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202 In our editorial of the third, we replied to some of the observations the gentlemen of El Universal made regarding the first article we published with the title at the head of this one; today we go on with our task, and we will explain our ideas about the causes that have contributed secondarily to the development of the ills Mexican society has suffered in the short period it has existed. We have said that the ills the Republic has suffered are owed principally to the state in which the Republic found itself upon achieving independence; this glorious change, which elevated the old colony to the status of independent and sovereign nation, was not, nonetheless, enough to make it happy, although it must be considered the first step it had to take on the path to happiness. The gentlemen of El Universal have insulted us, an injustice we do not accept; nor can we pass over it in silence, and for this reason we will insist today on our ideas, reproducing without fear what we have said other times. They have asserted that we accused independence of having caused all our ills, and with this motive they declare emphatically that El Universal would not do such a thing! You, gentlemen editors, you who long so much for the year 1810, you who defend so much the system of the Spaniards when they ruled these countries, you who mocked the liberty, sovereignty, and independence of the nation, you say with assurance, seemingly filled with a prideful satisfaction, that independence “is a precious good that you know how to value in all its worth.” We do not know how to reconcile such an explicit acknowledgment with what you assert in the same article, correspondent to January 25, when responding to our question, “might it be inferred from all this that independence has been harmful to us,” 4 What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills, Third Article Original title: “Polémica entre El Universal, El Siglo XIX, y El Monitor Republicano, entre 1848 y 1849: ‘Cual sea la causa de nuestros males’” [tercer artículo]. Source: El Universal , Mexico, February 7, 1849. the CauSeS of our illS, third artiCle : 203 you do not hesitate to say frankly, yes. There it said independence had harmed us, had ruined and discredited us, and consequently has been detrimental to us; and we, gentlemen editors, we have not asserted such things. We said that the upheavals the country has suffered were an inevitable consequence not of independence, but rather of the state in which the country found itself in achieving independence, of the defective education the Spaniards provided to our fathers, of the ignorance , of the brutalization to which the masses had been condemned by the viceregal power; those are the facts to which we allude when we assert that the ills that have overwhelmed the country were a powerful consequence of the aforementioned antecedents. Thus, then, independence , producing such an important change in our situation, placing the Republic on a new and little-known path, put us in a difficult position from which only some men of noble sentiments and uncommon abilities could have saved us. Unfortunately, such men were lacking, and difficulties , obstacles, and upheavals marked the first steps of the Republic in its halting advance. But this does not mean that our ills are the inevitable consequence of independence; if it were so, they would last as long as independence did; and reason, the experience of what has happened among other peoples of the world, the natural order of things, assure us that more or less quickly they must end, that more or less quickly the Republic has to occupy, among the free and happy people of the earth, the place that providence has designated for it. The seriousness of this matter, the injustice with which the gentlemen of El Universal have accused us of being enemies of our independence, have compelled us to deal with it in this article, despite having explained our ideas already in the correspondent of the third of this month. We will continue, then, the task we began. After having achieved independence, the men who had contributed to it tried to find recompense for their efforts in the public posts the new order of things made accessible to all legitimate ambitions. Unfortunately , the men were few, very few, who, like the liberator of the North American republic, were happy with enjoying the sweetness of private life, the...

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