Benito Juárez

President of Mexico (1861-1872)

• Born: March 21, 1806
• Birthplace: San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico
• Died: July 19, 1872
• Place of death: Mexico City, Mexico

The dominant figure of mid-nineteenth century Mexican politics, Juárez embodied a liberal vision of a democratic republican form of government, economic development and modernization, virulent anticlericalism, and mandatory public education. Although he was prevented from fully implementing his ambitious agenda by years of warfare against foreign intervention and his policies were anathema to many entrenched conservative elements in Mexico, especially the Roman Catholic Church, Juárez’s reform program laid the groundwork for a modern Mexican nation.

Early Life

Benito Juárez (wahr-ehs) was born in a small mountain hamlet in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. He was orphaned when his parents died before he reached the age of four. Reared by his uncle until the age of twelve in a remote Zapotec Indian community, Juárez had beginnings that could not have been more humble. In 1818, he walked forty-one miles to the state capital, Oaxaca City, and found work and shelter in the home of a Franciscan lay brother who was a part-time bookbinder. Juárez worked in the bindery and helped with chores, and in return was given school tuition.

Because he excelled in school, Juárez was encouraged to enter the seminary. He later changed his mind, however, and in 1829 chose a career in law, entering the Oaxaca Institute of Arts and Sciences. Two years later, he earned his lawyer’s certificate, and that professional degree proved to be his passport to politics. The same year he was graduated from law school, he became an alderman in the city council and subsequently served as state legislator. His improved social and economic standing was reflected by his marriage in 1843 to Margarita Maza, the daughter of a prominent Oaxacan family.

Even as a successful young lawyer, Juárez always remembered his roots and did pro bono publico work for groups of impoverished peasant villagers. Convinced that major structural change was needed to make Mexico a more just society, Juárez decided to forgo his law practice and dedicate his career to public service.

When war erupted between Mexico and the United States in 1846, Juárez, who at the time was a deputy in the Mexican national congress, was recalled to his home in 1847 to serve an abbreviated term as interim governor. A year later, he was elected to a full term. Juárez proved to be a capable and honest governor, overseeing the construction of fifty rural schools, encouraging female attendance in the classroom, trimming the bloated state bureaucracy, facilitating economic development through the revitalization of an abandoned Pacific port, and making regular payments on the state debt. Moreover, the idealistic governor raised eyebrows around Mexico when he refused to offer his state as sanctuary to General Antonio López de Santa Anna , the powerful dictator (caudillo) who would serve as president on eleven separate occasions during the first thirty chaotic years of Mexican nationhood. Santa Anna never forgave Juárez for this slight, and, when he became president for the final time in 1853, he arrested Juárez, imprisoned him for several months, and then exiled him aboard a ship destined for New Orleans.

Life’s Work

In New Orleans, Juárez made contact with a burgeoning expatriate community who represented the best and brightest of a new generation of young, idealistic Mexicans. These liberals, who called themselves puros, were committed to wholesale changes in the political system, to modernizing the nation’s stagnant economy, and to creating a more equitable society for all Mexicans. These puros knew that Mexico had been racked by political instability, that Mexico had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the United States, that corporate institutions such as the military and the Church had a viselike grip on Mexican society, and that a small, politically powerful, and economically wealthy elite dominated thousands of impoverished Indians and mestizos.

Influenced by nineteenth century European liberal thought and enamored of the North American republican experiment, the puros composed a statement of principles in exile and secured arms and ammunition for regional caudillos in Mexico who opposed Santa Anna. Juárez was smuggled into Mexico and served as an aide to Juan Alvarez, the caudillo who spearheaded the Ayutla Rebellion. In 1855, the rebels drove Santa Anna from power for the last time.

When the new government was formed, Juárez was named secretary of justice. Juárez’s cohorts were determined to see Mexico erase the vestiges of the past and emerge from chaos and anarchy. The puros focused on the Roman Catholic Church as being the single most regressive institution in Mexican society and sought to curtail its pervasive influence. The secretary of justice was intimately involved with the first of a series of reform laws that attacked corporate interests.

There followed a series of reform laws—which gave the era its name, La Reforma—that systematically dismantled the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico. The Ley Lerdo prohibited corporate institutions from owning or administering property not used in their daily operations. The Church, local and state governments, and corporate Indian villages could retain their churches, monasteries, meeting halls, jails, and schools, but other property had to be put up for sale at public auction, with the proceeds destined for federal coffers. In the first six months following the implementation of the law, twenty-three million pesos worth of property was auctioned, twenty million of which had belonged to the Church.

The reform laws were incorporated in a new constitution (1857). This document gave Mexico its first bill of rights, abolished slavery and titles of nobility, and created a unicameral congress to diminish executive power. Conservatives, especially the Church, unleashed a torrent of invective against the liberal document. Priests who did not publicly disavow the constitution were suspended by the hierarchy. While bureaucrats who refused to take the oath of allegiance lost their jobs, soldiers who did take the oath were not treated in Catholic hospitals and were denied the last rites.

The War of the Reform broke out in 1858, when conservatives attacked and captured Mexico City, dissolved the congress, and arrested Juárez, who had recently been elected chief justice of the supreme court—a position that placed him next in line for the presidency. When President Ignacio Comonfort proved unequal to the task of reconciliation, he resigned. Juárez then managed to escape from conservative hands and was promptly named president by his liberal supporters. For three years, the war raged as Juárez made his temporary headquarters in the port city of Veracruz.

After a bitter and protracted struggle, the liberals persevered and in 1861 Juárez entered Mexico City triumphant. The president decided to treat his enemies leniently and tendered a generous amnesty. More pressing problems faced Juárez, because he inherited a depleted treasury and a destitute army that had not been paid. Moreover, Mexico owed a considerable amount of money to European creditors, who now demanded repayment. Juárez, in an act of fiscal desperation, ordered a two-year suspension of payments on the foreign debt. Spain, England, and France, in an effort to prod Mexican repayment, agreed jointly to seize ports along the Mexican coast to collect their claims.

Napoleon III viewed the joint occupation of the port of Veracruz as a vehicle to further his expansionistic aims. Hoping to re-create the empire of his great-uncle, Napoleon I, and to take advantage of a debilitated United States engaged in its own civil war, Napoleon III ordered his army to leave the port of Veracruz and march on Mexico City. (When the Spanish and English learned of Napoleon’s true intentions, they withdrew their forces.) After a stiff fight, the French army reached Mexico City, only to find that Juárez had already evacuated the capital and had taken his government with him, constantly moving across the desert of northern Mexico to escape capture.

Napoleon III attempted to legitimate his imperialistic actions when he persuaded a Habsburg archduke, Ferdinand Maximilian, to leave Austria and become the emperor of Mexico (with the backing of the French army). Conservatives and the Church, which had just been defeated in the War of Reform, were delighted and welcomed Maximilian. Maximilian, with his wife Carlota, arrived in Mexico in 1864 and quickly found that Juárez’s liberals were still a force to contend with and that the French had not successfully pacified the country.

Portraying the conflict as a nationalistic struggle to oust the foreign usurper, the president inspired his forces to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the French. Juárez also asked and received war matériel from the United States, especially after the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865. Secretary of State William Seward sent threatening messages to the French king, protesting that the occupation was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine and demanding that the French withdraw from the Western Hemisphere. In addition, the French troops grew weary of the Mexican campaign, and Napoleon appeared to have lost interest as well. Concerned with Otto von Bismarck’s aggressive foreign policy closer to home, Napoleon ordered his troops home in the spring of 1866. Soon thereafter, Maximilian’s forces surrendered.

Maximilian was tried by court-martial, and the state asked for the death penalty. Despite intense pressure from the international community, Juárez stood by the sentence. After a devastating loss of territory to the United States and a nightmarish foreign interlude that cost more than fifty thousand Mexican lives, Juárez believed that Mexico had to make it clear that it would not countenance any more intervention. Maximilian was tried, convicted, and shot in 1867.

Most historians mark 1867 as the beginning of the modern Mexican nation. Juárez called for presidential elections and announced that he would run for an unprecedented third term. Because the first two terms were spent at war, most Mexicans believed that, under these extraordinary circumstances, the president was justified in seeking reelection. Moreover, given his back-to-back victories against the conservatives and Maximilian, Juárez’s popularity was cresting.

Juárez’s third term (1867-1871) was the first time the president had an opportunity to implement his liberal program in a peaceful atmosphere. The first order of business was to reconstruct Mexico’s economy, which had been ravaged by nine years of war. To encourage foreigners to invest in Mexico, the president had to change the nation’s image abroad. A rural police force was expanded to safeguard silver shipments and to protect highways from bandits. Mexico’s first railroad from Mexico City to its chief port, Veracruz, was finally completed in 1872 by a British company with subsidies from Juárez’s administration. Juárez also revised Mexico’s antiquated tax and tariff structures and sought to revitalize the mining sector to stimulate foreign investment further. Finally, Juárez appointed a commission to overhaul the national educational system. All of these policies collectively represented Juárez’s vision for Mexico’s future, and, although many were never fully implemented by his administration, they did put Mexico on the road to modernization.

One major problem that persisted throughout his third term was political unrest, especially at the regional and local level. Juárez spent much of his energies quieting one local uprising after another and found it necessary repeatedly to ask the congress to grant him extraordinary powers (martial law). Juárez’s opponents believed that he had abused the constitutional principles he had fought so ardently to defend and that his rule was growing increasingly arbitrary and heavy-handed with time.

Despite the fact that his popularity had been falling for some time, Juárez decided to run for a fourth term in 1871. Two candidates, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada (the brother of the author of the Ley Lerdo) and Porfirio Díaz, opposed him in the election. When no candidate received the requisite majority, according to the 1857 constitution, the congress would decide the outcome. The legislature, dominated by Juárez’s supporters, elected him for a fourth term. Although Díaz revolted, federal forces quelled the rebellion. Soon after Díaz’s defeat, however, Juárez suffered a coronary seizure and died on July 19, 1872.

Significance

Benito Juárez defined Mexican politics from 1855 to 1872. The fact that a full-blooded Zapotec Indian could become president of the nation demonstrated that Mexico had broken with its aristocratic past. The leader of an ambitious group of idealistic liberals, Juárez knew that the power of the Catholic Church, the caudillos, and the army had to be diminished. Notwithstanding his more autocratic rule during his last years, especially his controversial decision to run for a fourth term, he remained true to his democratic principles.

Although Juárez is best known for his defeat of Maximilian and his anticlericalism, his greatest political legacy was his ambitious third term, which set the agenda for future presidential administrations. Juárez’s successors, Lerdo de Tejada (1872-1876) and Díaz (1876-1911), faithfully followed his policies and programs. Although some economic policies proved successful, the breaking up of village lands led to the expansion of the great estates or haciendas, and the destruction of semiautonomous Indian villages. Although Juárez’s democratic principles were abused by Díaz during his long dictatorship, Díaz’s policies and strategies for modernization bore the indelible stamp of Benito Juárez.

Bibliography

Bazant, Jan. Alienation of Church Wealth in Mexico: Social and Economic Aspects of the Liberal Revolution, 1856-1857. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1971. A thorough analysis of the implications of the Ley Lerdo and its effects on church wealth in Mexico.

Berry, Charles R. The Reform in Oaxaca, 1856-1876: A Microhistory of the Liberal Revolution. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. A critical examination of how liberal policies were implemented in Juárez’s home region, Oaxaca. Berry dispels certain myths about the land reform, arguing that it was not as thoroughgoing and disruptive as previously believed.

Hanna, Alfred J., and Kathryn A. Hanna. Napoleon III and Mexico: American Triumph over Monarchy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971. A fascinating account of the role of the United States in dislodging the French from Mexico. Utilizing Seward’s diplomatic correspondence and other North American sources, the authors also investigate the moral and material help the American government gave Juárez against Maximilian and the French.

Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: A Biography of Power: A History of Modern Mexico, 1810-1996. Translated by Hank Heifetz. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. The book includes numerous references to Juárez, including descriptions of his presidency and his importance in Mexican history.

Meyer, Michael C., and William L. Sherman. The Course of Mexican History. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. The best single-volume text on Mexican history. The material on Juárez is concise, thorough, and up-to-date.

Perry, Laurens B. Juárez and Díaz: Machine Politics in Mexico. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1978. The only critical account of Juárez’s arbitrary rule during his third term. Perry treats not only Juárez’s administration but also the succeeding presidencies of Lerdo and Díaz.

Roeder, Ralph. Juárez and His Mexico. 2 vols. New York: Viking Press, 1947. A biography in English of Juárez, this massive, dated work details in narrative fashion his life and work.

Wasserman, Mark. Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Men, Women, and War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000. Part 2, “The Age of Civil Wars,” features a brief biography of Juárez and describes Mexican history, politics, economics, and everyday life from 1848 through 1876.