PLAN OF TUXTEPEC: ANTECEDENTS, PROCLAMATION, POINTS, CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY

The Plan of Tuxtepec was a call made by General Porfirio Díaz to overthrow the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. The pronouncement took place on January 10, 1876 through a document signed in San Lucas Ojitlán, district of Tuxtepec (Oaxaca), from which it takes its name.

The document maintained most of the arguments already contained in the Plan de la Noria, another pronouncement led by Díaz himself in 1875 to overthrow the government of Benito Juárez. In both cases, Porfirio was taking a stand against presidential reelection.

Plaque commemorating the signing of the Plan of Tuxtepec - Source: AlejandroLinaresGarcia / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Porfirio Díaz also criticized corruption within the Díaz government, in addition to recognizing the legality of the Constitution of 1857 and the Reform Laws. This pronouncement had the support of an important group of soldiers.

In March 1876, the Plan of Tuxtepec was modified to appoint Porfirio Díaz as head of the movement. After a few months of confrontation, Lerdo de Tejada was defeated. The 1877 elections ushered in a new stage in the history of Mexico, the Porfiriato, which would last until 1910.

Background

The presidential elections of 1871 faced the acting president, Benito Juárez, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, and Porfirio Díaz.

Benito Juarez

Juárez was proclaimed the winner amid numerous accusations of electoral fraud. This result was not accepted by General Porfirio Díaz, who proclaimed the so-called Plan de la Noria on November 8 of the same year.

Porfirio Díaz and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada

This appeal was followed by the La Noria Revolution. Porfirio got the support of part of the army and of some governors, like that of Oaxaca, Félix Díaz. However, he soon began to rack up defeats.

Porfirio Díaz had to go into exile in the United States on February 1, 1872, where he remained until March. Upon returning, he promised to continue fighting Juárez.

Death of Juárez

The death of Benito Juárez, on July 18, 1873, stopped the La Noria Revolution. His replacement was, as established by law, the president of the Supreme Court, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. As transitional president, his role was to prepare new elections.

The new president granted an amnesty to all rebels who agreed to lay down their arms. However, the Absolution Law promulgated on July 28 did not convince the porfiristas. Díaz, despite presenting some complaints, left Tepic to make himself available to the administration in the capital.

Lerdo de Tejada called the elections for October 13 and his rival in the same was, again, Porfirio Díaz. The result favored the first, who was proclaimed President of the Republic for the period 1872-1876.

As the new elections approached, Lerdo announced that he intended to run for reelection.

Proclamation

Lerdo de Tejada had to adjust the constitutional precepts to try to be reelected as president. As soon as he announced his purpose, various social sectors showed their rejection, among them Porfirio Díaz.

Preparation of the Tuxtepec Plan

Porfirio repeated the steps he had taken with his Plan de La Noria. At the end of 1875 he commissioned Vicente Riva Palacio and Ireneo Paz, two liberal intellectuals, to begin to draft a document calling for the rebellion against Lerdo de Tejada.

The end result was, in fact, little novel. The original document only affirmed the validity of the Constitution of 1857 and the Reform Laws as the legal referents of the country. Likewise, the authors insisted on the importance of non-reelection.

On the other hand, the document blamed Lerdo de Tejada for surrounding himself with "prisoners and murderers" and for handing over the country's wealth to foreigners.

Call to rebellion

The Plan of Tuxtepec was made public on January 10, 1876, in San Lucas Ojitlán, district of Tuxtepec, in the state of Oaxaca.

In addition to Díaz, the Plan was signed by various soldiers, such as Colonel Hermenegildo Sarmiento, Vicente Riva Palacio or Protasio Tagle. The signatories called for the Mexicans to take up arms against Lerdo de Tejada.

As soon as the Plan was announced, various military regiments took up arms throughout the country. Some governors were deposed from their positions and the rebels took some towns. In late January, Fidencio Hernández joined the uprising in Oaxaca.

Modification of the Plan

In March 1876, the original document of the Plan of Tuxtepec was modified in Palo Blanco. The main change was to grant Porfirio Díaz the leadership of the so-called Recovery Army, which fought against the Lerdo government.

Meanwhile, the rebellion was adding more and more supporters throughout the country. In the capital, José María Iglesias, president of the Supreme Court, affirmed that the reelection had been illegal and that, therefore, he should occupy the presidency temporarily until new elections were called.

After that declaration, Iglesias left the capital and took refuge in Guanajuato. There, the state governor recognized him as legitimate president, something to which other governors joined, such as those of Colima, Jalisco, Guerrero, Sonora or San Luis Potosí.

Main points

As has been pointed out, the first version of the Plan of Tuxtepec had as its main argument the opposition to the re-election of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada.

Effective suffrage, No reelection

Since the proclamation of the Plan de la Noria, Porfirio Díaz's motto was "Effective suffrage, no reelection." The Tuxtepec Plan was totally based on that concept.

The document promoted by Díaz rejected Lerdo de Tejada as president of the country. In the letter there was strong criticism of his government, which they called corrupt and eliminating the separation of powers. Likewise, he claimed that he had abused his abilities and turned the suffrage into a sham.

Economic criticism

Criticism of Lerdo did not remain only in the political sphere. The document also made reference to the country's economy and accused the government of making concessions to foreign countries, causing agriculture and trade to stagnate and being the culprit for the growth of poverty.

Recognition of current laws

Another of the main points of the Plan was the one that recognized the Constitution of 1857 as the only valid one in the country. Along with the Magna Carta, the document also included the validity of the Reform Laws.

On the other hand, the promoters of the appeal asked the states to adhere to it and recognized the state governments that did. In the event that they did not join, the manifesto declared the intention to remove them from office.

Future plans

The document, which was subsequently modified to add four new points, also contained the steps to be followed after the overthrow of Lerdo.

In the first place, the Plan established that two months after the rebels took the capital, elections should be called. While these were being held, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice would assume the presidency of the country.

One of the points that was added on March 21, 1876 named Porfirio Díaz as the leader of the insurgents.

Consequences

The government's reaction to the Tuxtepec Plan was immediate. Lerdo de Tejada persecuted the rebels and there were multiple military clashes between both sides.

At first, Lerdo's supporters managed to defeat their enemies in several battles. This caused the Porfiristas to start a guerrilla war in various areas of the country. Díaz, for his part, traveled to Cuba to get reinforcements and weapons.

The battle of Tecoac was a turning point that would lead to the final victory of Porfirio Díaz. The victory of his army, on November 16, 1876, sealed the fate of Mexico.

Armor used during the Battle of Tecoac. Thelmadatter / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Flight of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada

After the defeat of his men in Tecoac, Lerdo de Tejada understood that the victory of the rebels was inevitable. The president resigned and went into exile to the United States.

Despite the fact that José María Iglesias, who was the temporary president, tried to continue fighting to defeat the Porfiristas, on November 24, 1876 Porfirio Díaz entered Mexico City as the winner.

The Porfiriato

Porfirio Díaz won the general elections held in 1877. Although it was not yet known at that time, that moment marked the beginning of a new period in the history of Mexico, the Porfiriato, which lasted until 1910.

Díaz soon forgot his anti-re-election slogan and held the presidency uninterruptedly, with a brief interval in which he served as shadow power, until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.

His first measures sought to pacify the country and, for this, he formed a strong government that could control the different states of the country. Díaz harshly repressed the military rebellions that broke out, as well as the opponents.

On the positive side, the Porfiriato managed to stabilize the country and improve the economy. The latter, however, was achieved by granting numerous privileges to foreign investors. Economic and social inequality increased during his tenure.

Main characters involved

Porfirio Diaz

Porfirio Díaz came to the world in Oaxaca de Juárez, on September 15, 1830. His participation in the war against the French gave him popularity among Mexicans, especially after recovering Mexico City.

The then general led a rebellion against Benito Juárez's intention to be reelected in 1871, after launching the Plan de la Noria. Five years later, he again took up arms against reelection, this time from Lerdo de Tejada.

After defeating the Lerdo government, Porfirio Díaz proclaimed himself president of Mexico in 1877 and established a regime that has gone down in history with the name of Porfiriato.

Once in power, Porfirio changed the constitutional article that prohibited reelection. Díaz exercised absolute control of the country and did not hesitate to repress his possible opponents. His stay in power lasted until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.

Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada

This Mexican politician was born in Jalapa in 1827. Among other positions, Lerdo de Tejada was a prosecutor of the Supreme Court and Minister of Foreign Relations during the Comonfort presidency.

In May 1831 he allied himself with Benito Juárez and held the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government and Justice during his government. In the military sphere, Lerdo de Tejada participated in the war against the French.

After the victory of the Republic, the politician came to hold several positions: Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Interior, deputy and president of the Supreme Court.

His support for Juárez ended when he announced his intention to be reelected in 1871. Lerdo de Tejada founded his own party, although he failed to defeat his rival at the polls. However, Juárez once again appointed him president of the Supreme Court of Justice.

The death of Juárez caused that, according to the Constitution, the president of the Supreme Court assumed the presidency temporarily. Lerdo de Tejada, after winning the extraordinary elections, became president of the country.

Lerdo de Tejada tried to repeat the same maneuver as Juárez and ran for reelection. Porfirio Díaz, who had already taken up arms against Juárez, promulgated the Plan of Tuxtepec to overthrow the government.

After being defeated on the battlefield, Lerdo de Tejada went into exile in the United States. He never returned to Mexico.

Jose Maria Iglesias

Born in Mexico City in January 1823, José María Iglesias held different positions in the government during the years prior to the proclamation of the Plan of Tuxtepec

Thus, this politician was Minister of Justice, Ecclesiastical Business and Public Instruction, Minister of the Interior and Justice and Public Instruction, Senior Official and President of the Supreme Court of Justice.

Iglesias positioned himself against Lerdo de Tejada after the 1876 elections and proclaimed himself interim president of the country, since at that time he was the head of the Supreme Court.

Porfirio Díaz pressured Iglesias to join the Plan of Tuxtepec. Iglesias, after some moments of doubt, preferred to join the struggle for power by launching the Plan of Salamanca.

The persecution to which Porfirio Díaz subjected him forced Iglesias to leave the country. The politician went into exile to the United States and did not return to Mexico until the end of 1877.

References

Museum of the Constitutions. Tuxtepec Plan launched by Porfirio Díaz against the re-election of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada to the Presidency of the Republic. Recovered from museodelasconstituciones.unam.mx
Brief history of Mexico. The Plan of Tuxtepec. Obtained from historiademexicobreve.com
Staff Close Up. Plan of Tuxtepec, a historical event that changed the destiny of Mexico. Obtained from revistacloseupoaxaca.com
Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Plan of Tuxtepec. Retrieved from encyclopedia.com
Tuxtepec Tourism. Plan of Tuxtepec. Obtained from tuxtepecturismo.com
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada.

Retrieved from britannica.com
Minster, Christopher. Biography of Porfirio Diaz, Ruler of Mexico for 35 Years. Retrieved from thoughtco.com

PLAN OF TUXTEPEC: ANTECEDENTS, PROCLAMATION, POINTS, CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY - 2025