five years. Thirdly, to be an inhabitant of the State, with residence in it for two years immediately before the election. To natives of the State it is sufficient to possess the two first requisites.

*The supernumerary deputies were intended to supply vacancies, occasioned by death or other inevitable cause.

37. It is necessary for those not born in the Territory of the Federation, in order to be deputies, proprietary, or supernumerary, to have had eight years' residence in it, and to be worth 8,000 dollars in property, or to have an income of some business of 1,000 dollars annually, and the qualifications provided in the foregoing Article.

38. There are excepted from the foregoing, those born in any other part of the Territory of America, which in the year 1810 depended on Spain, and which may not have united itself to any other nation, nor remained in dependence on Spain; to those it is sufficient that they have been three years, complete, in the Mexican Republic, and possess the requisites prescribed in Article 36.

39. Those cannot be deputies, proprietary, or supernumerary; First, The Governor, or Vice-Governor of the State; the members of the Council of Government; those employed in the Federation; the Civil Functionaries of the State Government; the Ecclesiastics who exercise any species of jurisdiction, or authority in some part of the district where the election may be held; foreigners, at the time when war may exist between the country of their nativity and Mexico.

40. In order that those public functionaries of the Federation, or of the State, comprehended in the anterior article, may be elected deputies, they ought absolutely to have ceased the exercise of their functions four months before the election.

41. If the same individual shall be named deputy proprietary for two or more districts, the election of that district in which he actually resides shall have preference. If he does not reside in either, the election of the district of his origin shall have preference. If he was neither a resident nor a native of some one of the said districts, that shall stand which the same elected deputy shall designate. In either of these cases, or of the death or inability of the deputies proprietary to discharge their functions according to the judgment of Congress, their duties shall devolve upon the respective deputies supernumerary.

42. If it shall happen that the same citizen is elected deputy supernumerary for two or more districts, in this case the same order of preference provided for in the three first parts of the anterior Article prevails. And in the district which remains without a deputy supernumerary, the vacancy shall be filled up by the person who, in the 2 G

VOL. II.