Fall of the Centralist Republic

The Mexican American War broke out on April, 1846 during the presidency of Mariano Paredes.

A series of uninterrupted Mexican losses inflamed opposition against the government, and Paredes faced revolution, he resigned on July 28, choosing to return to the military to help with the war effort. Nicolas Bravo was meanwhile chosen as his successor.^[2]

On August 3, the garrisons of Vera Cruz and San Juan de Ulua revolted, against Bravo. Mariano Salas was made the provisional president, and on August 22, he restored the Constitution of 1824, putting an end to Centralist Republic of Mexico, and inaugurating the era of the Second Federalist Republic.^[3]

Mexican American War

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

President Manuel de la Peña y Peña

Congress finally met in May, 1847 and at its opening session President Peña y Peña recommended a policy of peace, and recounted the progress that had been made in the fields of order and finances amidst so many challenges. He explained how as Minister of Foreign Relations under President Herrera, he had been against the war. He did not view this stance as dishonorable as even the most martial of nations at one point had faced a war they could not win. He expressed belief that Mexico simply did not have the ability to continue the war, and proclaimed that anyone who viewed such a stance as dishonorable was not worthy of being called honest.^[13]

Negotiations were opened with the United States government, and after deliberating upon the matter, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was approved by congress.^[14]

As the peace treaty was concluded and the occupiers were on the point of leaving the country, congress named Jose Joaquin Herrera to the presidency of the republic, and Peña y Peña left his post as president in exchange for the presidency of the Supreme Court on June 3, 1848. The government left Queretaro and returned to the capital.^[15]

An Era of Peace and Moderate Rule

Herrera Presidency

Main article: José Joaquín de Herrera

President José Joaquín de Herrera

The Herrera Administration faced enormous financial challenges and while the rest of the Herrera ministry was stable, many financial ministers resigned. However, the economy seemed to be overall improving. Abundant harvests were reported, and the mines began to increase their yields. Construction on a railway and telegraph line was begun, and the first industrial exhibition in Mexico opened on November 1, 1849, in Mexico City.^[16]

On November 4, 1848, the army was reduced to 10,000 men, and conscription was abolished, yet the latter measure had to be abrogated when only enough volunteers could be found to fill half of the men needed in the army.^[17]

The government attempted to establish military colonies along the frontier to settle and pacify the region against Indian raids. The project was hampered by lack of funds, but by 1851, despite not being as extensive as originally planned, reasonable progress on the colonies had nonetheless been made, and three successful settlements were home to over two thousand individuals.^[18]

The 1851 election was won by Mariano Arista, Herrera’s Minister of War, and Herrera was the first Mexican president to complete a full term since the inaugural holder of the office, Guadalupe Victoria has passed power over to Vicente Guerrero in 1828.

Arista Presidency

Main article: Mariano Arista

President Mariano Arista

Arista took office on January 15, 1851. He decided to adopt many of Herrera’s policies, which he as Minister of War had already played a significant hand in enacting, but made some changes in the cabinet.^[19]

It was ultimately the ongoing financial crisis which would lead to Arista's fall being used as a pretext by Conservatives who wished to see Santa Anna restored to the presidency. Revolts were raised against the government, most prominent of which was the local insurrection led by a Guadalajara hatmaker named Blancarte. Supporters of Santa Anna, reached out to Blancarte and successfully convinced the latter to increase the scope of his revolt. On September 13, Blancarte proclaimed that Arista ought to be overthrown and that Santa Anna ought to be recalled to take a role in reorganizing the government.^[20]

As the Blancarte revolt spread throughout the entire nation, Arista addressed the chambers on December 15, 1852, and eventually resigned on January 5^[21]

Santa Anna's Last Dictatorship

The restoration of Santa Anna was brought about by a Conservative Party faction led by Lucas Alaman, and including Governor Mugica of Puebla,^[22] Teodosio Lares, and Jose Maria Tornel.^[22]

The centralist system under which the country had been governed was restored, and state legislatures among other bodies of local government were dissolved throughout the country. Education and the accreditation of lawyers was brought directly under the control of Mexico City.^[22] A new Ministry of Development was established with the responsibility of handling public works, trade, and colonization.^[23]

The military was reorganized, being increased in its number of troops, the state militias being dissolved and absorbed into the national army,^[24] and subject to an unprecedented conscription, which proved to be enormously unpopular.^[25]Santa Anna nonetheless aimed to modernize the army, hiring instructors from Europe, and improving fortresses armaments, and the ships of the Mexican Navy.^[25] The regime found new funds through the Gadsden Purchase, which nonetheless proved to be controversial for once again alienating national territory to the United States.

The dictatorship began to take on a regal atmosphere as Santa Anna moved his residence to Tacubaya to live in a lavishly decorated palace which also frequently hosted balls and soirees.^[26] He revived the noble Order of Guadalupe that had briefly existed during the First Mexican Empire, but upon the first public exposition of its members wearing their ceremonial decorations, they became subject to public ridicule throughout the country and were referred to by the pejorative ‘huehuenches.’^[27] Notwithstanding, Santa Anna himself began to go under the honorific His Most Serene Highness^[28] He impeded efforts to organize a congress for the purpose of drafting a new constitution and on December 16, 1853, passed a decree extending his personal dictatorship indefinitely.^[28]

La Reforma

Liberals posing with a copy of the Constitution of 1857.

On March 1, 1854, the liberal Plan of Ayutla was proclaimed against Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, indicting him for the Gadsden Purchase and his suppression of democratic government.^[29]

A little over a year of civil war followed, the Liberals being led by Juan Álvarez and Ignacio Comonfort and achieving success by October 1855. Álvarez assumed the interim presidency and convoked congress. Appointed to the Alvarez Cabinet were a younger generation of liberals that were to play a notable role in the subsequent Reforma, including the liberal lawyers Melchor Ocampo and Benito Juarez, the poet Guillermo Prieto and the anti-clerical writer Ignacio Comonfort.

The Alvarez administration made progress on some anti-clerical legislation, but amidst the controversy that was resulting he stepped down from the presidency on December, 1855, passing down his office to the more moderate Comonfort.

Congress began to meet in February of 1856, ratifying Comonfort's ascension to the presidency and beginning work on a new constitution. Work on the new constitution ended about a year later in February of 1857, and the Constitution of 1857 was promulgated on February 12, 1857, with the purpose of coming into effect on September 16 of that year. The Constitution had integrated two major pieces of anti-clerical legislature that had been passed since the ascension of Alvarez the Ley Juarez and the Ley Lerdo, the latter nationalizing collectively owned land, a measure aimed at the Catholic Church vast holdings, but also affecting Mexico's indigenous communities.

Reform War

Conservative President Miguel Miramon.

President Comonfort was dismayed by the level of opposition being shown towards the Constitution of 1857, also finding himself unsatisfied with how weak it left the president in the face of so many revolts. Conservatives reached out to Comonfort to overthrow the government and establish a new constitution, and On December 17, 1857 General Félix Zuloaga proclaimed the Plan of Tacubaya, declaring the Constitution of 1857 nullified, inviting Comonfort to join. To the dismay of liberals Comonfort accepted a role in to what amounted to a self coup. Comonfort accepted the Plan of Tacubaya, and released a manifesto making the case that more moderate reforms were needed under the current circumstances.^[30]

Comonfort had overestimated the support he could expect among the state governors, and upon realizing that the nation had begun to fracture into a civil war he resigned in favor of the imprisoned President of the Supreme Court Benito Juarez whom Comonfort released before leaving the nation. Juarez narrowly escaped death but eventually found himself along with the Liberal cabinet ensconced in the strategic port of Veracruz while the Conservative government remained based in Mexico City.

The initial phase of the war resulted in repeated Conservative victories, but the Liberals remained entrenched in the peripheries of the nation, and controlled strategic ports that kept them supplied with vital customs revenues. The Conservatives replaced Zuloaga with Miguel Miramon who had a record of victories but who repeatedly failed to capture the Liberal capital of Veracruz, which during the Battle of Antón Lizardo was protected by the United States Navy. Meanwhile the Liberals passed even more sweeping anti-clerical reforms, nationalizing the remainder of Catholic Church properties in order to continue funding the war effort. The controversial McLane–Ocampo Treaty was also signed with the United States by the Liberal government although it died in the American Senate. The tide of the war began to turn in 1860 as the Liberals finally began making inroads upon the Conservative controlled interior, culminating in the decisive Battle of Calpulalpan in December 22, 1860. Miramon and other leading Conservatives fled the country, while Conservative guerrillas remained active in the countryside.

Second French Intervention

Map of the Intervention

President Juarez entered Mexico City in victory but now faced the task of rebuilding an exhausted and divided nation. A moratorium on foreign debt payments was passed in July, 1861 in order to meet Mexico's financial crisis, but France, the United Kingdom, and Spain responded with the Convention of London, agreeing to armed intervention in order to assure Mexico's debt payments. On 8 December 1861, the three navies occupied the port city of Veracruz.

France had ulterior motives in joining the Tripartite Expedition. Napoleon III intended to overthrow the Mexican Republic and establish a monarchical client state.^[31] The idea for invading Mexico and establishing a monarchy had reached Napoleon through two monarchist Mexican expatriates named José Manuel Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar, and José María Gutiérrez de Estrada, and the idea coincided with French imperial aims. Spain and the United Kingdom abandoned the Tripartite Expedition when they realized France's true intentions. Upon beginning the invasion in December 1861, however, Napoleon realized that Hidalgo and Estrada had exaggerated the monarchist sentiment, which did not truly exist even among Mexican Conservatives.^[32][33]

Furthermore, French troops were repulsed by Mexican troops at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, delaying French advances for over a year. Conservatives eventually found it convenient to collaborate with the invaders in their aims to return themselves in the wake of their loss in the Reform War, and many Conservative generals eventually began to join the French. Mexico City was taken by June, 1863, with President Juarez fleeing ahead of the French troops, and a French controlled^[34] triumvirate was set up as the new executive for the Mexican government. This triumvirate organized a Mexican Assembly of Notables and under French direction resolved on July 3, 1863, to change Mexico into a monarchy inviting Maximilian of Habsburg to assume the newly established Mexican throne. This proclamation ended the era of the Second Federal Republic of Mexico.

Finances

On June 14, 1848, President Herrera passed a decree reforming the treasury department, reducing the budget for the civil service and the army, and presented a plan to congress for the consolidation of the national debt.^[35]

On November 30, 1850, the national debt was consolidated into one fund with the interest rate set at 3 percent, that was to receive twenty percent of custom house revenues. A committee was set up to manage the debt and oversee the collection of duties. Forty million pesos of bonds were set to be issued.^[36]

Mexico’s chronic financial issues remained an imposing issue for the Arista administration and would ultimately lead to its fall. Government income stood at 8 million pesos while expenditure stood at 26 million. A goal was set to reduce the expenditure to 10 million pesos. In order to ameliorate the national finances Arista dramatically cut the salaries of public employees, up to seventy five percent in some cases but the cuts were applies unevenly many unnecessary expenditures remained. Finance Minister Payno resigned over differences on reducing the deficit.^[37]

In August, he summoned a council of governors to suggest better remedies. The governors’ response was to attack the administration over its alleged lack of management and presented a new calculation of the national finances which showed no deficit at all.^[38] The government gained some slight concessions on budget cuts from congress, but the legislature was largely idle, and received condemnation from the press. Certain journals floated the idea that Arista should dissolve congress only to face arrest.^[39]

Infrastructure

In 1856, a commission for the drainage and canalization of the Valley of Mexico was appointed and offered a $12,000 reward to the engineer that offered it the best proposal. ^[40]

In 1849, the Mexican Congress granted an exclusive ten year concession to the engineer Juan de la Granja to build electro-magnetic telegraphs throughout the Mexican Republic, under the conditions that within two years he should have built at least forty leagues of telegraphic line between Mexico City and Veracruz, and that official government correspondence would have priority, and that the Mexican government could interrupt communications along said line for reasons of national security. The Mexico City Veracruz line was finished by 1856 after which the government now made efforts to construct a line through Jalapa.^[41]

Trade

The Alameda Central in 1855 with a hot air balloon in the background.

In 1854, Santa Anna passed discriminatory customs against nations which had no commercial treaty with Mexico, and this measure was repealed in 1856 by the liberals who had overthrown him. They instead lowered tariffs in general. ^[42]

Cotton, which had long been subject to tariff restrictions to protect the Mexican textile industry was given permission in 1858 to be imported through the port of Vera Cruz by paying a dollar and a half per hundred pounds. ^[42] In March 1858, the governor of Tamaulipas declared the establishment of a free economic zone along the Rio Grande where foreign goods were exempted from duties. ^[43]

Customs records indicate that in 1851, 435 American vessels, 108 English, and 296 of other nations visited Mexican ports. ^[44]

In 1856 a line of steamships was established between San Francisco and the Mexican ports of the Pacific. ^[45]

In May, 1862, a mail line of steamers was established between Mexico and the United States, and postal regulations between the two nations were agreed upon. ^[46]

Aquaculture

Port of Mazatlan, 1850.

It was estimated in 1860 that the Mexican fishing industry was worth $750,000, and the shrimping industry $480,000. ^[47] In that same year it was estimated that Mexican divers harvesting pearls, corals, oysters, sponges, and shells were producing $150,000 worth of goods annually.^[48]

Trade Fairs

National fairs at which industrial and agricultural goods were exhibited took place in 1850, 1853, 1854, 1856, and 1857. Awards recorded at these fairs include a first class premium award won by a pair of revolvers made in Angangueo, gold medals won by iron and tableware, silver medals won by iron chests, morocco leather and Mexican silk, and honorable mentions won by carriages.^[49]

The state government of Puebla in 1857 decreed that an annual exhibition of the natural and industrial products of the state should be held at the state capital.^[50]

Manufacturing

Real del Monte mine, c. 1850s.

In 1860, twenty factories produced 41,258,700 pounds of tobacco valued at $16,503,480.^[51]

By 1850, the Mexican textile industry involved ten thousand looms, in comparison to the 2,600 which had existed in 1843.^[52]

The government in 1853, renewed a decree prohibiting any other than domestically produced paper to be used for official business.^[53]

By 1860, there were six paper factories producing 1,641,580 reams of paper valued at $6,366,320.^[53]

The Mexican textile industry progressed during this time despite the fact that some protectionist measures were lifted against some opposition.^[54]

By 1860, there were eight factories of cloth, kerseymere, and carpetings, producing goods valued at $2,720,000.^[55]

In 1857 there were five factories of glass and tableware employing 326 persons. By 1860, these had increased to twelve factories.^[56]

There were by 1857, 21 factories and shops producing and preparing silk with an output of 100,000 pounds, and employing eight thousand people.^[55]