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 Mexicoportal |
General elections were held in Mexico on June 26 and July 10, 1910.
The contested election instigated the beginning of the Mexican Revolution and preceded the end of the 35-year period of Mexican history known as the Porfiriato.
Porfirio Díaz, a liberal general who had distinguished himself during the War of Reform and resistance to French intervention, seized control of the Mexican government from Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada in an 1876 coup d'etat, in which Diaz and other Mexican military officials explicitly opposed presidential re-election. Diaz served one term as president before nominally making way for Manuel Gonzalez, a political ally. Despite his earlier criticism of the practice, Diaz himself was re-elected to the presidency in 1884, 1888, 1892, 1896, 1900 and 1904.
Most historians categorize the Diaz regime during this period, known as the Porfiriato, as a dictatorship. [1] Formal political opposition did not exist.
While Diaz himself has been characterized as a liberal and political pragmatist, his regime was dominated by technocratic intellectuals, known as los cientificos , inspired by the works of August Comte and Herbert Spencer. [2] During the Porfiriato, authority was centralized in the federal government, which pursued a policy of foreign direct investment, urbanization, liberalization of social attitudes, and rapid technological development. Through conciliation with local political bosses and repressive policies, including the expropriation of indigenous land for the development of railways and haciendas (often owned by foreign investors) and expansion of the internal police force known as the rurales , the Diaz regime established a period of relative internal stability in Mexico following a period of warfare and turmoil. [3] [4] Through generous concessions to investors, Diaz pursued conciliation with the United States and resolution of border disputes. [4]
In 1908, President Diaz consented to an interview by the American journalist James Creelman for Pearson's Magazine at Chapultepec Castle. During the interview, Diaz praised democratic principles, arguing that certain repressive and anti-democratic measures had only been necessary to develop political consciousness in a population that was apolitical and illiterate. "Our difficulty has been that the people do not concern themselves enough about public matters for a democracy," Diaz said in the interview. "Capacity for self-restraint is the basis of democratic government, and self-restraint is possible only to those who recognize the rights of their neighbors. The Indians, who are more than half our population, care little for politics. They are accustomed to look to those in authority for leadership instead of thinking for themselves. That is a tendency they inherited from the Spaniards." [5] Diaz credited his own regime with the establishment of a middle class which would support democratic government in the future.
When confronted by Creelman with the question of his own re-election, Diaz said,
“It is true there is no opposition party. I have so many friends in the republic that my enemies seem unwilling to identify themselves with so small a minority. I appreciate the kindness of my friends and the confidence of my country; but such absolute confidence imposes responsibilities and duties that tire me more and more. No matter what my friends and supporters say, I retire when my present term of office ends, and I shall not serve again. I shall be eighty years old then. My country has relied on me and it has been kind to me. My friends have praised my merits and overlooked my faults. But they may not be willing to deal so generously with my successor and he may need my advice and support; therefore I desire to be alive when he assumes office so that I may help him. I welcome an opposition party in the Mexican Republic. If it appears, I will regard it as a blessing, not as an evil. And if it can develop power, not to exploit but to govern, I will stand by it, support it, advise it and forget myself in the successful inauguration of complete democratic government in the country. It is enough for me that I have seen Mexico rise among the peaceful and useful nations. I have no desire to continue in the Presidency.This nation is ready for her ultimate life of freedom. At the age of seventy-seven years, I am satisfied with robust health. That is one thing which neither law nor force can create. I would not exchange it for all the millions of your American oil king.” [5]
After its publication in Pearson's in March 1908, the Creelman interview was translated and published by El Imparcial. Immediately, several groups in both opposition and support of the government put forward candidates, including Governor of Nuevo Leon Bernardo Reyes.
The 1910 election was intended to be the first free election of the Porfiriato, but after opposition leader Francisco I. Madero appeared poised to upset the Porfirian regime, Madero was arrested and imprisoned before the election was held. [6]
Despite Madero's popularity, Diaz was controversially announced as the election winner with almost 99% of the votes.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porfirio Díaz | National Reelectionist Party | 18,625 | 98.93 | |
| Francisco I. Madero | National Anti-Reelectionist Party | 196 | 1.04 | |
| Valentin Resendis | Independent | 2 | 0.01 | |
| José Yves Limantour | National Reelectionist Party | 1 | 0.01 | |
| Teodoro A. Dehesa Méndez | National Unionist Party | 1 | 0.01 | |
| Vicente Sánchez G. | Independent | 1 | 0.01 | |
| Total | 18,826 | 100.00 | ||
| Source: González Casanova | ||||
| Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| Ramón Corral | 17,177 | 91.36 |
| Teodoro A. Dehesa Méndez | 1,394 | 7.41 |
| Francisco Vázquez Gómez | 187 | 0.99 |
| Bernardo Reyes | 12 | 0.06 |
| Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda | 1 | 0.01 |
| Francisco I. Madero | 1 | 0.01 |
| Other candidates | 30 | 0.16 |
| Total | 18,802 | 100.00 |
| Source: González Casanova | ||
In October 1910, Madero published the Plan of San Luis Potosí, inciting the Mexican Revolution. [7] Diaz was forced to resigned from office on May 25, 1911 and left for exile in Spain on May 31. Ultimately, Madero was recognized as president but later assassinated in February 1913 during LaDecena Trágica . Diaz died in Paris in 1915.
Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a Mexican businessman, revolutionary, writer and statesman, who served as the 37th president of Mexico from 1911 until he was deposed in a coup d'état in February 1913 and assassinated. He came to prominence as an advocate for democracy and as an opponent of President and de facto dictator Porfirio Díaz. After Díaz claimed to have won the fraudulent election of 1910 despite promising a return to democracy, Madero started the Mexican Revolution to oust Díaz. The Mexican revolution would continue until 1920, well after Madero and Díaz's deaths, with hundreds of thousands dead.
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori, known as simply Porfirio Díaz, was a Mexican general, politician, and later dictator who served seven terms as President of Mexico, a total of 35 years, from 28 November 1876 to 6 December 1876, 17 February 1877 to 1 December 1880, and 1 December 1884 to 25 May 1911. The entire period from 1876 to 1911 is often referred to as the Porfiriato, and has been characterized as a de facto dictatorship.
The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history" and resulted in the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly noncombatants.
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a general in the Mexican Federal Army and 39th President of Mexico, who came to power by coup against the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero with the aid of other Mexican generals and the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. His violent seizure of power set off a new wave of armed conflict in the Mexican Revolution.
José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza was a Mexican land owner and politician who served as President of Mexico from 1917 until his assassination in 1920, during the Mexican Revolution. He was previously Mexico's de facto head of state as Primer Jefe of the Constitutionalist faction from 1914 to 1917, and previously served as a senator and governor for Coahuila. He played the leading role in drafting the Constitution of 1917 and maintained Mexican neutrality in World War I.
Francisco León de la Barra y Quijano was a Mexican political figure and diplomat who served as the 36th President of Mexico from May 25 to November 6, 1911 during the Mexican Revolution, following the resignations of President Porfirio Díaz and Vice President Ramón Corral. He previously served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs for one month during the Díaz administration and again from 1913 to 1914 under President Victoriano Huerta. He was known to conservatives as "The White President" or the "Pure President."
Aquiles Serdán Alatriste was a Mexican politician. He was born in the city of Puebla, Puebla, and was a supporter of the Mexican Revolution led by Francisco I. Madero.
Manuel del Refugio González Flores was a Mexican military general and liberal politician who served as the 35th President of Mexico from 1880 to 1884.
The Plan of San Luis Potosí is a key political document of the Mexican Revolution, written by presidential candidate Francisco I. Madero following his escape from jail. He had challenged President Porfirio Díaz in the 1910 presidential elections, when Díaz was 80 years old, and garnered a broadbased following. Díaz jailed him when it became clear Madero might win. Madero escaped and drafted the plan to explain why armed rebellion against Díaz was now the only way to remove him from office. It was published on 5 October 1910. It called for nullifying the fraudulent 1910 election of Porfirio Díaz, proclaimed Madero as provisional president, and called on the Mexican people to revolt on 20 November 1910.
Liberalism in Mexico was part of a broader nineteenth-century political trend affecting Western Europe and the Americas, including the United States, that challenged entrenched power. In Mexico, liberalism sought to make fundamental the equality of individuals before the law, rather than their benefiting from special privileges of corporate entities, especially the Roman Catholic Church, the military, and indigenous communities. Liberalism viewed universal, free, secular education as the means to transform Mexico's citizenry. Early nineteenth-century liberals promoted the idea of economic development in the overwhelmingly rural country where much land was owned by the Catholic Church and held in common by indigenous communities to create a large class of yeoman farmers. Liberals passed a series of individual Reform laws and then wrote a new constitution in 1857 to give full force to the changes. Liberalism in Mexico "was not only a political philosophy of republicanism but a package including democratic social values, free enterprise, a legal bundle of civil rights to protect individualism, and a group consciousness of nationalism." Mexican liberalism is most closely associated with anticlericalism. Mexican liberals looked to the U.S. as their model for development and actively sought the support of the U.S., while Mexican conservatives looked to Europe.
Félix Díaz Prieto was a Mexican politician and general born in Oaxaca, Oaxaca. He was a leading figure in the rebellion against President Francisco I. Madero during the Mexican Revolution. He was the nephew of president Porfirio Díaz.
James Creelman was a Canadian-American writer famous for securing a 1908 interview for Pearson's Magazine with Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, in which the strongman said that he would not run for the presidency in the 1910 elections. The interview set off a frenzy of political activity in Mexico over the presidential elections and succession of power. In the words of historian Howard F. Cline, the "Creelman Interview marks a major turning point in the genesis of the Mexican Revolution." Creelman is often cited as a central reporter during the height of yellow journalism.
Justo Sierra Méndez, was a Mexican prominent liberal writer, historian, journalist, poet and political figure during the Porfiriato, in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. He was a leading voice of the Científicos, "the scientists" who were the intellectual leaders during the regime of Porfirio Díaz.
The Porfiriato is a term given to the period when General Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico as president in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coined by Mexican historian Daniel Cosío Villegas. Seizing power in a coup in 1876, Díaz pursued a policy of "order and progress," inviting foreign investment in Mexico and maintaining social and political order, by force if necessary. There were significant economic, technological, social, and cultural changes during this period.
The United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution was varied and seemingly contradictory, first supporting and then repudiating Mexican regimes during the period 1910–1920. For both economic and political reasons, the U.S. government generally supported those who occupied the seats of power, but could withhold official recognition. The U.S. supported the regime of Porfirio Díaz after initially withholding recognition since he came to power by coup. In 1909, Díaz and U.S. President Taft met in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Prior to Woodrow Wilson's inauguration on March 4, 1913, the U.S. Government focused on just warning the Mexican military that decisive action from the U.S. military would take place if lives and property of U.S. nationals living in the country were endangered. President William Howard Taft sent more troops to the US-Mexico border but did not allow them to intervene directly in the conflict, a move which Congress opposed. Twice during the Revolution, the U.S. sent troops into Mexico, to occupy Veracruz in 1914 and to northern Mexico in 1916 in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa. U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America was to assume the region was the sphere of influence of the U.S., articulated in the Monroe Doctrine. However the U.S. role in the Mexican Revolution has been exaggerated. It did not directly intervene in the Mexican Revolution in a sustained manner.
José María Pino Suárez was a lawyer, journalist, newspaper proprietor, and politician who served as the Vice President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. However, his tenure was abruptly ended when he was assassinated alongside President Francisco I. Madero during the Ten Tragic Days, a coup that marked a pivotal moment in Mexican history. Pino Suárez also held various significant political positions, including President of the Senate, Education Secretary, Justice Secretary, and Governor of Yucatán. He was a key figure in the Mexican Revolution, advocating for democracy and social justice.
José Yves Limantour Marquet was a Mexican financier who served as Secretary of the Finance of Mexico from 1893 until the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime in 1911. One of the most prominent politicians of the Porfiriato era, he was a key member of Díaz's technocratic advisors known as Los Científicos.
The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez was a peace treaty signed between the President of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz, and the revolutionary Francisco Madero on May 21, 1911. The treaty put an end to the fighting between forces supporting Madero and those of Díaz and thus concluded the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution.
Manuel Romero Rubio, was a Mexican politician and lawyer who participated in the governments of Benito Juárez, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and Porfirio Díaz.
General elections were held in Mexico on October 1 and 15, 1911.
