Liberalism Divided: Regional Polities and the National Project During the Mexican Restored Republic, 1867–1876

National-level Mexican history by itself reveals very little of the basic struggles during the Restored Republic. It is frequently necessary to reconstruct conflict at the provincial and local levels to understand the real political culture of Mexicans in this period. Although the importance of the national level and the federal government’s nation-building enterprise should not be underplayed, most Mexicans dwelt in the rural and local environment: their mental vision of national events and issues derived from daily experiences.

As the principal instrument of change during the broader period from 1833 to 1876, the Liberal Party (as the disparate movement described itself) sought to transform Mexico from a Hispanic Catholic bastion into a constitutional and secular republic. This process fell into three distinct phases: the preliminary developments in 1833–34 and 1846–53, the struggles of the Reform era and the French intervention between 1855 and 1867, and the period of attempted consolidation during the Restored Republic, from 1867 to 1876. The process was never easy and ultimately remained incomplete. Liberal ideas and politicians were vigorously contested throughout the period from 1833 to l876.¹

Party politics, moreover, was a relatively new phenomenon in postindependence Mexico. It was, in effect, superimposed on existing identities and issues, which reflected more traditional preoccupations and habits of behavior. Identification with village or locality, corporate or peer group, region or profession clearly predominated as factors of mobilization, even during the development of party identifications into the mid-nineteenth century.² In addition, personal networks of power, or caciquismo, similarly conditioned allegiances. In the early decades of the Mexican sovereign state, these linkages and their potential for recruitment helped to explain the national impact of military politicians, or caudillos, such as Generals Antonio López de Santa Anna and Mariano Paredes Arrillaga.³

Many political figures at the regional and national levels regularly oscillated between traditional and new habits of political behavior. The informal integration of local, corporate, and personal loyalties with the acquired allegiances to ideology and party represented the essential characteristic of Mexican political culture for most of the nineteenth century. It helps to explain the absence of a defined party organization and program at the national level.⁴

The Internal Contradictions of Mexican Liberalism

Liberalism drew support from a broad range of social and ethnic groups. At the leadership level, urban professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, and journalists, predominated. In general, these were men of learning who published literary works beyond their political and journalistic output. Manuel Payno, Ignacio Ramírez, Guillermo Prieto, Ignacio Altamirano, and Vicente Riva Palacio were all cases in point. In terms of social status and economic activity, most Liberal leaders scarcely differed from their Conservative opponents, a phenomenon Frank Safford has noted in the Colombian case. Landowners and businessmen predominated in both leadership cadres, especially at the national level. As Guy Thomson has pointed out, popular movements for the revindication of agrarian grievances frequently proved too much for Liberal landowners. During the period of the Restored Republic, but especially during the personal rule of Porfirio Díaz (1884–1911), the business tendencies of Liberalism became accentuated.⁵

The strength of the Liberal Party lay in the provinces. At its most typical, the party reflected provincial opposition to the predominance of Mexico City. In varying degrees, Liberal politicians from the provinces strove to prevent any recurrence of centralism after independence. Accordingly, a complex and imprecise relationship existed between Liberalism and federalism, and between regionalism and caciquismo, throughout the nineteenth century. Once they had taken power at the national level, moreover, Liberal administrations in Mexico City themselves faced the provincial recalcitrance expressed in their own ranks. Liberal state governments and local cadres strongly resisted what they perceived as centralizing measures from capital-city administrations. This particular issue emerged powerfully during the administrations of Benito Juárez (1867–72) and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada (1872–76).⁶

The federal constitutions of 1824 and 1857 had conceived of the Mexican republic not as a loose collection of semiautonomous provinces but as an integrated polity with functioning central institutions. Regional sentiment, moreover, was qualitatively distinct from separatism. Regionalism concerned the readjustment of the balance of power in the republic, not Separation from it. This helps to explain why Mexico in the 1830s and 1840s did not experience a political disintegration like that of the former Kingdom of Guatemala.

Accordingly, Mexican political struggles involved the distribution of power and resources between the central government and the regions. Different factions or parties held divergent views on this issue, and those views varied over time. Provincial elites defended the sovereignty of the states; Liberal administrations in Mexico City argued that the republic could be governed only from the center. That controversy in itself implied a decisive role for the capital city and the political institutions located there. In practice, the federal government after 1867 sought to express its primacy through the medium of controlled elections at the state level. Only 9,000 to 12,000 electors participated in presidential elections between 1857 and 1877, out of a total population of 8 million to 9 million, as a result of the indirect electoral system established by the Electoral Law of February 12, 1857.⁷

Provincial Liberalism attracted a range of middle and lower socioethnic groups, depending on the prevailing issues in specific localities. It could encompass smaller landowners, itinerant merchants and muleteers, artisans, peasants, and members of Indian communities. Adherents of Liberalism believed that the movement would redress grievances, set them free, or enable them to advance socially and materially. Liberalism frequently opened the possibility of upward social mobility. Guy Thomson discerns “a core Liberal constituency—secular, creole, mestizo, restless, mobile, individualistic, anticlerical (though not necessarily anti-Catholic), alert to economic opportunities. . . .” This perception, based on a reading of events in the northern Puebla sierra, is amply borne out elsewhere in the republic, not least in the Oaxaca Mixteca and sierra, home territories of Díaz and Juárez, respectively.⁸

Popular Liberalism also meant commitment to shared objectives: local communities rallied to its advocacy and defense of municipal autonomy, an objective originating in the Cádiz Constitution of 1812. Alicia Hernández Chávez has recently examined this popular republican tradition, and regards it as a major factor in political mobilization. The local and popular dimension throws into serious doubt John Tutino’s portrayal of Liberalism as a classist ideology designed to undermine community institutions for the benefit of acquisitive “modernizers.” Popular action belied the notion of dualism—an uncomprehending or passive peasant mass on one side and a numerically small reforming, urban-based elite on the other. A good deal of cross-fertilization took place among differing socioethnic groups and rural and urban localities from the Revolution of Ayutla in 1854 through to the Rebellion of Tuxtepec in 1876.⁹

At an early stage, the Liberals divided between “moderates” (moderados) and “radicals” (puros). Moderates were ready to offer compromise solutions to Conservative opponents in order to avoid conflict. They sought to minimize popular pressures. A distinct moderate position derived at least partly from Manuel Gómez Pedraza’s electoral struggle against Vicente Guerrero in 1828. President Ignacio Comonfort’s cabinet (1855–58), composed of the leading moderates Payno, José María Lafragua, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, and Manuel Siliceo, was regarded with deep suspicion by radicals.¹⁰ The issues that divided the Liberals included the appropriate degree of federalism and the extent of state sovereignty; indirect or direct elections and the extent of popular participation in political life; the structure of the legislative body—whether it should be bicameral or unicameral; religious toleration and Catholic disestablishment; and the extent of church dissociation from Mexican social and cultural life.¹¹

Increasingly, the “church question” (as the Liberals saw it) determined an individual’s ideological position. The divisions sharpened once the Revolution of Ayutla had taken power after August 1855. The revolutionaries quickly encountered an articulate Catholic opposition to their measures. Disputes over the nature and pace of reforms helped to differentiate moderates from radicals. Some Liberals of moderate temperament, such as Francisco Zarco, editor of El Sigh XIX from 1849 to 1869, adopted distinctly radical positions on such reform issues as individual liberties, press freedom, and the exclusion of members of the clergy from election to Congress. Liberals tended to view the clergy as members of a privileged corporation deeply rooted in the ancien régime, although their hostility generally did not extend either to Catholicism and Christianity as such or to individual clerics. Nevertheless, the measures adopted both by the states during the civil war of 1858–60 and in the Veracruz Reform Laws of 1859–61 revealed that Mexican Liberals were prepared to violate their own libertarian principles many times over when it came to matters concerned with Catholic institutions and practice.¹²

The moderates frequently found themselves caught between the Conservatives and the radical wing of their own party. Comonfort’s last months in office culminated in a disastrous attempt to avert civil war.¹³ After Comonfort, the most controversial figure among the Liberal moderates was clearly Lerdo, who had been skeptical of the practicability of the Constitution of 1857. After its nullification in December 1857, as a result of the coup of Tacubaya, Lerdo discreetly stayed out of politics until June 1863, when Juárez made him head of the cabinet. He remained in that post until his breach with Juárez over the presidential succession in January 1871.

Given Lerdo’s centralist tendencies, his known doubts about the 1857 Constitution, and his ambiguous position on the eve of the Tacubaya coup, the radicals regarded him as their principal enemy. Radical hostility to both Juárez and Lerdo grew after the restoration of the republic in July 1867. After Juárez’ death in July 1872, radical opposition to Lerdo continued and helped to form the Tuxtepec uprising of 1876, which eventually brought Díaz to power.¹⁴

Nevertheless, virulent conflict between the Mexican state and Mexican Catholics recurred precisely during the presidency of the moderate Lerdo, from 1873 to 1876. Lerdo’s supposed motives for inducing the renewal of religious strife have been examined by Anne Staples, who suggests the possibility that Lerdo wanted to cut his ties with the Juárez presidency and strike out for a distinct identity for his own administration. On the other hand, Lerdo may have used anticlericalism as a device to reunite the party. Whatever the real reason, Lerdo abandoned Juárez’ attempted rapprochement with the church after 1867. The incorporation of the Reform Laws into the Constitution on September 23, 1873, included the following provisions: religious toleration, civil marriage contracts, prohibition of the acquisition of landed property or mortgages by religious institutions, removal of the oath on the crucifix, the invalidation of monastic vows (on the grounds that they violated individual liberties), and the prohibition of the foundation of new orders.¹⁵

Controversy stemmed not from the simple inclusion of these laws but from the administration’s determination to enforce them to the letter. An oath of loyalty to observe the additions to the Constitution was required of all public employees on September 27. A Law of Regulation followed in 1875, prohibiting religious instruction in state schools at all levels, religious acts in public places, clerical dress in the streets, and the ringing of church bells except for Mass. These measures were excessive and petty. They contributed nothing to the reconciliation of opinion in the republic.

According to Jean Meyer, Lerdo’s measures took effect at a singularly unfortunate moment. The Catholic church, reeling under the impact of the reform, had begun a concerted attempt to reevangelize the countryside. In Meyer’s view, this amounted to a reconstitution of the popular Catholic base. The “cristero” uprisings of 1873–76 in the state of Mexico and across the center-west represented the localities’ response to the administration’s policies. They further destabilized the Liberal regime. Neo-Jacobinism, then, contributed in no small way to the destruction of constitutional Liberalism in Mexico. This conflict provided a further opening for Díaz, who presented himself as the candidate of popular revindication, to lever himself to power during the Rebellion of Tuxtepec.¹⁶

Constant vigilance and pressure on the national leadership and its regional representatives became the popular tactic, especially after 1867. Participation in the armed struggles against the Conservatives and the intervention accounted for popular self-confidence and assertiveness. Thomson suggests a marked diminution of the popular content of Liberalism at the national level after 1867: “Those who had organized the armed patriotic-liberal resistance against European intervention, with its widespread mobilization of ordinary Mexicans, including Indians, were grossly underrepresented after 1867, accounting for the decade of insurrections against the Juárez and Lerdo governments.” This view is shared by Hernández Chávez, who points to a specific alteration in the Liberal regime’s direction after 1880.¹⁷

Díaz, while not politically committed to lower-social-group protest, initially sought to profit from the rapid alienation of popular Liberalism by the official Liberals in power in the national capital. Local cadres, moreover, had frequently produced chieftains of stature, who commanded support and held credibility at the regional and national levels. The northern highlands of Puebla and Oaxaca produced significant leadership groups of long duration, which sustained the cause of the reform and the Juárez presidency (until 1867 in the case of Puebla) and ultimately contributed decisively to the accession of Díaz in 1876–77. The promise of municipal autonomy from central government interference remained a hallmark of popular Liberalism right through to the Revolution of 1910. Liberalism offered the further attractions of defense of state sovereignty and representative government at the state and national levels through the practice of regular elections.¹⁸

Liberal hostility to the regular army, its centralist bugbear, guaranteed a commitment to the provision of an alternative armed force in the form of the National Guard. This body, reestablished by President José Joaquín de Herrera (1847–51) and again after the Revolution of Ayutla, provided for the defense of republican institutions and the federal system. National Guard participation in the Wars of the Reform and Intervention explained its patriotic identification. The expulsion of the French and the humiliation of the Hapsburgs generated an exultant nationalism among participating guard units. During the armed conflict, however, the guard had become the political instrument of either the local, autonomous Liberal cadres, such as those in the northern highlands of Puebla and Oaxaca, or of the state governors. The Sixth Battalion of the Puebla National Guard, originally formed by the Xochiapulco chieftain Juan Francisco Lucas and mainly indigenous in composition, opened the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Díaz began the dissolution of the guard once again during the 1880s.

For this reason, Juárez’ restored administration after 1867 encountered armed resistance to a range of policies it conceived as necessary for national coordination and recovery. Not the least of these were the reforms of the 1857 Constitution proposed by Juárez and Lerdo. These reforms proved so controversial that they could not be instituted in the remaining years of the Juárez presidency. They carried over into the Lerdo years, unifying these two different administrations in continuing controversy.¹⁹

Constitutional Issues in the Restored Republic

As Ivie Cadenhead correctly has pointed out, two central problems faced Mexico after the collapse of the empire: who was to interpret the Constitution and how it was to be enacted. The short duration of the two previous constitutional periods (September to December 1857 and January 1861 to June 1863) explained why precedent could offer little guidance. Constitutional issues deepened the divisions in the Liberal Party. Aware of potential congressional opposition, Juárez and Lerdo sought to preempt it by making a direct appeal to the electorate before the forthcoming congress could meet. This attempted appeal took the form of a proposed referendum, included in the decree of August 14, 1867, for the convocation of Congress (the convocatoria) now that the armed conflict had come to an end. In essence, Juárez called for the restoration of bicameralism through the establishment of a senate.²⁰

The Constituent Congress of 1856–57 had, in an impassioned debate, rejected bicameralism. Radical arguments bad ensured the triumph of the unicameral principle on the grounds that the restoration of an upper chamber would preserve the aristocratic ethos and frustrate the democratic thrust of reform. Juárez in 1867 proposed to strengthen the executive and divide the legislative power into two chambers. Under the provisions of the first federal constitution in October 1824, the Mexican republic had adopted bicameralism, but had abandoned it in the second federal constitution in February 1857. The radicals argued that Mexico in the period 1855 to 1857 required speedy passage of legislation in a revolutionary situation. Accordingly, the Constituent Congress took a clear decision in favor of unicameralism, in spite of its professed admiration for U.S. political institutions. In this respect, it followed the Spanish Cortes of Cádiz (1810–13) and the French National Assembly of 1789–91. The decision reinforced the Jacobin aspects of Liberalism that had been perceptible in the years 1855 to 1863.²¹

When Santa Anna abolished the 1824 Constitution on December 16, 1853, the Senate ceased to exist. The Santa Anna regime similarly abolished all federal and state constitutional bodies and governed with no formal constitution until its overthrow in August 1855. Radical Liberal sentiments prevailed in the Constitutional Committee at the time of the Constituent Congress’ debates on the proposed new constitution. On June 16, 1856, this committee decided in favor of unicameralism. León Guzmán, the leading advocate, argued for the urgency of establishing political institutions capable of giving effect to permanent social reform. Francisco Zarco, however, had supported the idea of a senate in the discussions on the projected Article 53 of the constitution. In contrast to Guzmán, he did not see it as essentially “aristocratic.” His view that the senate should consist of two representatives elected from each state by direct vote was rejected by 44 votes to 38. Zarco’s concept of a “democratic” senate and the narrow margin of its rejection in 1856 suggest that Juárez’ espousal of the idea in 1867 was not as outrageous as his radical detractors implied.²²

Juárez, in the period 1858 to 1861, had largely shared the radicals’ view of the urgency of reforming actions, even though his close collaborator, the radical Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, had been constantly urging him to go faster and farther. The experience of the second constitutional period, 1861 to 1863, however, convinced Juárez of the need to rein in congressional power. Frank Knapp has effectively portrayed this period as one in which Congress interpreted the Constitution of 1857 in a parliamentary rather than a presidential sense.²³

The Liberal administration actually had first expressed a desire for constitutional reform in July 1861, following Juárez’ election as president for the first time. Juárez’ low opinion of the Constitution may have stemmed from the serious challenge he faced from congressional deputies. By contrast, state governors, often local chieftains, had not subordinated themselves to the state congresses; they ruled through their own prestige. The key relationship in the political system was between the federal executive and these state governors, and Juárez wanted them to deliver a pro-administration majority in the national congress.²⁴

Yet the specter of the catastrophic end of the Comonfort presidency hung over the entire issue of reform. By 1867, Juárez found himself in a position unenviably similar to that of Comonfort ten years earlier. He felt the urgent need of constitutional reform while recognizing its inflammatory nature. Unlike Comonfort in December 1857, however, Juárez did not propose to abolish the Constitution. The convocatoria did not involve a presidential coup d’état prearranged with the commander of the Mexico City garrison, as had been the case in 1857. The issues and the circumstances widely differentiated the events of August 1867 from those of December 1857.

Constitutional reform became one of the prime issues of the Restored Republic. In accordance with Article 127, amendments required a two-thirds majority in Congress and ratification by a majority of the state legislatures. The Constitution thereby did not exclude the possibility of amendment, though it sought to circumscribe the process in order to curb executive expansion. The reform issue clearly involved the still inadequately defined relationship between the executive and legislative branches. Given the federal structure established in 1857 and restored in 1867, this problem also extended to the relationship between the political center and the regional governments. That issue did not arise uniquely from the matter of constitutional reform; it predated it by decades. The reform issue, however, gave it a sharper hue. After the defeat of the intervention, the restoration of the constitutional processes in Mexico revived issues inherited from 1857 and 1861–63. The convocatoria revived earlier congressional perceptions of executive encroachment.²⁵

Regional and radical suspicion of the convocatoria combined in the opposition of Guzmán, then interim governor of Guanajuato, and General Juan M. Méndez, interim governor of Puebla, to Juárez’ proposals. State and local responses to the convocatoria quickly became the litmus test of loyalty to the president. Outright defiance cost both Guzmán and Méndez their positions. They had not been elected to their respective offices; they were executive appointees in the last phase of a national emergency. Méndez, nevertheless, had a powerful political base in the northern Puebla highlands. Having participated in the struggle against French intervention forces, Méndez bore Liberal credentials that were impeccable. Accordingly, Díaz, commander of the Republican Army of the East in the last phase of the war, appointed him interim state governor on April 25, 1867. Juárez revoked this appointment on September 19. Méndez argued that the convocatoria violated the Constitution.²⁶

In Mexico City, the Sixth Electoral College, meeting in the College of San Juan de Letrán on October 6, 1867 (under the presidency of the radical José María Castillo Velasco, a veteran of the Constituent Congress of 1856–57), denounced the convocatoria as an “arbitrary act” by the executive power in flagrant violation of Article 127.²⁷ In the radical newspaper El Globo, Manuel de Zamacona, who had been Juárez’ secretary of foreign relations in 1861, argued that the cabinet (first constituted toward the end of 1863) was a major cause of Liberal discord, that government prestige was dwindling daily, and that public offices were the “colonial prize” of government election agents.²⁸

Juárez claimed that the outcry against the convocatoria had taken him by surprise. In his opening address when the 220 deputies of Congress met on December 8, he withdrew the proposal for a plebiscite or referendum. The implication of this climb down by the national executive was that Congress would henceforth decide the nature and pace of constitutional reform. Juárez had made a serious miscalculation. His action exposed him to charges of authoritarian tendencies and widened the divisions in the Liberal party. Nevertheless, he had succeeded in placing constitutional reform on the political agenda. It would not go away.²⁹

Ultimately, Juárez failed in his attempt to convince Congress of the virtue of dividing the legislative power. Congress, in the spirit of 1857, took its stand on the need for defense against the encroaching executive power. Still, Juárez tenaciously pursued the issue. In 1870, he contrasted the apparent success of the U.S. constitutional model with the Mexican experience, emphasizing the need for stabilizing institutions in the aftermath of rebellions by army commanders in the states of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. In his circular of March 3, 1870, to the state governors, Juárez argued that the triumph of the Liberal principle of equality before the law prevented the projected senate from becoming a bastion of “aristocratic” power, much less of clerical or military influence. On the contrary, he argued persuasively, the senate would be the medium through which the states could directly express their views at the national level.³⁰

Hoping to reconcile regional sentiment and a stronger national representation, Juárez put forward the view that the unicameral congress, consisting of representatives elected by districts, prevented regional views from being heard. The U.S. Senate provided the model. The national congress, however, did not share Juárez’ assessment. Many radicals believed that the president’s stance betrayed not only his own position in the period 1858 to 1861 but also the Liberal idea of democracy. They contrasted “democracy,” which they believed the reform had initiated, with the executive supremacy associated with Santa Anna.

In view of its inauspicious beginning, the issue of constitutional reform during the Juárez period of the Restored Republic would inevitably be clouded with suspicion that the president, who had held office since January 1858, intended to perpetuate himself in power. His sudden death in July 1872 altered the political situation. Sebastián Lerdo’s presidency enabled renewed discussion of the senate issue without the allegations that had influenced opinion in Juárez’ last years. The new president had long been an advocate of reform; radical circles had always perceived him as the real author of the convocatoria of 1867. Nevertheless, Lerdo was able to secure a congressional majority for the establishment of a senate. In accordance with federal legislation passed on November 13, 1874, a senate finally came into existence in September 1875. Díaz, however, in a gesture to his popular and radical clientele, abolished the senate after the triumph of the Rebellion of Tuxtepec.³¹

“Presidentialism”: The Expansion of Executive Power

The issue of Juárez’ personality and motives, along with the continued supremacy of the so-called El Paso Group of Juárez, Lerdo, and José María Iglesias, the intimate circle that had survived the internal exile to the far north from 1863 to 1867 during the intervention, stirred discontent in the Liberal camp. In the civil war conditions of 1858 to 1860 and 1863 to 1867, furthermore, no congress could meet. For that reason, Juárez had governed as best he could within the Liberal-held zone by means of extraordinary executive powers originally requested from Congress when in session.³²

Juárez, in his addresses to Congress from 1861 to 1863 and 1867 to 1872, stressed that those requests responded to national emergencies and should not be regarded as executive attempts to wield arbitrary powers. Congress, rarely pliant, viewed the requests with circumspection. Even so, congressional debates (including expressions of opposition to Juárez and the administration), press freedom (for Liberal newspapers), and Supreme Court impartiality continued during the periods of emergency powers. Juárez always made great play of formally handing back these powers to Congress.³³

At the same time, the former governor of Oaxaca was a skillful politician, determined to survive in power even in the face of repeated hostility. Accordingly, on November 8, 1865, Juárez invoked the extraordinary faculties to extend his four-year presidential term for the duration of the war. This measure provoked an outcry from the supporters of the president of the Supreme Court, General Jesús González Ortega, who had hoped to succeed Juárez when the elected term expired. The extension exposed Juárez to the charge of self-perpetuation in office; yet he secured further grants of emergency faculties from Congress after 1867 to enable the national government to combat recurrent internal disorder. His repeated application for such powers, which involved the suspension of constitutional guarantees, became a major political issue during Juárez’ last years in office.³⁴

“Presidentialism”—executive expansion, self-perpetuation in office, and reelection—were all intimately linked in the political vocabulary of the Restored Republic. These issues continued to be potent divisive forces throughout the Díaz period, the Revolution, and its aftermath. They can be regarded as recurrent and underlying questions of modern Mexican politics.³⁵ During the Restored Republic, these questions became explicit for the first time. Juárez’ first reelection in 1867 opened the debate. In contrast to the Argentine constitution of 1853, with which the Mexican constitution of 1857 has often been compared, the latter did not include among its provisions the principle of no reelection to executive offices on the expiration of the initial term.³⁶

Juárez, with the support of Lerdo and Zarco as well as the radical Ignacio Ramírez, won the presidential election of October 1867 with an absolute majority. This did not preserve him from charges of presidentialism in his own party. Zamacona’s attacks on the Juárez administration after 1867 rested on the charge that executive actions were undermining Mexican democracy. Zamacona specifically criticized the exclusion of González Ortega in 1865, even though he was not himself a supporter of the general. In July 1868, for instance, the editorial pages of El Globo pointed to the dangers of executive actions and argued that the administration repeatedly bypassed the Constitution. Zamacona took his stand on the principle of separation of executive and judicial faculties. He referred to a “constitutionalist party” within the “great Liberal communion of the Republic” dedicated to the legal restriction of presidential power under the Constitution.³⁷

In the administration’s judgment, however, dealing with disorder required strong executive measures. Juárez, on May 8, 1868, for instance, managed to persuade an initially reluctant Congress to revive his draconian law of January 25, 1862, which originally had been directed against intervention collaborators. In the changed political conditions of the early Restored Republic, Juárez’ intention was to employ this law against the guerrilla movements led by Miguel Negrete and Aureliano Rivera. For the same purpose, the next month, he secured the suspension of constitutional guarantees for one year.³⁸

A range of opinion in the Liberal camp believed that the administration had infringed on the Constitution and that Juárez intended to construct a life presidency. These allegations reappeared in the Plan Politico of December 30, 1869, issued by dissident army officers in San Luis Potosí. This rebellion coincided with opposition to the national administration in the federal congress and in the Liberal press. In rebel perceptions, the convocatoria of 1867 became less a political error and more a premeditated calculation designed to destroy the Constitution. The act of rebellion implied that the presidential election of 1867 was invalid and therefore did not require moral compliance with its result. It threw into question the legitimacy of elections as they were usually conducted.

Foreshadowing Díaz’ later stance during the Rebellion of La Noria in 1871, the San Luis Potosí rebels justified their action on the grounds that the defense of the inviolable national institutions created in 1857 fell to the armed forces. Through insurrection, they proposed to uphold the sovereignty of the people and effective suffrage. In the rebels’ view, Juárez had reduced both of these to a farce. They portrayed themselves as defenders of the independence of the legislature and judiciary from “the dictatorial advances of the Executive.’’ The plan even resurrected the idea first mooted during the Revolution of Ayutla (and firmly rejected by Lafragua and Comonfort) that the capital of the republic should be moved from Mexico City to the geographical center; that is, into the regions.³⁹

With its strongly anti-Juarista tendencies, the state of Zacatecas, where González Ortega had been governor, did not take long to follow the example of San Luis Potosí. General Trinidad Garcia de la Cadena, the state’s prominent Orteguista, “pronounced” on January 8, 1870. The Zacatecas plan put forward the view that constitutional order had actually broken down as a result not of Juárez’ reelection in 1867 but of his decree of November 8, 1865. The Zacatecas rebels invited the other states of the federation to join them in a rebellion against the central power, designed, as they put it, to reestablish the status quo of February 5, 1857, the date the Constitution was promulgated. Their plan recognized only González Ortega as legitimate president, because Juárez’ term had expired in 1865. As in the case of San Luis Potosí, this view implied nullification of the election of 1867 on the grounds that it was illegal.

Juárez’ decree of 1865, the Zacatecas plan stated, had violated national sovereignty. The rebels demanded, furthermore, that Juárez be called on to explain his use of extraordinary faculties, in accordance with Article 128 of the Constitution. In the Zacatecans’ view, the legal president was González Ortega, but in his default some other member of the Supreme Court—who would be designated by those state governors who adhered to the plan— should assume office. In such a way, antipresidentialism combined with regionalism (and the idea that the national capital should be relocated somewhere between Aguascalientes and Dolores), and hostility toward Juárez with radical constitutionalism. The realization of the package, however, depended on armed insurrection. This incongruity undermined the balance of the other ingredients.⁴⁰

The San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas rebellions of 1869–70 caught the administration off guard. The secretary of war. General Ignacio Mejía, was a Oaxacan intimate of Juárez; his function in the cabinet was to ensure the loyalty of the principal army commanders, a task he performed with skill. Foremost among the loyal commanders was General Mariano Escobedo, victor at Querétaro in 1867 and an intimate friend of Lerdo. Operating in conjunction with him was General Sóstenes Rocha, interim commander of the Third Division stationed in Giudad Victoria (Tamaulipas). Together they crushed the rebellions in both states by March 1870. Gadena withdrew to Zamora (Michoacán) and appealed to those who supported the principles of the Revolution of Ayutla against the “hypocrisy” of the Juárez administration, which represented “tyranny disguised as liberty.”⁴¹

At the opening of the congressional session on April 1, 1870, Juárez handed back the extraordinary powers granted to him during the rebellions. He maintained that he had used them only minimally and for the specific purpose of organizing the official armed forces. The state of siege that had been imposed on Zacatecas, Jalisco, and Querétaro had since been lifted. Elections had been called in Zacatecas and Querétaro. Congress seemed to accept that individual guarantees and press freedom had been upheld during the emergency period; its president commended Juárez’ conduct.⁴²

Juárez spent the greater part of his presidency tacking between rival factions in Congress, to sustain a national policy, and in the states, to maintain a federal executive presence. His skill at such political maneuvering ensured a degree of success, but not unchallenged supremacy. Presidentialism generally presupposes an effective national policy reinforced by a full treasury. But Mexico’s federal treasury remained almost always in deficit.⁴³

Presidentialism continued to be an emotional issue, but in reality, congressional obstruction and the disruption inherited from ten years of warfare frustrated any significant economic or social reform during the remainder of the Juárez presidency. Recurrent insurrection in the states thwarted the administration’s desired educational reforms. Congressional and state opposition, furthermore, frequently operated in conjunction. Accordingly, it is difficult to see more than a tendency toward presidentialism during Juárez’ last years, rather than a marked assertion of executive power. The freely expressed chorus of opposition to the administration in Congress and the states suggests that civil liberties, at least among the articulate classes and in the Liberal ranks, were respected. Daniel Cosío Villegas makes the very valid point that neither Juárez nor Lerdo stated that they could not work with the 1857 Constitution—in contrast to Comonfort, who conspired to abolish it, or Díaz, who perpetuated himself in the presidency from 1884 until his overthrow in 1911. Emilio Rabasa points out that under Juárez and Lerdo, three presidential elections and four congressional elections took place in accordance with the law despite the prevailing turmoil in the country, and Congress functioned regularly as prescribed. In contrast to the period 1828 to 1861, presidents retained office for their full constitutional term.⁴⁴

Centralism: The Expansion of Metropolitan Power

The regional dimension, always significant in nineteenth-century Latin American politics, was decisive during the Restored Republic. Provincial Liberal cadres resented national government attempts to assert control over the disparate movement. They took their stand on local autonomy and states’ rights. To the charge of presidentialism, they added centralism. They portrayed the national government as intent on undermining the federal system reestablished by the Revolution of Ayutla and enshrined in the 1857 Constitution.

The rebellions of 1869–70 in San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas reflected a view of the republic as a federation of semiautonomous states. This was the regional perception of the republic’s natural order. Its antecedents lay in the federalist movements of 1823–24, which imagined the nation to consist of a free association of federated provinces constitutionally transformed into “states.” Regional politicians (of whom Juárez, though never Lerdo, had been one) considered the 1857 Constitution to have reaffirmed this perception. After 1858, furthermore, civil war and the dissolution of a national-level authority in the Liberal zone opened the way for a vibrant reaffirmation of regional sentiment. The Liberal state governors’ circumscription of the Juárez interim presidency personified this stance; the second collapse of constitutionalism in 1863 repeated and deepened it. This persistent regionalism provided the legacy of the Restored Republic.⁴⁵

Laurens Ballard Perry’s evocative dictum that for nineteenth-century Mexican Liberals the most pressing need was “the subordination of regionalism to nationalism without destroying federalism with centralism” expresses succinctly the problem of the Restored Republic. Neither Juárez nor Lerdo, in spite of allegations of centralism, intended to dismantle the federal system. They were, however, caught up in a complicated process of asserting the national government’s position, not so much in relation to the states as institutions but to the state governors and local chieftains as overbearing political personalities. This element of personal rivalry, over and beyond the constitutional question of the correct balance of institutions, is fundamental to an understanding of the issues at play.⁴⁶

The federal system had been abolished four times — in 1836, 1853, 1858, and 1863—by varying combinations of centralist and Conservative forces. The national government’s tendencies after 1867 therefore became a serious issue. At the regional level, real fears subsisted in the Liberal movement that Juárez and Lerdo had departed from the principles of the Revolution of Ayutla—just as they themselves believed Comonfort to have done in 1857. These principles had been intensely fought for between 1858 and 1867, and those who had fought for them then were prepared to continue the fight. The “gran década nacional” of 1857–67 had not been about restoring either centralism or executive supremacy. Both these notions contradicted Liberal ideology at its most basic and its most provincial. In spite of Juárez’ frequently professed dedication to the supremacy of the civil power, the “great national decade” had reached its climax with the assertion of Mexican nationalism rather than the establishment of a lasting basis for the rule of law and the practical implications of citizenship. The Republic of 1867 consisted of triumphant armed chieftains presided over by a Machiavellian lawyer-politician in a black frock coat, dedicated to disarming them аll.⁴⁷

John Mason Hart’s comments on the nature of opposition groups in the Restored Republic are pertinent here: “They espoused a radical critique of the Mexico City-based national government, charging it with dictatorial methods and electoral fraud. They supported more power for the states and constitutional provisions prohibiting reelection of the president.” Hart identifies the core of the opposition in the states of Puebla, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas, especially in 1869–70. All these states had financial problems, which national government efforts to abolish internal customs duties and the sales tax (alcabala) threatened to exacerbate.⁴⁸

Juárez’ conflicts with political chieftains in several states exposed the tensions between the civilian-dominated national administration and the armed clientele of the localities. In Puebla, Juárez removed Juan M. Méndez from the office of interim state governor and appointed Rafael J. García, a moderate Liberal newspaper editor, in his place. But Méndez and his partisans retained control of the sierra. García represented the perspective of the state capital and the central valley in which it was located; he also reflected the Juárez government’s view of the proper type of person for the office of state governor. As Juárez’ appointee, García fulfilled the specific function of ensuring that the administrative structure beneath him also worked in the national government’s interest.⁴⁹ Accordingly, García removed all the jefes políticos in the state believed to be working for Méndez.⁵⁰

These district administrators, whose office was instituted under the provisions of the 1857 Constitution, played an intermediary role between the state government and ordinary citizens. This made them crucial not only in maintaining law and order, but more specifically in delivering election results favorable to the dominant Liberal group at the state or national level. These officials began during the Restored Republic their long and controversial career, which would reach its climax in the Díaz era.⁵¹

The jefes políticos figured prominently in Oaxaca, where Juárez pursued a different strategy from the one he used in Puebla. In Oaxaca, Félix Díaz, younger brother of Porfirio Díaz, was determined to challenge the Juarista interim governor, Miguel Castro (who had also governed the state previously, from December 1858 to December 1859), in the forthcoming elections. Porfirio Díaz supported his brother's attempt to remove the Juarista hegemony in the president's home state. Accordingly, Castro warned Juárez on September 25, 1867, that the Díaz brothers controlled most of the jefes políticos — “those who deliver elections, while the rest of the population does what they order.” Three days later, Castro recommended federal intervention in the state to prevent this manipulation from taking place. Juárez chose not to follow that advice. The reason may be that support for Díaz was strongly evident throughout the state, except in areas, such as the northern highlands, that were personally loyal to Castro and his clientele.⁵²

In the northern highlands, the predominant (and interrelated) families, the Castros and the Meijueiros, controlled the National Guard and local civil offices. As a mining group that was not land-acquisitive, they presented no threat to the local Indian communities. From their highland redoubt, they watched the course of events in the central valley. In Puebla, by contrast, opposition to Juárez was concentrated precisely in the northern sierra, where Méndez and his associates, Juan Crisóstomo Bonilla and Juan Francisco Lucas, remained dominant. Méndez could not be dislodged from his two base districts of Teziutlán and Zacatlán. Even so, Juárez could count on the support of a rival local chieftain, General Rafael Cravioto, whose power base was in Huauchinango at the northern edge of the sierra. The essence of the problem in Puebla lay, in Rafael García’s view, in the proliferation of National Guard officers who resented the federal government’s policy of demobilization. Their loss of federal treasury support threw them into the arms of dissident Liberal chieftains such as Méndez and Lucas.⁵³ Different situations, then, applied in each state. This accounted for the divergent strategies.⁵⁴

In the Oaxaca elections of November 10, 1867, Félix Díaz took 76.4 percent of the 124,892 votes cast (in a state with a total population of about 650,000). Frank Falcone argues that this high proportion alone demonstrates the degree of state government influence in the electoral process.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, the Juaristas in the state, not to be written off, awaited their opportunity to destroy the regime they despised.⁵⁶

In Puebla, Méndez won the gubernatorial elections of February 1868 by the wide margin of 60,125 votes out of 120,185 cast between 1868 and 1870. With an empty treasury and inadequate armed forces, the state government found it impossible to put down the rebellions. These conflicts in Puebla formed a southern parallel to the rebellions in San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas in 1869 and 1870.

Most such rebellions took their stand on the purity of the principles of the 1857 Constitution. In practice, however, very little had been done since 1857 to clarify what the provisions of the Constitution actually meant. For this reason, neither the executive nor the legislative branches throughout the federal system could expect much guidance for conduct. Accordingly, each interpreted the Constitution in its own interest.

Nothing had been defined, in particular, concerning the relationship between the national executive and the states. Juárez, after 1867, was much criticized for executive intervention in the states. The Constitution’s Article 116, however, obliged the federal government to send federal troops into the states in cases of internal disturbance. Similarly, nothing clarified the interpretation of Article 72, which gave Congress the faculty of regulating the National Guard. Congress thereby took control of the National Guard away from the president. This, in turn, allowed opposition groups in the states to organize their own armed forces, with which they intended to challenge the national government. The Rebellion of La Noria of 1871–72 would bring these two contrasting faculties sharply into focus.⁵⁷

The outbreak of the Rebellion of La Noria in November 1871 provided Juárez with the pretext for federal intervention. The military catastrophe inflicted on the rebels in Oaxaca transferred the state back to Juarista control. Castro resumed the governorship and purged the administration of Felicistas.⁵⁸

In Jalisco earlier that year, the Liberal Party had divided between the partisans of Governor Antonio Gómez Cuervo, a moderate, and Ignacio Vallarla, a radical, one of the federal deputies. Juárez, with an eye toward his projected reelection, decided to transfer his support from Gómez Cuervo, who was identified more with the Lerdo group in the Liberal Party, to the more solidly based Vallarta faction. This involved a highly opportunistic intervention in Jalisco politics. Juárez took advantage of the split with Lerdo, who wished to stand in the forthcoming presidential elections, to remove Gómez Cuervo from office, and realigned himself with Vallarta and the state congress. After the election campaign opened, on April 12, 1871, the federal congress declared all municipal councils that had taken office under Gómez Cuervo to have been illegally installed. The elections produced a secure Juarista control of the state congress and the municipal councils.⁵⁹

In contrast to Oaxaca, the state of Jalisco remained loyal to Juárez during the Rebellion of La Noria. The Vallarta group, sustained by General Ramón Corona, military commander of the state, upheld the Juarista cause. Vallarta won the gubernatorial elections of September 28, 1871, and held office until March 1, 1875. Although a defender of the principles of the 1857 Constitution, Vallarta was obliged to govern through extraordinary powers granted by Congress because of continued political instability in the state. The earlier conflict with Gómez Cuervo carried over into the months of the Rebellion of La Noria. Now perceived as the national administration’s candidate, Vallarta felt the full force of federalist sentiment in Jalisco. The defection of Corona’s former associate, General Donato Guerra, compounded Vallarta’s difficulties. Corona denounced the Rebellion of La Noria as an assault on the Constitution. Even so, Guerra and his forces, who were not defeated until February 26, 1872, enabled the rebellions in San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas to spill over into Jalisco.⁶⁰

The charge of centralism recurred with even greater resonance during Sebastián Lerdo’s presidency. In Oaxaca during the years 1872 to 1874, José Esperón, head of the moderate (borlado) faction, which had dominated the state from 1860 to 1863, made it clear that he intended to challenge Miguel Castro for the governorship in the 1876 elections. Lerdo, planning his own reelection in 1876, backed the Esperón faction, which consisted of 9 of the 16 members of the state congress. Tensions between the congress and the governor reached a climax with federal military intervention in the state in November 1874. As a result, Esperón took office as interim governor on November 6.

Castro’s removal was regarded with outrage by the caciques of the northern sierra. Just as they had awaited the opportunity for the overthrow of Félix Díaz in 1871, they now waited for the chance to remove Esperón. By the beginning of 1876, local chieftains Fidencio Hernández and Francisco Meijueiro had up to four thousand armed men at their disposal. Once again, local leaders confronted the national administration in Mexico City at a time when Porfirio Díaz’ presidential aspirations were steadily gaining momentum.⁶¹

In the Jalisco gubernatorial elections of December 9, 1874, Jesús Leandro Camarena, who had been interim governor during the 1871 campaign, won with the support of outgoing governor Vallarta and his Liberal faction. Even though Camarena was a moderate, he faced increasing opposition from the state’s Lerdistas, who were anxious to displace Vallarta’s influence. The federal government stationed General José Ceballos, commander of the Fourth Military Division, in the state, and the Lerdista faction grouped around him. After Camarena in December 1875 failed to win a majority in the state congressional elections, the Lerdistas secured Ceballos’ support to form a rival chamber in February 1876, which instituted judicial proceedings against the governor and the president of the State Supreme Court.

Federal troops patrolled the streets of Guadalajara and guarded key positions. One month earlier, the Rebellion of Tuxtepec had broken out. In Lagos, General Donato Guerra rose in February 1876, with the support of northern Jalisco municipalities, in sympathy with the Díaz movement. By such means, the internal conflicts of Jalisco merged with those at the national level over the issue of Lerdo’s reelection and the centralist tendencies of his administration. Guerra’s insurrection followed that of the northern Oaxaca caciques, who launched their Plan of the Sierra on January 25, 1876. Two days later, they seized control of the state capital.⁶²

Reelectionism: The Source of Long-lasting Division

Before the Restored Republic, reelection was not, in practical terms, an issue in Mexican politics. The infrequency of presidents lasting out their term (elected or not) explains why. No peaceful transfer of power took place until 1851, and no incumbent voluntarily handed over the office again until 1880. The Liberal victory in 1867 removed the party contest between Liberals and Conservatives. The republican army’s support for Juárez during the War of the Intervention and its aftermath ensured the first reelection. Juárez’ avowed intention to stand for a second reelection in 1871 broke his alliance with Lerdo.

During the summer of 1870, the Liberal party split still further into Lerdista and Juarista factions. Lerdo finally resigned from the cabinet on January 14, 1871, to oppose Juárez’ second reelection. In Congress, the Lerdistas formed a tactical alliance with the Porfiristas, led by Zamacona, up to then their inveterate opponents. In the Lerdo camp, José María Iglesias and Manuel Romero Rubio took the leadership; in the Díaz camp, Justo Benítez, a fellow Oaxacan, emerged as another leading figure in the opposition to Juárez. Between December 1870 and June 1871, the secession of the Lerdistas produced a congressional majority unfavorable to Juárez. The latter, however, although increasingly beset by ill health, was not by any means politically broken.⁶³

Reelectionism thereby joined presidentialism and centralism as the third main political issue of the period. Juárez, to further his objective, removed Lerdistas from key positions across the country.⁶⁴ Political maneuvers such as this reopened the critique of Juárez that had spread so widely in 1867. The new editors of El Sigh XIX linked the three issues in their election edition, on January 1, 1871, calling for federal government respect for state sovereignty and independence. According to Julio Zárate, a well-known Lerdista writing in the paper, the framers of the 1857 Constitution had made a serious mistake in omitting a prohibition of reelection. Zárate saw this principle as “the guarantee of republican institutions from the designs of ambitious politicians.” Citing the examples of Paraguay and Guatemala, El Sigh XIX warned of the dangers of self-perpetuating personal rule behind the facade of republican institutions. The paper’s incensed editors called for new ways to “ensure that democracy and sovereignty of the people should be practical realities in Mexico.” Their defense of municipal autonomy revealed a debt to the popular Liberalism of the post-Ayutla era.⁶⁵

In the presidential elections of October 1871, Juárez came in first with 5,837 electoral votes, Díaz second with 3,555, and Lerdo third with 2,874. In contrast to 1867, Juárez failed to secure an overall majority. The federal congress would decide the outcome of the election. The congressional elections, however, returned a Juarista majority. Consequently Juárez, on October 10, received an overwhelming 108 votes, against 5 for Lerdo and 3 for Díaz. This congressional vote bore no resemblance to the presidential election result. The Díaz camp, in any case, had already despaired of the legitimacy of elections. In Oaxaca, Porfirio Díaz, who had taken his stand since 1867 on the illegitimacy of Juárez’ constitutional behavior, launched the Rebellion of La Noria, a blatant attempt to alter the presidential election results by an act of armed insurrection. The Rebellion of La Noria shocked the Lerdista camp, undermined its position, and threw it back into alliance with the Juaristas in defense of the supremacy of the civil power. Lerdista congressional votes helped to explain the large majority in favor of Juárez’ reelection.⁶⁶

The Porfirista rebellion represented a continuation of the earlier revolts on the themes of presidentialism, centralism, and reelectionism but gave them both a sharper focus and a broader dimension. As in 1869–70, the states of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas became the focal points. In 1871–72, however, they were joined by the two northern states: Tamaulipas, which was under the control of General Manuel González, a former Conservative who had subsequently opposed the intervention; and Nuevo León, under Gerónimo Treviño, whose support had been crucial to Juárez in 1869–70. The state of Veracruz, under General Luis Mier y Terán, similarly switched to the Porfirista camp. In Puebla, Miguel Negrete, as he had in 1869–70, was able to attract widespread support for the rebellion. The uprising’s point of origin was Félix Díaz’ Oaxaca. In this way, six states and most of their armed forces stood in outright opposition to the national government.⁶⁷

The Porfiristas openly exploited the radical Liberals’ federalist stance and portrayed the administration as centralist. Félix Díaz, accordingly, withdrew the state of Oaxaca from the federation, “reclaiming its sovereignty” until the constitutional problem was resolved. That action recalled the state’s previous withdrawal in December 1857 to protest the coup of Tacubaya. In that sense, the Porfiristas hoped to tarnish Juárez through association with an earlier violator of the Constitution. For his part, Juárez portrayed the Díaz brothers as latter-day Santa Annas, anachronisms who belonged in the period before 1855. In the Juarista view, a military adventurer had risen to overthrow a constitutionally elected government.⁶⁸

Beyond Oaxaca, the Puebla sierra, and the states of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas, the Rebellion of La Noria had its greatest impact in the far north. There the authority of the national government had always been weak, especially during the wars of 1857 to 1867. Nevertheless, President Juárez could count on the support of the governor of Chihuahua, Luis Terrazas, with whom he had forged an alliance at the time of his northern peregrination during the worst years of the intervention.

In Sonora, however, earlier conflicts carried over into the Rebellion of La Noria and acquired a more threatening character. Support for the Porfirista rebellion subsumed earlier opposition to Ignacio Pesqueira, state governor since 1857 (and substitute governor since August 9, 1856). In 1871, Pesqueira’s reelection campaign aroused opposition calls for defense of the 1857 Constitution, just as Juárez’ campaign did at the national level. Pesqueira returned to office on September 15.⁶⁹ Finally, the revolt of the Tenth Battalion of National Guards in Guaymas in favor of Díaz on October 29 reflected not only regional but national opposition to reelectionism.⁷⁰

The La Noria Rebellion’s greatest success was to capture control of the states of Sinaloa and Nuevo León. Treviño had remained loyal to the administration in 1869–70, but bad already declared bis opposition to Juárez on September 27, 1871, before Díaz formally issued the Plan of La Noria on November 8. Treviño argued that Juárez’ permanence in power endangered public liberty. Accordingly, the state of Nuevo León “resumed its sovereignty.” The Nuevo León rebellion presented Juárez with a serious distraction in the far north while he was dealing with the Oaxaca secession in the south.⁷¹

Treviño, however, like Pesqueira in Sonora, faced considerable opposition in Nuevo León over the issue of reelectionism. He had first taken office as elected governor in December 1867 and had been reelected for the first time in September 1869. He presented himself for a second reelection in 1871, but received only 5,000 of the 21,000 votes cast. Nevertheless, the state congress obligingly voted him into office a third time. Treviño’s own conduct contrasted strikingly with his denunciations of the Juárez administration in Mexico City.⁷²

In effect, the rebellion of 1871–72 was intended to nullify the 1871 presidential election result. Following Juárez’ removal from office, the rebels, if victorious, proposed to call fresh elections, which were designed to bring Díaz to the presidency by constitutional means—that is, after a successful armed insurrection. The Porfiristas would repeat this tactic when Lerdo attempted self-succession in 1876. The Rebellion of Tuxtepec represented Díaz’ second attempt to secure power through armed insurrection in the name of defense of the 1857 Constitution. (The role of the army in these two projected constitutional rectifications proved to be deeply controversial in the fragmented Liberal Party.)⁷³

The Porfiristas’ failure in 1871–72 revealed yet again the difficulty of removing Juárez from power. Díaz had overestimated his own potential support and had badly miscalculated in political and military terms. With skill and firm alliances with Alatorre, Corona, Vallarta, Rocha, Pesqueira, Terrazas, and the northern sierra caciques of Oaxaca (and the tactical intervention of the Juchitecos), Juárez held off the armed onslaught on his newly elected administration. He had been able to exploit Díaz’ recourse to traditional pronunciamiento politics. Nevertheless, Juárez found Congress, even during the rebellion, no more compliant than before. In his address to the new session of Congress on April 1, 1872, he reintroduced the question of constitutional reform, calling again for the establishment of a senate as the means of resolving disputes between the federal executive and the state governments, and between the three constitutional powers. When the session closed on May 31, he regretted that time had not been found for constitutional reform. Outside Congress, Zárate in El Sigh XIX denounced Juárez’ “dictatorship” and Congress’ compliance with it.⁷⁴

Díaz, in contrast to 1871, launched the Rebellion of Tuxtepec before the presidential elections of 1876 had been held. In spite of initial success in Oaxaca, the defeat of the rebellion during its middle phase brought about the successful reelection of Lerdo. Federal interventions in the states had prepared the ground for this between 1872 and 1876. The decisive intervention of Iglesias, president of the Supreme Court, however, delayed Lerdo’s legal installation at a crucial moment. This delay allowed the Rebellion of Tuxtepec to reignite and enter a third and final phase.

Essentially, the rebellion focused on the succession question and the issue of reelecting an incumbent president. Iglesias claimed the legal right to the succession by virtue of his constitutional position. The comparison, however, could not be with the succession of Juárez in 1858 or Lerdo in 1872. Iglesias’ claim resembled that of González Ortega in 1865; it rested, furthermore, on the premise that the 1857 Constitution precluded self-succession. In spite of Iglesias’ tenuous position, significant sectors of the anti-Porfirista camp supported him. Notable among them was the young Justo Sierra.

Iglesias’ intervention resulted from Congress’ delay in ratifying the re-election of Lerdo. In such a way, the reticence of the legislative branch combined with the opposition of the judiciary to undermine a carefully arranged reelection by the executive. Acting at cross-purposes, these branches of the constitutional order opened the way for a military chieftain to seize power in the name of constitutional propriety.⁷⁵

Each participant in the Liberal struggle for power contributed to the party’s ultimate downfall. Cosío Villegas argues that Lerdo’s actions between 1874 and 1876 accelerated the disintegration of the Liberal Party, a process already in motion before 1867. In Rabasa’s view, Díaz’ accession by revolutionary violence owed far more to personalism than to any past programs. López-Portillo y Rojas takes this argument even further. In his judgment, Díaz’ actions in 1876—foreshadowed in 1871 —destroyed the constitutional principles of 1857. As a result, “the party that had been called the protector of popular sovereignty degenerated into a personalist grouping and a servile, blind and incense-bearing court.” Therein lay the origins of Porfirismo, a personalistic cult characterized by obedience.⁷⁶

At the same time, the Rebellions of La Noria and Tuxtepec were radical comments on the same basic question posed by every rebellion since 1867: if elections were managed, then what use were they? In that question lay the real origin of Porfirismo. Díaz’ accession to power by armed force and his establishment of permanent personal rule after 1884 represented not so much the climax of nineteenth-century Mexican Liberalism as the adverse reflection of the Reform era’s constitutional accomplishment.

Concluding Remarks

Ricardo García Granados has commented that two distinct elements existed in the Mexican Liberal tradition: the Reform Law element, which established a secular society; and the 1857 Constitution, which failed to establish a working constitutional system.⁷⁷ Despite Cosío Villegas’ favorable judgment on the period 1867 to 1876, triumphant Liberalism did not provide the basis for lasting constitutional government. The experience of the Restored Republic clearly demonstrates Liberalism’s inherent flaws and its failure to fulfill its promise.

The Liberals’ exclusive stance ensured the permanent exclusion of ideological opponents from the political process. The dictatorship after 1884 even justified itself in part on the grounds that it kept Conservatives and clericals out of power. It was not that dictatorship was the climax or logical conclusion of Liberalism, as François-Xavier Guerra argues, but that the ingredients for it already lay in Liberal political methods. On many fronts, Mexican Liberals violated their own basic principles of popular sovereignty and representative government.⁷⁸

Internal divisions, particularly at local and state levels, combined with political exclusivism to undermine the foundations of Liberalism and prevent the consolidation of power promised by the triumph of 1867. Guerra is correct, however, to point out that the Díaz dictatorship came out of Liberalism. Even so, it reflected not Liberal principles but Liberals’ failure to construct any coherent and durable party structure. Even if Zarco’s desired party organization had been achieved, that “official party” would have had no compunction about perpetuating itself in power. Mid-nineteenth-century Mexican Liberals failed to separate their personal ambitions and their party interest from the public interest. This separation had become Juárez’ overriding design, but he also had been caught up in the inherited realities of Mexican political culture.

By the year 1876–77, the country had once again fallen prey to military intervention and the imposition of political change by armed factions. This time the objective was not to nullify a challenged election result but to anticipate it. As Florencia Mallon points out, there was more to the Díaz interventions of 1871 and 1876 than simply personal ambition (which was not absent): Díaz ably courted and responded to popular and provincial Liberal grievances.⁷⁹ In that sense, La Noria and Tuxtepec came full circle from Ayutla in 1854–55. Nevertheless, the Revolution of Ayutla had been directed against the Santa Anna dictatorship. By no stretch of the imagination could the administrations of Juárez and Lerdo be described as dictatorships, in spite of preferred opposition rhetoric. The Díaz camp’s delay in achieving the aims of the Plan of Tuxtepec in 1876 ensured that in the end, Díaz seizure of power would annul Lerdo’s constitutional election.