Joseph Welsh : A British Santanista (Mexico, 1832)

Joseph Welsh was the British Vice Consul in the port of Veracruz at the time of the uprising of 1832 by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna against the government of Anastasio Bustamante. Contravening the orders of his superiors, who reiterated the view that it was his obligation to observe the strictest neutrality in the conflict and not interfere in Mexican politics, Welsh found himself supporting Santa Anna and the rebels. As a result, at the end of March, Bustamante's administration demanded that he be removed from office. The British Minister Plenipotentiary, Richard Pakenham, acquiesced. This article provides a narrative of the events that led to Welsh's forced resignation and explores what they tell us about British diplomacy in Mexico during the early national period. It also analyses Welsh's understanding of the revolt and his views on Santa Anna, providing some insights, from a generally ignored British perspective,(1) into Santa Anna's notorious appeal and politico-military measures.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Fiscal Centralization, Limited Government, and Public Revenues in Europe, 1650-1913

Old Regime polities typically suffered from fiscal fragmentation and absolutist rule. By the start of World War I, however, many such countries had centralized institutions and limited government. This article uses a new panel data set to perform a statistical analysis of political regimes and public revenues in Europe from 1650 to 1913. Panel regressions indicate that centralized and limited regimes were associated with significantly higher revenues than fragmented and absolutist ones. Structural break tests also suggest close relationships between major turning points in revenue series and political transformations

U.S. securities markets and the banking system, 1790-1840

Banks and banking - History ; Stock market ; Securities ; Bank stocks

Consumption and excess in Spanish America (1700-1830)

It may be said without exaggeration, that the finest stuffs made in countries, where industry is always inventing something new, are more generally seen in Lima than in any other place; vanity and ostentation not being restrained by custom or law. With this grand overstatement the Spanish travellers Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa summed up their account of fashion in 1740s Lima. Dress in the capital of colonial Peru, according to these men, differed from that of Europe only in its extravagance. European goods and clothing, they insisted, were widely available, which allowed the ladies of Lima to indulge their immoderate taste for Flemish lace and pearls, to the ruination of their husbands. Such was these women’s passion for finery that they often succumbed to uterine cancer, brought on, the travellers were certain, by ‘their excessive use of perfumes’

The New York-New Jersey Boundary Controversy: John Marshall and the Nullification Crisis

In 1832 a long-standing boundary dispute between New York and New Jersey complicated the work of Chief Justice John Marshall and President Andrew Jackson. Long reviled by southern states\u27 rights advocates, including the president, Marshall in 1832 faced the prospect of having the Court\u27s decisions ignored by the state of Georgia. Federal authority was further challenged in the fall of 1832, when South Carolina nullified the tariff of 1828, thereby provoking a constitutional crisis. On December 10, 1832, to the amazement of many observers, Jackson issued a proclamation rejecting nullification and secession, and threatening military action if South Carolina did not change its course

Founding Legal Education in America

Thomas Jefferson is rightly recognized as the author of the Declaration of Independence, but less well known to the public is the role of his professional mentor and close friend George Wythe, who assisted in drafting the Declaration and served as both a law professor and Chancellor. Among Wythe\u27s mentees were future President James Monroe, John Marshall, Henry Clay, and many others who played a role in shaping the Nation. This symposium paper explores the foundations of American legal education in the antebellum era, a short account of which confirms that the Founders understood that a republic needs experienced lawyers in high places who can work things out

The Look Within: Property, Capacity, and Suffrage in Nineteenth-Century America

This Note looks at the trajectory of suffrage reform from the late eighteenth century to the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment and argues that reformers were obsessed with the inner qualities of persons. Whereas the eighteenth century had located a person\u27s capacity for political participation externally (in material things, such as property), the nineteenth century found these qualities internally (in innate and heritable traits, such as intelligence). To chart the transformation, this Note examines the debates over suffrage in the state constitutional conventions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as contemporaneous commentaries. Part I will describe the external view that characterized the eighteenth century, and how its explanatory force gradually faded. Part I1will describe the creation of the internal view, how it led to manhood suffrage, and how, at the same time, it continued to disenfranchise women and blacks. Part II will offer a brief conclusion, tying in some additional categories of excluded persons and exploring the limits of the look within

The Look Within: Property, Capacity, and Suffrage in Nineteenth-Century America

This Note looks at the trajectory of suffrage reform from the late eighteenth century to the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment and argues that reformers were obsessed with the inner qualities of persons. Whereas the eighteenth century had located a person\u27s capacity for political participation externally (in material things, such as property), the nineteenth century found these qualities internally (in innate and heritable traits, such as intelligence). To chart the transformation, this Note examines the debates over suffrage in the state constitutional conventions of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as contemporaneous commentaries. Part I will describe the external view that characterized the eighteenth century, and how its explanatory force gradually faded. Part I1will describe the creation of the internal view, how it led to manhood suffrage, and how, at the same time, it continued to disenfranchise women and blacks. Part II will offer a brief conclusion, tying in some additional categories of excluded persons and exploring the limits of the look within