Derechos Convincentes para Elegir Emperador Americano [caption title]

Mexico City: Alejandro Valdes, 1821. Still very good.. 8pp. Small quarto. Removed from a sammelband. Light wear at gutter fold. Minor dampstaining and dust soiling at edges. Light tanning. Fascinating and very scarce pamphlet concerning the right of Mexico to elect an emperor, published anonymously just after the country was granted independence by Spain in 1821. The first several years of independence in Mexico were fraught by political division concerning the form that the new government should take. The Plan of Iguala, which was promulgated by Agustin de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero and authorized in the Treaty of Cordoba with Spain, called for a constitutional monarchy. However, there was a strong desire in many quarters for a more liberal form of government, such as a constitutional republic, as well as some calls, as from the present work, for a more authoritarian style of rule. The author here argues that Mexico was political heir of the pre-conquest empire of Moctezuma, and therefore had the right to elect an emperor and to return to its pre-colonial form of government. We locate only two copies, at the national libraries of Mexico and Spain; none in U.S. institutions.
Garritz 4481.