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nydus/Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol. 2 of 2Public
Page 257 of 678
Table of Contents

CHAPTER XII. CONSTITUTIONS AND LAWS.

and to the convocation of extraordinary sessions of the national legislature, either in conjunction with the president or by its sole act. The cabinet consists of a minister of foreign and domestic affairs; a minister of justice; a minister of finance; a minister of war and marine, each of whom receive an annual salary of six thousand dollars.

Each state government is independent within its local jurisdiction, and, like the federal government has, executive, legislative and judicial powers. The law making power of each of these governments resides in a legislature composed of the number of members which may be determined by its separate constituency, all of whom shall be elected by the people and removable at the time and in the manner they may think proper to decree. The persons to whom the sovereign states confide their executive power, can only exercise it for a time fixed by each respective state constitution. The power and jurisdiction of the national judiciary are amply defined so as to avoid conflict. The state judicial power is to be exercised by the tribunals created or appointed by the state constitutions, and all civil or criminal causes recognized by those courts shall be conducted in them to a final hearing and to the execution of the sentence. Every male person either born in the republic or naturalized, who attains the age of twenty years, possesses the means of honest livelihood, and has not been sentenced by legal process for any infamous crime, is declared to be a citizen of Mexico, and enjoys the right to vote, to petition, to meet others in the discussion of public affairs and to belong to the national guard. The exercise of these rights of citizenship may however be suspended in consequence of confirmed intemperance, professional gambling, a vagabond life, the assumption of religious orders, by legal interdict, in virtue of crimes which cause loss of citizenship, and by inexcusable refusal to serve in public employment when appointed by the people.

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