The Citizen J. L. Vallarta to The Citizen, May 28, 1868

Circular addressed by the minister of government to the governors of the States.

SECRETARYSHIP OF STATE AND OF THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT—SECTION 1ST—CIRCULAR.

I this day communicated the following to the citizen governor of Jalisco:

“In council of ministers I laid before the constitutional President the decree numbered 88, issued by the legislature of your State, and which you transmit to me with your dispatch of the 21st instant.

“The gravity of the subject to which the decree relates, and the transcendency of the declarations it makes, strongly arrest the attention of the federal executive, and after examining the affair with all the attention that it demands, the citizen President has directed that I should make to you the representations which are the object of this note, and for the ends that are therein expressed.

“The decree No. 88 is evidently unconstitutional, and invades the grave attributes which the fundamental law confers solely upon the congress of the Union and the federal executive. The text of that law is so clear as to render impossible, any misinterpretation.

“Solely, the President of the republic, in concurrence with the council of ministers, says article 29 of the federal constitution, and with the approbation of the congress of the Union, ‘may suspend the guarantees established by this constitution.’ So far were the constituent legislators from conceding to the legislatures of the States the faculty of suspending the constitutional guarantees, that they refused the power even to the.congress of the Union whenever the suspension should not be made by the President of the republic, in accord with his council of ministers; this essential requisite, the only one in our constitutional law limiting the legislative faculties of congress, constituting the proof that not even congress itself can suspend a constitutional guarantee, except in joint action with the government, this being a further wise precaution in a matter in itself most serious. All these views are so evidently true that if not the text of article 29, its discussion in the session of the constituent congress, on the 21st of November, 1856, would leave no room for the slightest doubt.

“For these unquestionable reasons it is an established principle of our constitutional right that the legislatures of the States can never suspend the guarantees sanctioned by the constitution.

“It is true that there may be instances when the constitutional law may not suffice for the assurance of public order, threatened in some locality by a serious peril; but the remedy for such an evil is not in infringing the law, doing what it prohibits, but in applying to the only power that can suspend guarantees, asking the necessary authorizations to confront the situation. In the circular from this department, of the 12th of last month, I stated to the government under your worthy charge what ought to be done in such cases, in order to attend equally both to the exigencies of the public peace and to the respect due to the supreme law of the country.

“Such a law does not attack the sovereignty of the States; it is known that it determines the quality and conditions of the federal compact which unites all of the States to form of them the nation; it is known that the local sovereignty only exists with the restrictions which that law establishes, nor is any one ignorant that to secure the general good of the country the States legitimately represented in the constituent congress consented to reserve certain faculties to the federal power exclusively.

“For this the States, without any offense to their sovereignty, are restricted from making alliances or treaties; they cannot coin money, nor make war against a foreign power, nor legislate on matters reserved to the congress of the Union, nor exercise faculties committed to the President of the republic; and this is why the States, without offending their sovereignty, cannot suspend guarantees, since this important attribute is exclusively reserved by article 29 of the constitution to the federal power.

“Local constitutions, it is true, permit their legislatures to invest their governors with extraordinary faculties, but such authorization cannot be invoked to enable them to do what belongs only to the competent federal power.

“The extraordinary faculties that a legislature may give cannot pass the limits assigned by the internal regimen of the State; they cannot treat of matters in which the legislature itself is incompetent, and this for the simple reason that what is not possessed cannot be given. For this reason these extraordinary faculties could never authorize a governor to do what the President only can do; and for the same reason a legislature cannot give authority to do what is permitted only to the congress of the Union. In this sense, and in no other, are articles 19, fraction 6 and 28, fraction 9, of the constitution of Jalisco to be interpreted.

“As the declarations made in the decree to which I am referring are supported” by considerations which are certainly illegal, the federal government cannot, admit them, nor recognize in the legislature of Jalisco, as asserted in the first article of the decree, the right of suspending constitutional guarantees, or of legislating upon matters which are reserved to the congress of the Union.

“The government makes no observations with respect to the third article, as the supreme court of justice will know how to fulfill its duty by determining what the law ordains in this case; but it cannot, indeed, omit indicating, although very summarily, that the excitative spoken of in article 4 is illegal, not because it invites other legislatures to do what they are prohibited from doing, but because the constitution does not permit States to form alliances or coalitions of any kind.

“Having by the preceding answered your official note of the 21st instant, I have finally to state to you, by express order of the citizen President, that the decree referred to being unconstitutional, the government of the Union, as also the authorities, to whom the constitution confides its inviolability, will proceed to act in their respective cases, obeying always, and with all preference, the general constitution of the republic, which cannot be derogated by the said decree.”

And I transcribe the same to you, by the order of the citizen President, in order that you may be pleased to communicate this note to the legislature of your State, when the excitative, which that of Jalisco has made, with reference to this affair, shall be treated of