Juarez defined Mexico, in opposition to Catholic and Conservative thought, as a secular and federal republic with a liberal political system in which civil power was to be supreme.
Brian Hamnett, 199788
With Maximilian’s defeat, many felt that internal stability was finally at hand. Liberalism had become a unifying myth almost synonymous with patriotism, since it had been the liberals’ tenacity that had defeated the French. However, once liberals no longer faced a common enemy, forging a consensus became a major challenge. The following constituencies vied for influence in the restored republic: 1) landowners who wanted to acquire Church and Indian lands; 2) the middle class; 3) workers, including textile workers, blacksmiths, and artisans; and 4) peasants who had supported the 1855 revolt against Santa Anna. Conflicts erupted between personalities and generations, as those who took up arms to defeat the empire vied with the older generation that had passed the Reform laws while in Veracruz.89
The 1867 presidential elections involved indirect voting, as was provided in the 1857 constitution. Juarez, who was at the peak of his popularity, obtained 72 percent of the 10,371 electoral votes cast. His young rival, General Porfirio Diaz, who only obtained 26 percent of the votes, found he could not convert military prowess into electoral victory.90
The hoped for post-war calm never became a reality. Rather, the years after the liberal victory were ones of rebellion, with men being pressed into military service, civil discord, and the opposition of almost all the press to Juarez. National guard officers, who resented demobilization, led many uprisings. Disgruntled peasants and demobilized soldiers, lacking land, often turned to banditry. An estimated 1,000 bandits plagued the Guadalajara area alone. Highwaymen, kidnappers, and bandits posed a constant threat to peace. Congress granted Juarez extraordinary powers, allowing him once again to govern by decree, so that he could suppress bandits and guerrilla movements.91
Differences within the liberal camp—whose significance rivaled the differences between liberals and conservatives—increased unrest. Liberals disagreed on what powers should be retained at the state level, on whether elections should be direct or indirect, on whether Congress should be unicameral or bicameral, and on the proper role of the Church. After 1867, the general exclusion from government of those ordinary Mexicans, including Indians, who had taken up arms to defeat European intervention, further destabilized the Juarez government.92
No one attempted to curb the power of the hacendado, who continued to administer corporal punishment, to jail at his whim, and to collect debts from descendants of debtors. Such abuses were frequently noted, but rarely challenged. In 1868, even though liberals exercised total political dominance, Congress rejected a proposal to prevent landowners from: 1) establishing private jails;
2) inflicting corporal punishment; and 3) collecting from children debts inherited from their parents.
The failure, once gain, to address the land issue, increased unrest. At the time, Juarez could have distributed unused national lands or lands that had been owned by the Church, villages, and conservatives such as the Sanchez Navarros. However authorities either returned estates to conservatives or sold them to politically powerful liberal landowners. In addition, the government retained ownership of extensive tracts in the hope that they could be used to attract European immigrants. The inability of the landless peasant and the demobilized war veteran to obtain land contrasted sharply with the U. S. experience after the Civil War. The Homestead Act there provided free public lands
To settlers.93
Juarez’s failure to change the tax structure added to unrest. The alcabala and a tax known as the personal contribution placed the tax burden on the poor. The personal contribution required all tax payers, hacendados and hacienda laborers alike to pay a sum equivalent to six to twelve days’ wages for an agricultural laborer.94
Juarez’s collection of these taxes reflected his desperate financial plight. The war-ravaged economy yielded little tax revenue, and the army devoured much of the government budget. Although $45 million worth of Church property had been nationalized, less than $2 million had reached the treasury, and that was soon spent. At the time, the government owed more than $80 million. Increased state control over tax revenues generated outside Mexico City exacerbated the central government’s financial problems. Impoverished state governments frequently failed to make the legally mandated transfer of tax receipts to the federal government.95
Between 1867 and 1877, the federal government repeatedly intervened to suppress insurrections mounted by villages and districts to assert local sovereignty. Such conflicts only subsided after Porfirio Diaz assumed the presidency and successfully centralized power.96
In 1871, against the advice of many friends, Juarez sought reelection. The propriety of his reelection became a major issue. Even though the 1857 constitution did not prohibit reelection, many felt it ran counter to the liberal ethos. There was little precedent on the issue since during the first half century of Mexico’s independence, so few had even finished one term, let alone aspired to a second one. Only in 1878 did a constitutional amendment prohibit immediate presidential
Reelection.97
Juarez faced challenges by two of his former supporters, Porfirio Diaz and Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, whose brother wrote the Lerdo Law. Both of his opponents attacked Juarez’s reelection, after thirteen years in office, as a violation of liberal principles. Diaz claimed that Juarez’s mission had been fulfilled after Maximilian’s defeat and that he was attempting to personalize the presidency. Juarez responded that Diaz was a military adventurer in the tradition of Santa Anna.98
The country was at peace, and it was difficult to justify Juarez’s staying in office once Mexico’s independence and integrity were assured. Also, the country had little to show for the liberal triumph, as most of the population still lived in grinding poverty. Historians Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman commented on Juarez’s 1871 candidacy: “he had allowed his very human desire for power and accomplishment to impugn his earlier ideals.”99
In the 1871 election, whose fairness was questioned, Juarez received 5,837 electoral votes, Diaz 3,555, and Lerdo de Tejada 2,874. The law stipulated that if no candidate received a majority of the votes, Congress would select the next president. Juarez retained office when Congress selected him for the 1871—1875 term.100
In 1872, Juarez died of a heart attack in the National Palace. During his fourteen and a half years as president, Mexico underwent greater change than under any previous president.
Juarez strengthened Mexicans’ feelings of nationhood and unity. Rather than seeking vengeance on Maximilian’s vanquished supporters, he implemented a broad amnesty that embraced all but those who had held the highest positions in the empire.101 He commented on his policy after the defeat of the empire:
Neither in the past nor at the moment of victory has the government desired vengeance against those with whom it fought. Its duty is now, and has been, to temper justice with mercy. . . Let the people and the government respect everyone’s rights. Among individuals, as among nations, peace is respecting the rights of others.102
During his presidency, Juarez greatly expanded the power of the federal government as he confronted not only foreign invasion and civil war, but the task of unifying his fragmented nation. The reality of many interest groups and small markets demanded a strong government to integrate the country. To obtain badly needed revenues, Juarez instituted higher tariffs.103
The Juarez presidency began a trend towards a strong executive with little regard for the written constitutional model. Liberals concluded that no government could bring order without strong central authority and a powerful executive. By the end of the Juarez administration, power had shifted from the Church, local caudillos, and the military establishment to a modern nation state. Power also shifted from states to the federal government. Under Juarez, the presidency became the lynch-pin of the political system, perhaps his most lasting legacy.104
Since his death, Juarez has been regarded in much the same way as Lincoln in the United States. His austere life-style stood in sharp contrast to Santa Anna’s and Maximilian’s profligacy. Juarez never presented a concrete program for dealing with social inequality. Rather he merely declared all men to be equal before the law. This reflected the emphasis classical liberalism placed on the role of the individual in society, while failing to present a positive theory of government.105
During Juarez’s presidency, Mexicans enjoyed greater freedom of expression than at any previous time in their history, as hundreds of newspapers flourished. As historian Enrique Krauze noted: “The constitution of 1857—for a brief shining moment—was put into practice. Never before had Mexico been closer to democracy than it was during this period of the Restored Republic.”106 In an 1866 interview in the New York Herald, Juarez explained that the objective of liberal policies was to take government out of the hands of the class dominated by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and army officers. His success in replacing these groups and opening the door wide for mestizos to occupy high positions was one of his great accomplishments. Between 1860 and 1870, democracy was also broadened, as direct voting to elect governors was instituted in thirteen of Mexico’s twenty-seven states.107
Juarez viewed the elementary school as a means of transferring Mexicans’ primary loyalty to the republic from corporate and ethnic groups and kin and patron-client networks. In 1867, the First Law of Public Instruction established free, compulsory primary education for “the poor” and specifically excluded religious instruction from the curriculum. Despite Juarez’s vision of education as a force of change, the reality of recurrent insurrection and financial limitations prevented widespread provision of secular schooling. During his presidency, school attendance increased from 10 percent to 15 percent of school-age children.108
Higher education was even more a preserve of the elite. In 1878, when Mexico’s population totaled 9.3 million, slightly more than 3,000 students attended secondary schools and fewer than
5,000 were enrolled in professional schools.109
Democracy had yet to take root everywhere, especially in areas far removed from Mexico City. The leader of an 1869 rebellion in Chiapas told the officer commanding troops sent to suppress the rebellion:
The constitution and the laws which you cite with such emphasis state that all of us citizens have the right to elect the authorities which govern us. However, neither I nor my comrades-in-arms have had the slightest role in selecting the authorities which form the farcical government which you serve. As a result, we have no obligation to obey them nor to continue supporting them with the fruits of our labor which they so arbitrarily deprive us of.110
The next in line of presidential succession upon Juarez’s death was the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada. Lerdo de Tejada took office in July 1872 and called elections for October. He won these elections with 92 percent of the vote.
Lerdo’s 1872—1876 term was more peaceful than Juarez’s last term. Economic development and the completion in 1873 of the Veracruz—Mexico City railroad added to Lerdo’s prestige. He continued the trend towards a strong presidency. The 1874 division of legislative power between a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate added to presidential power, as did granting the president, with Senate approval, the power to remove state governors and appoint provisional governors in their place.111
World History
