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Benito Juárez
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Benito Pablo Juárez García (March 21, 1806 – July 18, 1872) was a Zapotec Amerindian who served five terms as president of Mexico: 1858–1861 as interim, 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871 and 1871–1872. For resisting the French occupation, overthrowing the Empire, and restoring the Republic, as well as for his efforts to modernize the country, Juárez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader.
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Benito Pablo Juárez García (March 21, 1806 – July 18, 1872) was a Zapotec Amerindian who served five terms as president of Mexico: 1858–1861 as interim, 1861–1865, 1865–1867, 1867–1871 and 1871–1872. For resisting the French occupation, overthrowing the Empire, and restoring the Republic, as well as for his efforts to modernize the country, Juárez is often regarded as Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. Juárez was recognized by the United States as a ruler in exile during the French-controlled Second Mexican Empire, and got their support in reclaiming Mexico under the Monroe Doctrine after the United States Civil War ended. Benito Juárez was the first Mexican leader who did not have a military background, and also the first full-blooded indigenous national to serve as President of Mexico and to lead a country in the Western Hemisphere in over 300 years.
Early life
Juárez was born in the small village of San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, located in the mountain range now known as the "Sierra Juárez." His parents, Marcelino Juárez and Brígida García were peasants who died when he was three years old. He described his parents as "Indios de la raza primitiva del país," that is, "Indians of the original race of the country." He worked in the corn fields and as a shepherd until the age of 12. On December 17, 1818, he walked to the city of Oaxaca looking to educate himself and find a better life. At the time, he was illiterate and could not speak Spanish, only Zapotec.
In the city, where his sister worked as a cook, he took a job as a domestic servant and eagerly made up for his lack of education. A lay Franciscan, Antonio Salanueva, was impressed with young Benito's intelligence and thirst for learning, and arranged for his placement at the city's seminary. He studied there but decided to pursue law rather than the priesthood. He graduated from the seminary in 1827 and went on to gain a degree in law.
Political career
Juárez became a lawyer in 1834 and a judge in 1842. He was governor of the state of Oaxaca from 1847 to 1853, at which time he went into exile because of his objections to the corrupt military dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna. He spent his exile in New Orleans, Louisiana, working in a cigar factory. In 1854 he helped draft the Plan of Ayutla as the basis for a liberal revolution in Mexico.
Faced with growing opposition, Santa Anna resigned in 1855 and Juárez returned to Mexico. The winning party, the liberales (liberals) formed a provisional government under General Juan Álvarez, inaugurating the period known as La Reforma. The Reform laws sponsored by the puro (pure) wing of the Liberal Party curtailed the power of the Catholic Church and the military, while trying to create a modern civil society and capitalist economy based on the U.S. model. The Ley Juárez (Juárez's Law) of 1855, for example, abolished special clerical and military privileges, and declared all citizens equal before the law. All the efforts ended on the promulgation of the new federalist constitution. Juárez became Chief Justice, under moderado (moderate) president Ignacio Comonfort.
The conservadores (conservatives) led by General Félix Zuloaga, with the backing of the military and the clergy, launched a revolt under the Plan of Tacubaya on December 17, 1857 . Comonfort didn't want to start a bloody civil war, so made an auto-coup d'état, dissolved the congress and appointed a new cabinet, in which the conservative party would have some influence, assuming in real terms the Tacubaya plan. Juárez, Ignacio Olvera, and many other deputies and ministers were arrested. The rebels wanted the constitution revoked completely and another all-conservative government formed, so they launched another revolt on January 11, 1858, proclaiming Zuloaga as president. Comonfort re-established the congress, freeing all the prisoners and resigned as president. Under the new constitution, the chief justice immediately became interim president until proper elections could be made. Juárez took office on late January 1858. Juárez then led the liberal side in the Mexican War of the Reform, first from Querétaro and later from Veracruz. In 1859, Juárez took the radical step of declaring the confiscation of church properties. In spite of the conservatives' initial military advantage, the liberals drew on support of regionalist forces. They had U.S. help under some terms of the controversial and never approved McLane-Ocampo treaty. This turned the tide in 1860; the liberals recaptured Mexico City in January 1861. Juárez was finally properly elected president in March for another four-year term, under the Constitution of 1857.
Faced with bankruptcy and a war-savaged economy, Juárez declared a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Spain, Great Britain, and France reacted with a joint seizure of the Veracruz customs house in December 1861. Spain and Britain soon withdrew, but the French Emperor Napoleon III used the episode as a pretext to launch the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, with plans to establish a conservative regime. The Mexicans won an initial victory over the French at Puebla in 1862, celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo (May 5). The French advanced again in 1863, forcing Juárez and his elected government to retreat to the north, first to San Luis Potosí, then to the arid northern city of El Paso del Norte, present day Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and finally to the capital of the state, Chihuahua City where he set up his cabinet and government-in-exile. There he would remain for the next two and one-half years. Meanwhile Maximilian von Habsburg, a younger brother of the Emperor of Austria, was proclaimed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico on April 10, 1864 with the backing of Napoleon III and a group of Mexican conservatives. Before Juárez fled, Congress granted him an emergency extension of his presidency, which would go into effect in 1865, when his term expired, and last until 1867 when the last of Maximilian's forces were defeated.
In response to the French intervention and the elevation of Maximilian, Juárez sent General Plácido Vega y Daza to the U.S. State of California to gather Mexican American sympathy for Mexico's plight. Maximilian, who personally harbored liberal and Mexican nationalist sympathies, offered Juárez amnesty, and later the post of prime minister, but Juárez refused to accept either a government "imposed by foreigners", or a monarchy. A legitimate Mexican throne had existed long before him, founded by Emperor Augustine I after independence had been achieved in 1821, but was abolished only a year later, during a domestic crisis. With its own civil war over, President Andrew Johnson, who had great sympathy to the Juarista cause, invoked the Monroe Doctrine to give diplomatic recognition to Juárez' government and supply weapons and funding to the Republican forces. When he could get no support in Congress, he supposedly had the Army "lose" some supplies (including rifles) "near" (across) the border with Mexico. He would not even meet with representatives of Maximilian. Gen. Philip Sheridan wrote in his journal about how he "misplaced" 30,000 muskets close to Mexico. Faced with this and a growing threat from Prussia, the French troops began pulling out of Mexico in late 1866. Mexican conservatism was a spent force and was less than pleased with the liberal Maximilian. In 1867 the last of the Emperor's forces were defeated and Maximilian was sentenced to death by a military court. Despite national and international pleas for amnesty, Juárez refused to commute the sentence, and Maximilian was executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867 at Cerro de las Campanas in Queretaro. His body was returned to Europe for burial. His last words had been, '¡Viva México!'
Juárez was controversially re-elected President in 1867 and 1871, using the office of the presidency to ensure electoral success and suppressing revolts by opponents such as Porfirio Díaz. Benito Juárez died of a heart attack in 1872 while working at his desk in the National Palace in Mexico City. He was succeeded by Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, his foreign minister.
Legacy
Today Benito Juárez is remembered as being a progressive reformer dedicated to democracy, equal rights for his nation's indigenous peoples, lessening the great power that the Roman Catholic Church then held over Mexican politics, and the defence of national sovereignty. The period of his leadership is known in Mexican history as La Reforma (the reform), and constituted a liberal political and social revolution with major institutional consequences: the expropriation of church lands, bringing the army under civilian control, liquidation of peasant communal land holdings, the separation of church and state in public affairs, and also led to the almost-complete disenfranchisement of bishops, priests, nuns and lay brothers.
La Reforma represented the triumph of Mexico's liberal, federalist, anti-clerical, and pro-capitalist forces over the conservative, centralist, corporatist, and theocratic elements that sought to reconstitute a locally-run version of the old colonial system. It replaced a semi-feudal social system with a more market-driven one, but following Juárez's death, the lack of adequate democratic and institutional stability soon led to a return to levels of centralized autocracy and economic exploitation under the regime of Porfirio Díaz that surpassed anything from the colonial or conservative eras; a conservative government under liberal gowns. The Porfiriato (Porfirist era), in turn, collapsed at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
Quotations
Juárez's famous quotation continues to be well-remembered in Mexico: Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz, meaning "Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace." It is inscribed on the coat of arms of Oaxaca.
When Maximilian proposed a meeting with Juárez and offered him the post of Prime Minister of the Empire, Juárez was fleeing with his wife and children from Maximilian's and French armies, and he replied to the Emperor's proposal as follows:
"You assure me that you have no doubt that if I accept this meeting, the peace and happiness of the Mexican nation will result from it, and that the Empire will reserve for me a distinguished position, seeking the help of my talents and patriotism. Certainly, sir, the history of our times registers the names of great traitors who have violated their oaths, their word and their promises; they have betrayed their own party, their principles, their ancestors and everything an honorable man holds sacred. Furthermore, in all these cases, the traitor has been guided by a vile ambition of power and a miserable desire to satisfy his own passions and even his own vices. However, the man currently in charge of the presidency of the Republic, a man that came out of the dark masses of the common people, will succumb - if such is the design of Providence - after fulfilling his duty until the end, in accordance with the trust of the nation over which he presides and having satisfied the requirements of his own conscience. I must conclude due to my lack of time, but I will add a last observation. It is given to men, sometimes, to attack the rights of others, to seize their goods, to threaten the lives of those who defend their nation, to make the highest virtues seem crimes, and to give their own vices the luster of true virtue. But there is one thing that cannot be influenced either by falsification or betrayal, namely the tremendous verdict of history. It is she who will judge us."
Miscellaneous
- The anniversary of Juárez's birth (March 21) is a national holiday in Mexico (See: Fiestas Patrias (Mexico)).
- Juárez was given the title of "Benemérito de las Américas" ("the meritorious one of the Americas") by the government of the Republic of Colombia, on May 1, 1865. The Congress of Colombia proclaimed in such date: "The Congress of Colombia, in the name of the people it represents, and facing the unselfishness and the undeniable perseverance that Señor Benito Juárez, in his role of constitutional President of Mexico, has launched towards the defence of the independence and freedom of his homeland, proclaims that citizen Juárez has deserved the title of Asset of the Americas, and as a homage to such virtues, and as an example to the Colombian youth, has ruled that the portrait of this eminent statesman will be displayed at the National Library with the following script:
- Benito Juárez Mexican Citizen
The Congress of 1865 dedicates, in the name of the Colombian people, this homage attesting his fortitude in defending the freedom and independence of México.
A Colombian citizen, Alejo Morales, supported the proclamation of Juárez in a letter to the Colombian Senate and Representatives, where he describes Juárez as follows:
- "...Juárez is the upright statesman that makes a clear contrast with one too many traitors and betrayers; the man of good faith that chooses misery and death to shame, because the word "duty" is more flattering to him than the insignia of Great Marshall; he is the genius that will scare away, no question about it, the horrifying tempest that has blown so recently upon the New World; he is, gentlemen, Senators, the one that is being proposed that you honour through a decree. I would not believe there is a single Colombian Senator that would not want to hurry to support, through his vote, the consecration of such an act, than would honour more us than the immortal Juárez."
- Warner Brothers produced a biographical film about Juárez, simply titled Juárez in 1939, with Paul Muni portraying the leader. Bette Davis also appeared in the film, which featured a powerful musical score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
- Juárez has also been played in motion pictures by Jason Robards, Sr. (1940), Fausto Tozzi (1965), Helmut Schellhardt (1988), and Luis Valdez (1994)
Things named for Juárez
- A great number of cities, towns, streets, institutions, and other things are named after Benito Juárez; see Juárez for a partial list.
- Benito Mussolini, Dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, was named after Benito Juárez by his Socialist parents. ("Benedetto" is the normal form in Italian.)
Monuments to Juárez
There are monuments to Juárez not just in Mexico but in most countries in Latin America as well as the United States. Here are some examples:
- Mexico:
- Juarez City
- Mexico City's Alameda Central
- Guanajuato
- Oaxaca
- Querétaro
- Nuevo Laredo
- In addition there are schools named for him throughout Mexico and his face appears on postage stamps and on the Mexican 20 peso bill.
- Colombia:
- There is a monument to Juárez on Carrera 11 and Calle 77, in the Chicó neighborhood.
- The United States:
- In Guatemala there are monuments to Juárez in Quetzaltenango and Guatemala City.
- In New Delhi, the government of India named a major road as Benito Juárez Marg in his memory. The road is home to many institutes of higher education, and is where the University of Delhi, South Campus is located.
See also
External links
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