2. To impose taxes and decree their application.

3. To grant general amnesties in the cases wherein public convenience requires it.

4. To grant pardons, remission or commutation of legal punishment, when so required for the advantage and convenience of the State.

5. To decree the protection to be afforded by the Government to the religious worship of the State, and the intervention which it has to exercise in the appointment of its Ministers.

6. To acknowledge the public debt and to decree the manner and means of extinguishing it.

7. To authorize the Government to contract debts upon the credit of the State, and to assign guarantees to cover them.

8. To decree the naval and military forces which are to be maintained, and to regulate in a fitting manner the services which they are to render.

9. To open and close ports.

10. To grant exclusive privileges.

11. To give the Government grounds for the formation of alliances with the other States of the Republic, to point out their object, and to ratify what is agreed upon therein.

12. To prorogue their sessions for 30 available days at most, the Executive having no power to return with observations the decrees passed upon this subject.

Political Trial.

XXXVII. The Governor, Councillors, Secretaries of State, and Administering Judges of the Supreme Court of Justice may be brought to trial for infractions of the law which they may commit in the exercise of their respective functions; but for that purpose they must be accused before the Chamber of Deputies, and if it be declared therein that there is cause to institute proceedings against them, the respective cases shall be transmitted to the Senate in order that they may be there completed in the proper form, hearing the accused and the accuser or accusers, if there be more than one, and that sentence of acquittal or condemnation may be passed; but without the power of imposing any other punishment in these trials than deprivation of office or employment, and temporary or permanent disability to hold any other. But when in the judgment of the said Chamber of Senators it appears that the accused is liable to heavier punishment, the process shall be transferred to the respective judge of first instance, so that it may be carried on according to law.

XXXVIII. The abuses of the court in its trials for protection

against the laws or decrees of the Congress of the State, can only be taken cognizance of by the Chambers in the ordinary sessions of the year following that in which the judgments have been passed for which proceedings are to be brought; and it is necessary that both Chambers should condemn them by the vote of two-thirds of their members present, in order to sentence the court to the appointed penalties, when the Congress which tries it may be the author of the legislative enactments against which it has passed judgment.

Chambers erected into Juries of Accusation.

XXXIX. The functionaries mentioned in Article XXXVII can only be tried for the ordinary offences which they commit, on the previous declaration by one of the Chambers that there is cause to institute proceedings. But in order that the Deputies and Senators may be tried for the said offences, the required declaration shall be made by the Senate if it be a question of criminal proceeding against the former, and if against the latter by the Chamber of Deputies.

XL. When it has been declared that there is cause to proceed criminally against the public functionaries mentioned in the preceding article, the case shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court of Justice, in order that the accused may be tried according to the laws.

XLI. For the cognizance of these causes, to supply the deficiency in cases of the physical or legal incapacity of the magistrates of the court, the united Chambers shall elect, on the 2nd of September, every two years, 12 persons who, although they may not be advocates, possess a knowledge of the law of the land, and moreover unite the other circumstances required for obtaining the superior magistracies of the State. From among these shall be taken by lot before the Chamber of Deputies, or, during the recess of Congress, before the Governor and Counsellors, those who may be required in the aforesaid cases.

Of the Executive Power.

XLII. The Executive Power of the State shall be entrusted to a Governor; the person charged with this office shall be replaced on the 1st of October every 4 years, and he shall be elected directly by the people.

XLIII. To be Governor it is required to be a Yucatecan citizen by birth, to be domiciled in the State, to be 30 years of age, and to possess a capital of 6,000 dollars, free from all liability.

XLIV. Every 4 years the citizens of the parochial sections, at the voting for the Deputies and Senators, shall also vote on one paper only for a person to serve as Governor, and for one to supply

his place when absent. Each electoral meeting shall draw up a report of the result of this election, and shall transmit it immediately to the Council of State.

XLV. From the 1st of September next following the aforesaid elections, till the 15th of the same month, the united Chambers shall proceed to the examination of the reports mentioned in the preceding Article, deciding as may be regularly arranged respecting any illegality charged against the voting and in regard to the other matters relating to the said elections. Within the same period they shall perform the scrutiny and declare the election as Governor and as substitute of the persons who shall respectively have obtained the greatest number of votes for each office.

XLVI. The Chambers shall act together in everything relating to the election of Governor and substitute, deciding by absolute plurality of votes all questions which may arise thereon, and resorting to lot for the decision in cases of equality of votes given by the people.

XLVII. The Governor elect and the Councillors shall take possession of their respective offices on the 1st of October, swearing themselves in before the united Chambers.

XLVIII. Every temporary or permanent absence of the Governor shall be made good by the substitute; if the latter should be temporarily absent at the same time as the Governor, the united Council shall act for him; and also in the continued absence of both Governor and substitute.

In the latter case, if the absence should exceed 6 months, the Council shall immediately issue notices for the people to proceed as soon as possible to the election of a new Governor and substitute, assembling the Chambers for the sole purpose of the scrutiny and declaration of the persons elected. These shall enter at once upon their respective offices, and shall discharge the duties thereof for the remainder of the constitutional period.

The Governor's Powers.

XLIX. It belongs to the Governor:

1. To sanction, publish, and circulate the laws and decrees of the Council of State, and to cause them to be observed.

2. To demand from all the offices and persons employed the intelligence and information that he requires for the performance of his duties.

3. To give the proper orders, so that the constitutional elections may take place at the periods determined by the law.

4. To appoint the political chiefs, both superior and subaltern.

5. To appoint and remove freely the Secretaries of State and those who belong to their offices.

6. To appoint the officers of the standing army and navy up to the captains inclusive; aud the commanders of both forces, with the approval of the Senate, or, during its recess, of the Council of State. 7. To issue regulations and orders for the better fulfilment of the Constitution and laws.

8. To attend to the public health, directing the fitting measures for its preservation.

9. To excite the zeal of the tribunals effectually for the most speedy administration of justice, giving information to the Supreme Court of the faults committed by the inferior ones.

10. To require the Council of State to convoke the Chambers in extraordinary sessions, and the latter to prorogue the ordinary ones.

11. To require the Council of State to give him its opinion, in writing, on matters of administration which he submits to it, in order to enable him to decide correctly.

12. To preside, without a vote, at the Council of State when it applies to him on the subject of any recommendation; but he shall not be present at the time when the resolutions are passed on the subject which has called for his assistance.

13. To grant letters of naturalization in accordance with the formalities established by a special law.

14. To dispose the naval and military forces for internal and external security.

15. To promote in the States of the Republic the formation of coalitions for the support and consolidation of the cause proclaimed therein, and to appoint the agents who are to represent it in the States, giving account to the Legislative Power of the final resolution which they come to.

16. To conduct the correspondence which may arise on matters of international law, regulating his proceedings by the law of nations and the maritime law, according to the circumstances in which the State may be, and observing in preference the Treaties concluded by the Republic with foreign Governments up to the 18th of February, 1840.

17. To arrest those whom he may suspect, when the welfare or the security of the State requires it; being bound to place the persons arrested at the disposal of the proper tribunal in 3 days at the latest.

18. To initiate the laws and decrees which he may consider fitting for the welfare or prosperity of the State.

19. To exercise the right of rejection in the appointment of judges of first instance in accordance with the laws.

20. To give discharges, grant leave of absence, and pensions to soldiers, in conformity with the laws.

21. To intervene in the filling up of benefices and ecclesiastical ministries in the manner and form determined by the laws.

Restriction of the Governor's Powers.

L. He shall not be able:

1. To impose a tax of any

kind.

2. To hinder or delay the popular elections.

3. Or to hinder the installation of the Congress.

4. To interfere in the examination of pending judicial cases, or to dispose of the persons of the accused during the trial.

5. To go out of the territory of the Republic, nor out of the capital, without the leave of the Congress, or, during its recess, of the Council, only for weighty and proved reasons.

Of the Council of State.

LI. There shall be a Council of State composed of 3 original voting members, who shall be the substitute Governor and two other persons who shall be appointed one by one every 4 years by the united Chambers. These shall also appoint 3 substitutes in the same manner and on the same day.

The substitute Governor shall be President of the Council; in his absence, the Councillor first appointed by the Chambers shall preside, the second taking his place, and calling upon the substitute to make up the number; in the absence of both the first named, the second appointed shall preside, and the second substitute shall be called to fill the third place. If all the principal members should be absent, the 3 substitutes shall act for them.

LII. The same qualifications are required for a Councillor as for the Governor.

LIII. The third Councillor shall act as Secretary.

Powers of the Council.

LIV. It belongs to the Council:

1. To do what is determined in Article LV, being responsible for any recommendations it may make contrary to the Constitution and laws.

2. To frame regulations for the improvement of public instruction in all its branches, and to send them up, through the Government, to the Congress for its approval.

3. To explain the accounts of the annual produce of the State revenues, and those of their application, in order that they may be submitted, through the Government, to the Congress within the first 15 days of its sessions, and they are to be accompanied by an estimate of the expenditure for the following year, and of the means required to meet it.

Also to explain the accounts of the public property, and the ways and means for the approval of the Government.

4. To enter the names of the elected Deputies and Senators in a register which shall be kept for the purpose.