Mexico's Struggle Towards Democracy/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
SIXTY-FIVE YEARS ago Civil War, of which the basic cause was the institution known as chattel slavery, began in the United States. At the same time, a still more bitter internal conflict was waged in Mexico. Benito Juarez led the small property-owners and oppressed masses against the great feudal land-owners, chief of which was the Catholic church, established in Mexico by the Spanish conquerors.
Civil war in Mexico lasted ten years, during half of which French invaders assisted the feudalists. Throughout this conflict the United States supported the cause of Juarez. President Buchanan and and Grant urged military intervention in his behalf. Abraham Lincoln assisted him by official recognition and shipments of arms and finally demanded withdrawal of the French troops.
The Church lost its great estates, but during the period of reaction, 1876 to 1910, it regained some of them. The balance of power, however, fell into the hands of foreign investors; those of the United States, in 1910, owned nearly half the wealth of Mexico.
Today the Mexican government is again in controversy with the Catholic church. The press and the politicians of the United States profess horror at the religious intolerance of the Mexican government. The United States Government maintains a threatening attitude regarding protection of American interests which may at any time break into open hostilities. What has caused this change of front on the part of the United States toward Mexico? The following accounts of the Mexican Revolutions of 1857 and 1910 discuss the economic factors involved, and their relations to the United States.