Chapter 13

The Civil War of the Reform, 1858–1861

On 28 January 1858, the new Conservative regime restored to office all public employees who in the previous year had been removed as a result of their refusal to take the oath to the Constitution.¹ Archbishop De la Garza welcomed Zuloaga’s accession to power in Mexico City. His Pastoral Letter of 12 February described this as the work of Providence. Subsequently, De la Garza declared that the episcopate had not supported the Plan of Tacubaya of 17 December 1857 and had not been consulted on the Conservative seizure of power in the following month. The clergy had recognised Zuloaga, because most internal authorities and the foreign powers also had. The ministers of the foreign powers, including the United States, held to the doctrine that whichever faction controlled the capital city should be regarded as the legal government.²

Zuloaga’s ministry of 24 January 1858 consisted of well-known Conservatives: Cuevas (Foreign Relations), Larraínzar (Justice, Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Education), Hilario Elguero (Interior), with less clearly identified Juan Hierro Maldonado (Finance) and General José de la Parra (War). Three notable Conservatives, P. Francisco José Miranda, Pesado and Couto, led the other twenty-five members of the Council of State. Juárez, in the meantime, arrived first in Guanajuato, where he appointed General Anastasio Parrodi, Governor of Jalisco, to be Commander-in-Chief of Liberal forces. The States of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Michoacan, San Luis Potosí, Aguascalientes and Zacatecas, a contiguous block, had rejected the Plan of Tacubaya, and Juárez sought to draw together a coalition in opposition to the Zuloaga regime. The Governor of the State of Veracruz, Gutiérrez Zamora, also remained loyal to the Liberal cause, thereby depriving the Conservatives of access to the Gulf of Mexico and thence to Europe through the port of Veracruz. This secured the customs receipts for the Liberals.³ In Tepic, however, on the Pacific coast, Manuel Lozada, chieftain the Sierra de Álica and opponent of Governor Parrodi, supported the Conservatives at the national level. Although the religious question was of central importance in other territories of the State of Jalisco, Lozada took his stand primarily on defence of Indian community land rights and local autonomy. Official Liberalism portrayed him as waging a ‘caste war’ or as a common bandit. Lozada’s forces operated in conjunction with the Conservative army during the civil war.⁴

In the city of San Luis Potosí, the Conservative opposition seized power. General Mariano Morett became Governor and Military Commander, with Juan Othón as Prefect of the Capital District.⁵ Just to the north-east of the city of San Luis Potosí, the municipal council of the small town of Armadillo, welcomed the overthrow of the ‘ruinous and ill-conceived’ 1857 Constitution and announced its adherence to the plan of 22 January proclaimed in the state capital by General J. M. Alfaro. The council denounced Comonfort as a usurper and recognised only the Bases Orgánicas as the fundamental law. The capture of power by the Conservatives removed ‘those wretched men who had plunged the country into disaster’.⁶

The Liberal administration in Guanajuato fell under the wavering protection of Doblado. There, Ocampo, Minister of the Interior and interim Minister of Foreign Affairs, War and Finance, sent a circular to the state governors, nullifying all acts of the ‘revolutionaries’ (i.e., moderate Liberals and Conservatives) from 17 December onward. When the Juárez administration moved to Guadalajara on 16 February, Ocampo insisted that this was the only legitimate government in Mexico.⁷

The Early Phase of the Military Conflict

The main thrust of Conservative military commanders would be to break any centre-north coalition and seize the main capital cities, preferably from the inside. Juárez, for his part, intended to make the west the focus of opposition to the Mexico City regime. In view of the pockets of Conservative support inside Guadalajara and in the surrounding pueblos, this would prove to be a risky decision. San Luis Potosí became a main theatre of contest throughout the war. Liberals recovered control of the provincial capital on 30 June 1858 and the department once again became a state under the restored Federal Constitution of 1857. The city council was reconstituted, and Bishop Pedro Barajas expelled by Vidaurri’s commander, Zuazua, on 14 July. After Vidaurri’s defeat at Ahualulco on 29 September, however, Conservatives regained power in the city and the council changed complexion again.⁸

The principal Conservative military commander was the capable Brigade General Luis Osollo (1828–58). Originating from Mexico City, Osollo had also been one of the heroic cadets at Chapultepec in 1847, who had resisted the American attempt to seize the capital. He had already risen to the rank of colonel by 1854. He took part in the rebellion of Zacapoaxtla against the Comonfort administration in 1856 and in the subsequent occupation of Puebla. As the remnants of the former Liberal administration scattered in different directions, the Mexico City regime appeared to control the political agenda. Osollo’s victories at Celaya on 8–9 March and Salamanca, in the State of Guanajuato, on 10 March, over Parrodi and Santos Degollado confirmed this situation. Miramón and Mejía, also veterans of the Mexican-American War, seconded Osollo at Salamanca. The Liberals, lacking a disciplined army, retreated westward, although the young officer, Leandro Valle, would later become one of their best commanders. Doblado signed a capitulation with Osollo on 12 March, leaving for semi-exile in the United States. Conservative forces thereupon entered Guanajuato.⁹

Receiving news of Osollo’s victories, Guadalajara Conservatives struck at the Liberal administration in their midst. In a swift coup, coordinating with forces in the field, Colonel Antonio Landa, commander of the Fifth Army Brigade, declared in favour of ‘Religión y Fueros’ on 13 March, seized hold of Juárez, Ocampo, Ruiz, Prieto and León Guzmán, and put them before a firing squad. Immediate execution was thwarted only by Prieto’s quick thinking, which shamed the soldiers into abandoning their scheme. Fighting for control of the city followed for two days. Through the intervention of interim State Governor, Jesús Camarena, a fellow Liberal, Juárez and his associates gained refuge in the French Consul’s house and were able to slip out of Guadalajara and make for the port of Manzanillo. Osollo and Miramón entered Guadalajara on 23 March. Jalisco Conservatives, taking their stand on the abolition of the Reform Laws and the defence of religion, celebrated Osollo’s triumphs. The village of Mascota, forbidden by the Liberal authorities to do so, flagrantly rang church bells and let off fireworks in defiance. Renewed fighting broke out inside Guadalajara, when Liberal forces under Santos Degollado attempted to recover the city in May and June, advancing from Colima, occupying outlying pueblos on their way, and joining with forces from Michoacán.¹⁰ Liberal forces broke into the city on 5 June and took the Hospicio Cabañas, east of the centre and occupied a number of sturdily built colonial churches. Other such churches held Conservative forces in the fighting to control the city. Miramón, who had taken Zacatecas on 10 April, rushing back to the city with 4,000 men, forced the Liberals out again on 21 June. When his infantry marched into Guadalajara, they wore red crosses on their blue uniforms, positioned on their chests over their hearts, just like crusaders. Miramón caught Santos Degollado’s forces at the Gorge of Atenquique, on the road southward to Colima, on 2 July, in a long and bloody conflict. It was difficult to determine which side won, but Miramón remained in control in Guadalajara.¹¹

In Liberal Oaxaca, the Boletín Oficial, on 21 February, gave its definition of the two sides in the civil war. The Conservatives consisted of the clergy, the rest of the army, the possessors of large capital resources and the mass of religious fanatics who were the result of three centuries of deplorable Spanish rule. ‘The most outstanding of our youth formed part of the Liberal cause along with the artisans, and practically all those with a professional career and a future ahead of them.’ The struggle, according to the Boletín, was between the old ideas and the new. The ‘reaction’ favoured taking Mexico back to Spanish rule, as it said the Santa Anna dictatorship had intended, regarding Independence as a disaster and ‘the heroes of Independence as bandits’. Reactionaries were responsible for the execution of Guerrero in 1831. They hoped to use religious sentiment as the instrument for restoring Spanish rule.¹²

During the Civil War and the subsequent War of the French Intervention (1862–7) both sides found themselves obliged to attempt recruitment of provincial, rural and small-town supporters. One of Zuloaga’s first actions was to ratify Comonfort’s removal of the Ley Lerdo of 1856. Villagers found themselves divided over Liberal reforms, between those able to take advantage of them and those who saw their communities disadvantaged by them.¹³

Juárez and his small group of Liberal leaders sailed from Manzanillo on 11 April in the direction of Panama, with the intention of crossing the Isthmus and, by way of Havana and New Orleans, proceeding thence on the ‘Tennessee’ to the Liberal-held port of Veracruz, which they reached on 4 May. Ocampo’s Circular of 5 May announced the re-establishment of the Liberal administration there.¹⁴

The northern tier of states also remained loyal to the Liberal cause, although not necessarily to Juárez personally. Vidaurri controlled Nuevo León and Coahuila, with designs on San Luis Potosí as well. He sought to enlist the support of Juan José de la Garza, Governor of Tamaulipas, in a northern association through the Agreement of Montemorelos on 13 January 1858, financed from customs revenues of Tampico and the Río Bravo towns. Vidaurri was acting as though he were an independent power, taking his stand on the resumption of sovereignty by a large number of Liberal states, in opposition to the ‘government of Tacubaya’. The objective of this defensive and offensive alliance, ratified by the State Legislatures of Nuevo León, Coahuila and Tamaulipas, was to pool resources. The three states would also try to secure a loan of $500,000 both within Mexico and from the United States, to which commissioners would be despatched. The priority was defence of the north from the two principal enemies, the Conservative army from the centre and the indios bárbaros across the frontier.¹⁵ Such arrangements between states or with foreign powers violated the principles on which federalism had been based in Mexico since 1824–5. Furthermore, the Veracruz government regarded customs revenues as rightly pertaining to the federal Treasury and not to the states.¹⁶

Taking advantage of the civil war in the centre-western and centre-northern states, Zuazua, had entered the city of San Luis Potosí. Osollo forced him out on 17 April, but his men were caught in an ambush by Zuazua’s 3,000 riflemen, as they advanced northward after him. Zuazua recovered Zacatecas on 30 April. By 15 May, Mejía’s force was in Tampico, defeating De la Garza, outflanking the northern Liberals and depriving them of commercial access and the revenues of this Gulf port. When Zuazua retook San Luis after seven hours of bitter fighting, on 30 June, the concertina warfare across the heartlands ensured a long duration for the fratricidal struggle in Mexico.¹⁷

Mejía and General Rafael Moreno had left Querétaro on 16 April, bound for Jalpan, with the Querétaro and the Sierra Gorda Battalions along with guerrilla forces in a hasty attempt to relieve Tampico from the siege placed around it by De la Garza’s Liberal forces. Mejía’s men came from the local farming population who, he informed De la Parra, without any proper equipment or uniforms, badly armed and bereft of adequate funds, had abandoned their labours in the fields in order to oppose the Liberal revolution. They had hurried past Xilitla into the San Luis Pososí Huasteca, braving hostile terrain, insect bites and disease – their most formidable enemy. It grieved him to add that in this alien territory, they had received no pay for three days and were short of food. They had no mules for transport. If such a situation were to continue, the threat of desertion would be real, since the men would want to return to their homes. The greater part of the Sierra Gorda Battalion was down with sickness and many men had died during the march. The minister, for his part, stressed the strategic and political importance of controlling Tampico. After receiving some funds from the Governor of Tampico, Mejía took half his force back to the Sierra Gorda, after relief of the port and scattering De la Garza’s forces. Remaining in the Sierra Gorda for a short time to restore his health, Mejía proposed to report in person to the minister, concerning the situation in Tamaulipas.¹⁸

Mejía had, as always, his eyes on the city of Querétaro, where he was guaranteed enthusiastic support. Despite the twenty-one-day march back from Tampico during the rainy season and the loss of some fifty men, he was able to take Querétaro on 10 July 1858 at a time when Miramón was operating in San Luis Potosí. Mejía, nevertheless, desperately needed funds and manpower.¹⁹ Even so, he was able to report in the following month that a small section of his forces from Jalpan had managed on 3 August to enter Río Verde ‘after an hour of bitter fighting’.²⁰

The Conservatives, however, lost Osollo, who died of typhoid in San Luis on 18 June, before his thirtieth birthday. Miramón thereupon became Commander of Conservative forces, with Mejía operating a separate campaign across the east of the country. Juárez and his group of ministers in Veracruz also desperately needed funds to continue the war. They attempted to raise a loan in the United States, but Mata, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, reported from Washington that he had received no success with New York merchants. Juárez, however, appeared to believe that a loan would be forthcoming, once the Liberals regained control of the capital city. Mata, still negotiating for a loan of $3 million, explained that the removal of Zuloaga remained the precondition. President Buchanan, moreover, specified that he did not want any sort of arrangement with Mexico until news reached Washington concerning Vidaurri’s action in San Luis Potosí.²¹

Monterrey and Saltillo controlled access southward to the centre-northern inner tier of states, namely Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. Conservatives in San Luis branded Vidaurri as a separatist or even annexationist in the pay of American contrabandists. Vidaurri, aspiring perhaps to use his ‘Army of the North’ as the springboard for political supremacy within the Liberal camp, made San Luis his military objective during the summer and early autumn of 1858. Mejía’s position in the Sierra Gorda, however, threatened his flank from the south-east, his forces able to push down from their mountain redoubt across the Río Verde district, just as the rebels of 1848–9 had done, westward towards the city of San Luis.²²

Vidaurri had left Monterrey on 21 June with a force of 3,000 men and fourteen artillery pieces, occupying San Luis, his main objective, but unexpectedly retreated northward on news of Miramón’s advance with the principal Conservative army. Whatever Vidaurri hoped to do, he found himself caught by Miramón, accompanied by Mejía, Leonardo Márquez and Colonel Marcelino Cobos at Ahualulco in central San Luis Potosí, not distant from the Hacienda de Bocas on, 25 September. Fighting began on 28 September and, on the following day, the Conservative army routed Vidaurri and Zuazua, by seizing their artillery. This was a major defeat for the northern Liberal forces. Conservatives again recovered Zacatecas and retained control of the city of San Luis Potosí after Ahualulco. Miramón’s victory, however, did not end the war. Ahualulco did deprive Vidaurri, nevertheless, of the opportunity he had aspired to by pushing southward to take the leadership of all Liberal forces. The war would finally be decided by commanders other than himself, thereby leaving Juárez in a stronger political position after September 1858.²³

The scale of relief and rejoicing within the Conservative camp can be seen in the responses from small towns in San Luis Potosí. The Villa de San Nicolás Tolentino celebrated with a serenade in the main square, fireworks, and rifle bursts accompanied by cries of ‘Viva la Religión! Viva el Ejército! Viva la Unión!’, ‘Long Live Miramón and Mejía!’ and ‘Death to the rebel Vidaurri and the overthrowers of Order who accompany him!’. In the Villa de San Felipe, in the Río Verde district, a large number of signatories from this sub-prefecture wrote directly on official stamped paper to Miramón on 9 October 1858, congratulating him on the victory at Ahualulco. Beginning with the phrase ‘this insignificant pueblo of the Republic’, they denounced the ‘plague destroying society’ and undermining ‘the principles with which we Mexicans have grown up’. They welcomed Miramón as Osollo’s worthy successor, pushing back Vidaurri’s Northerners and protecting Mexican nationality.²⁴

Ahualulco signified the first stage in the protracted decline of Vidaurri. Although completed by Juárez in 1864 and given the coup de grace by Porfirio Díaz in 1867, this first stage was accomplished by the three Conservative commanders. Vidaurri’s fatal decision to pull his forces out of San Luis Potosí to save his own position in the north, left the remaining Liberal forces, usually with unprofessional and unskilled leadership, at the mercy of these generals.

Other Liberal forces, under the supreme command of Santos Degollado, and with Valle and Pedro Ogazón, threatened the Conservative hold on Guadalajara once again in September and October. Degollado finally took the city on 29 October after fierce fighting. This occasioned a reply by Miramón on 11–16 December, which obliged Degollado, bereft of weaponry, to retreat to Colima, where the Conservative general routed his forces near the pueblo of San Joaquín on 29 December, forcing the remainder of the Liberal forces into Michoacán. The focus of the conflict was clearly on control of the centre-northern and centre-western core of cities, Morelia, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas and Guadalajara, in each of which there was a parallel internal struggle between Conservatives and Liberals for supremacy. They exchanged hands several times. Márquez, for instance, was in Morelia on 17 April, in Guadalajara on 15 May, and retook Zacatecas without resistance in December. Crucially, however, Liberals remained in no position to recover Mexico City and Conservatives unable to take Veracruz.²⁵

The Conservative cause continued to be hampered by a shortage of funds. Even after Doblado’s capitulation in Guanajuato, Liberal forces under Vicente Vega continued to operate in the Sierra Gorda, which Mejía regarded as a serious threat to his position. Vega was doing his best to recruit support by propagating Liberal measures among the local inhabitants, but, according to Mejía, ruthlessly punishing the villages, ranches and haciendas, which refused to join him. Mejía accused him of stirring up a ‘war of castes’. The Mexico City government, however, having no money to spare, left its able commander to his own devices.²⁶

The military stalemate had political repercussions within each of the opposing regimes. In Mexico City on 2 January 1859, a ‘Junta of Notables’ levered Zuloaga from power in favour of Miramón, a situation confirmed on 31 January when Zuloaga, briefly reinstalled, appointed him interim President. As President in the Conservative zone, Miramón increased the stakes by decreeing on 16 February that anyone collaborating with the enemy, conspiring or spreading rumours faced the death penalty within twenty-four hours of arrest. González Ortega, Liberal Governor of Zacatecas, responded to this on 16 June by imposing the death penalty for conspiracy against the Liberal cause. This penalty also applied to clerics who, in front of one or more witnesses, encouraged retraction of the oath to the Constitution or denied the sacraments to anyone who had taken it or had been a beneficiary of the Ley Lerdo.²⁷

Miramón hoped to break the military deadlock by a bold strike against the port of Veracruz, the seat of the Liberal administration. The Conservative army left Mexico City on 16 February 1859 and reached Orizaba on 22 February, staying there until 1 March. The fourteen-day siege of Veracruz lasted from 17 until 30 March but proved to be futile. During this time, the US government officially received Mata (envoy of the Juárez regime) as Mexico’s Minister Plenipotentiary, a major rebuff to the Conservative regime in Mexico City. This did not bode well for Conservative hopes of securing Spanish aid from Cuba in the attempt to snuff out the rival Liberal administration. By 11 April, Miramón arrived back in the capital. However, Robert McLane, the US diplomat, had reached Veracruz on 1 April with a view to examining possible recognition of the Liberal regime.²⁸

Vidaurri, this time acting in conjunction with De la Garza, made a second attempt to establish control over the State of San Luis Potosí and consolidate their position in the north-east from January 1859. They hoped to join together National Guard units from the States of Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí, making a total force of 6,000 men. This would have been the largest force officially operating on behalf of the Liberal cause. Juárez had no option but to appoint Vidaurri commander of the northern forces. The latter made twenty-nine-year-old Ignacio Zaragoza (1829–62) Colonel-in-Chief of the vanguard of the reconstituted ‘Army of the North’, financed from customs revenues technically due to the federal government in Veracruz. In February, Zaragoza, operating in conjunction with Julián Quiroga, took Aguascalientes, the city positioned between Jalisco and the Bajío. They expected to push across into San Luis, taking advantage of Miramón’s preoccupation with the siege of Veracruz.²⁹

While Miramón had been engaged in the futile siege of Veracruz, Degollado seized the opportunity to threaten Mexico City on 18 March 1859, only to face his third major defeat on the outskirts this time at the hands of Márquez, who had rushed down from Guadalajara with 1,100 men and nine artillery pieces, at Tacubaya on 10–11 April. Márquez, earning a terrible and lasting reputation, shot as many prisoners and attendant medical personnel as he could find. Galindo y Galindo believed that these killings undermined the Conservatives’ claim that their cause was the cause of religion.³⁰ Márquez went on to occupy Morelia on 24 April and Guadalajara on 15 May.

The Conservative regime in Mexico City, responded to the Liberal advances by appointing Mejía to the command of a newly constituted ‘Division of the Centre’ on 4 June 1859. From this position he threatened to overturn Vidaurri’s plans to establish control over the State of San Luis Potosí. Faced with the prospect of enduring a second rout on the scale of Ahualulco in the previous year, Vidaurri in September, announced his decision to withdraw his forces northward again for the defence his home territories. That decision, which effectively abandoned the rest of the Liberal forces, aroused the strong indignation of the greater part of his military command. Four of his best commanders, Escobedo, Francisco Naranjo, Zaragoza and José Silvestre Aramberri, abandoned his cause and realigned behind the Juárez administration in Veracruz. Zuazua and Quiroga remained with Vidaurri, but the Nuevo León State Congress abandoned him and moved to Galeana, Escobedo’s home territory. From Degollado’s perspective, Vidaurri, forced from Monterrey by Zaragoza and out of office from September 1859 until April 1860, was in a state of rebellion against the Veracruz regime. A civil war within the Civil War took place in the north-east. This conflict enabled Miramón to take León on 30 September 1859 and win an outstanding victory at Estancia de las Vacas, in the vicinity of Querétaro in November. The Conservatives were then in control of San Luis Potosí, the Bajío and Zacatecas.³¹

US pressure During the Civil War of the Reform

From the mid-1840s and through the 1860s, the politics of the United States and Mexico were intertwined. In many respects, the two countries participated in several common historical processes, not least of which was their joint experience of civil war. Despite the imminent breakup of the United States, US officials continued to hold a low opinion of Mexico. John Forsyth had welcomed Comonfort’s removal of the 1857 Constitution in a letter to Secretary Cass, on 17 December 1857, on the grounds that Mexicans were incapable of managing republican government.³²

The existence of two Presidents of Mexico, one in Mexico City, recognised by the European powers, and the other in Veracruz, presented the US government with the quandary of which one to support. The criterion would be which of the two would better promote the interests of the northern neighbour. Accordingly, Forsyth approached Zuloaga concerning further sales of territory in north-western Mexico. The peregrination of the Juárez administration encouraged Forsyth to tell Cass on 1 March 1858, that recognition of Zuloaga’s regime had been the right decision. The Conservative army’s victory at Salamanca in mid-March reinforced this view. As in July 1857, the US government in April 1858 wanted concession of transit rights (without Mexican surrender of sovereignty) across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This appeared to have been granted in article 8 of the Mesilla Treaty. It also wanted settlement of outstanding claims, all of Baja California and its adjacent islands, most of Sonora, and northern Chihuahua above the thirty-degrees line. The sum to be paid for territory was to be agreed subsequently. The Conservative victory, however, encouraged Foreign Minister Cuevas to stall, with the result that Forsyth threatened force should there be no decision on the concessions. Zuloaga refused to negotiate.³³

Forsyth began to turn his attention to Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Finance Minister in the Juárez regime, a well-known advocate of closer relations between the United States and Mexico. They had first met in December 1856, when Lerdo was Comonfort’s Finance Minister. The turning point came when the Conservative government on 15 May 1858 imposed a 1 per cent tax on all capital and property in the Republic valued at over 5,000 pesos, applying to both Mexicans and foreign residents and to be collected within fifty days. Forsyth suspended diplomatic relations on 21 June. Although President Buchanan instructed him to return forthwith to Washington, Forsyth remained in Mexico, ostensibly awaiting the imminent replacement of Zuloaga by Miramón, but also wary of the threat of fevers on the Gulf coast during the rainy season. Forsyth hoped that a Liberal administration might take power in the capital. Buchanan, in the meantime, was dealing with ministers from both Mexican governments, each concerned with the question of recognition.³⁴

Juárez’s minister in Washington, Mata, had been authorised to negotiate a loan from the United States guaranteed against the sale of ecclesiastical properties. Lerdo proceeded to New York with that objective in mind. Forsyth, for his part, regarded Mexico as a sinking ship, its wood rotten to the core. Bandits and thieves abounded, with no sight of any patriotic sentiment and no honour. In Forsyth’s view, the Mexican government was incapable of controlling the greater part of its own territory.³⁵

Buchanan, in the meantime, sent a special envoy, William Churchwell, to Veracruz, to treat with the Juárez regime. Churchwell was in Veracruz from 19 January until 8 March 1859. Nothing concrete was signed at that time and at that level. The US position remained the same: transit rights across the Isthmus in accordance with the Mesilla Treaty; and US aid in return for the cession of Baja California and Sonora. Churchwell, under the impression that the Mexicans would make concessions, recommended recognition. A new factor, however, came into the picture. On 3 March, Almonte, the Mexico City Conservative regime’s minister in Paris, signed what became known as the Mon-Almonte Treaty with his Spanish counterpart, Alejandro Mon. This treaty re-established relations between Spain and Mexico (ruptured in January 1857) and aspired to bring Spain into the political strife in Mexico as a potential counterpoise to the United States. It also opened the possibility of Spanish aid to the Conservative cause. This latter was especially pertinent, in view of the monarchist sentiment prevailing among Conservative leaders. Lafragua condemned this treaty as a betrayal of Mexican Independence and national honour.³⁶ The Conservatives hoped to secure aid from Spanish-controlled Cuba to coincide with Miramón’s siege of the port of Veracruz and thereby eliminate the rival government under Juárez. Buchanan, in the meantime, appointed Robert M. McLane, a leading Maryland Democrat, to be his new minister to Mexico.³⁷

McLane’s appointment, dating from 7 March 1859, focused on the question of US recognition of the Veracruz regime. This was granted on 6 April. The rapidity may have resulted from the combination of resentment at the Conservative regime’s implacability and alarm at the possibility of Spanish intervention. The Mexico City regime responded with equal speed. Its circular to department governors on 18 April withdrew official recognition from all US consuls and vice consuls in the Mexican Republic. In effect, that meant in territories under Conservative control. To counter this action, McLane published the declaration of recognition on 26 April, condemning the Conservative regime’s conduct in 1858–9. He rejected the allegation that the Veracruz regime had ceded national territory to obtain US recognition. McLane added that the Juárez regime had always shown a friendly disposition towards the United States. Henceforth recognised by the United States as the legitimate government of Mexico, the Veracruz regime, he added, controlled more of the country than did the Conservatives, especially the key northern-border states and the principal ports, notably Veracruz. Even so, the European powers still recognised the Mexico City regime.³⁸

News of the McLane-Ocampo Treaty encouraged sixty-five signatories from the Conservative Party to appeal to Napoleon III on 26 April. They believed that the Veracruz Liberals had sold out to the United States, thereby endangering the survival of the Mexican Republic as an independent state. They condemned Buchanan’s expansionist policies and alleged that Juárez would never have been recognised had a secret treaty not been negotiated beforehand to provide the Liberals with funds to continue the war. The signatories said that this was common knowledge. They believed that the US government wanted the partition of Mexico in order to push forward ‘their favourite project’ of creating a separate ‘Republic of the Sierra Madre’, which would include Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo León. It also wanted the Isthmus of Tehuantepec under its control. ‘Manifest Destiny’, the Conservative signatories told Napoleon III, represented nothing but a violation of all international law, since its purpose was the acquisition of new territories, in the expectation that, because of the Monroe Doctrine, no one would dare to stop it. This tactic of stealthy aggrandisement threatened the balance of power, which the European powers were anxious to maintain. Mexico’s national existence was in danger from ‘a nation of adventurers and speculators’. Accordingly, they appealed to the European powers to intervene in Mexico and prevent this.³⁹

The McLane-Ocampo Treaty of 14 December 1859 provoked controversy at the time and dispute later among interpreters, historians included. The treaty conceded no fresh territorial concessions, despite the obvious fact that the Veracruz government had no spare funds. The Buchanan administration did not gain Baja California and Sonora. The Veracruz regime received no US loans. It did confirm the transit rights across the Isthmus by road and across northern Mexico from the Río Grande to the Gulf of California by way of Arizona for railway construction to reach the sea at Guaymas or Mazatlán, starting from river ports such as Camargo and Matamoros. The railway might pass through Monterrey and Hermosillo. This only restated what had been in article 8 of the Mesilla Treaty of 30 December 1853 signed by the leading Conservative of the time, Díez de Bonilla. These transit rights were ceded in perpetuity with duty-free commercial access. The United States would pay Mexico $4 million as compensation for lost customs revenues but would retain half of this sum as compensation for claims of damages against Mexico. US citizens in transit would be exempt from Mexican forced loans and given freedom of worship, while on Mexican territory. Both Juárez and Ocampo insisted that US military intervention to protect the transit routes and the personnel involved could result only from invitation by the Mexican government. The treaty, confirming diplomatic recognition, did not establish a US protectorate over Mexico, even though it presaged a defensive and offensive alliance. The Convention attached to the treaty provided for ratification by the President of the United States, as advised by the Senate and by the Mexican President in full use of his extraordinary faculties and executive power. The defeat of the main Liberal army at Estancia de las Vacas, outside Querétaro, on 12 November, made agreement to these terms essential for the survival of the Juárez regime. The Liberals were prepared to pay the high price of coming to agreement with the United States. The treaty showed the importance they attached to US recognition and tacit alliance. It was consciously designed to counter rumours of Spanish intervention from Cuba and dash any aspirations that Napoleon III might engender towards French intervention in North American affairs. The outrage and indignation expressed in the Conservative camp indicated Conservative awareness of such Liberal objectives.⁴⁰

McLane told Secretary Cass that he believed the treaty did not compromise Mexican independence in the slightest. Significant, however, was his statement that:

I have little to add to what I have repeatedly brought to your attention in connexion with the inability of any government that may exist in Mexico as a central government to perform properly its functions as a supreme government.⁴¹

The Conservative regime in Mexico City promptly denounced the treaty on 30 December as a betrayal of national sovereignty and independence: the Liberals had sold the country out to further their disastrous aims.⁴² The French Minister, Gabriac, concluded that it subordinated Mexico to the United States and sought to advance US commerce to the disadvantage of European commerce. Gabriac claimed to foresee the territorial subdivision of Mexico at the hands of US commercial and political interests, leaving the north, the Isthmus and Yucatán under US control. Such views carried weight in Paris, especially in the immediate circle of Napoleon III. The French government believed it to be essential to draw the British into alliance to counterbalance the United States in Mexico and Middle America generally.⁴³

Aware of the possible damage to the Liberal cause that news of the treaty might inflict, Juárez issued a Manifesto to the Nation on 30 January 1860. Rejecting the charge of betrayal of sovereignty and independence, Juárez pointed to the Mon-Almonte Treaty, which, he argued, brought Spain back into Mexican politics by threatening intervention from Cuba. This was no idle statement. Miramón appeared on the Gulf coast on 22 February 1860 for the second siege of Veracruz, this time engineering coordination with two ships secured in Havana by the Conservative General Tomás Marín, intending to blockade the port. The Conservative army faced the port-city on 4 March and began the land blockade from 5 March. Coordination between Mata in Washington and the US government warned the Veracruz administration of the danger from Havana. The ships, sailing from Havana without identifying flags on 27 February, appeared two days later and anchored along the coast off Antón Lizardo Point, a headland projecting into the Gulf, south-east of the port. The Juárez government, forewarned, coordinated its response with Washington. Ships from the US navy, accompanied by pro-Liberal vessels, intercepted the two ‘pirate’ ships, disarmed them and escorted them into Veracruz. This joint action thwarted the attempt at a coordinated naval blockade on 6–7 March by Marín, who was taken captive and later shipped to New Orleans. With the collapse of the plan for a land and sea investment of the port-city, Miramón’s artillery then bombarded Veracruz from 15 to 18 March, following this with a failed assault, and finally withdrew back in Mexico City on 22 March, reaching there on 7 April. The McLane-Ocampo Treaty thereby showed its metal, demolishing the Mon-Almonte Treaty in the process. Miramón’s prestige had been shattered. Thereafter, the Conservative cause began a terminal decline.⁴⁴

The fate of the McLane-Ocampo Treaty is well-known. In short, nothing came of it, even though it destroyed Ocampo’s reputation. The treaty had to be ratified in the United States Senate to take effect. Inevitably, given the political climate in Washington during 1860, this Mexican treaty, negotiated by a Democrat, would be caught in the conflict between the States. The Republicans, rising in influence and opposed to intervention in Mexican affairs since the War of 1846–7, warned of its implications and the objectives of the southern states. Discussion in the United States, however, was overtaken by preparations for the crucial presidential elections of 1860. The Senate suspended sessions for three weeks so that the Democratic Party Convention could meet and decide its candidate. President Buchanan favoured immediate ratification of the treaty without modification, in order that a payment of $2 million could be made to the Veracruz government for the final defeat of Miramón. The Republicans, however, objected to any presidential authorisation of the despatch of troops to Mexico to protect transit lines without prior consent of Congress. Juárez also appeared anxious for ratification, although on condition that no alterations detrimental to Mexican interests should be made. The question of customs duties for US goods entering Mexico provoked intense discussion. The Republican Convention meant further delay in the Senate.⁴⁵

The northern states regarded the treaty as a southern ploy to extend territory and expand slavery. Jefferson Davis voted in favour of ratification. Lincoln stressed the shared values of US Republicans and Mexican Liberals. Republicans strove to prevent the south from gaining commercial advantages through the Isthmus transit trade. Thomas Corwin pointed to the southern history of expansionism and filibusterism. Northern influence secured the treaty’s rejection by the Senate on 31 May 1860. Thereupon, the Juárez administration in November also refused ratification, and the notorious treaty died on its feet.⁴⁶

We might describe this as the end of the first phase of the civil war, with the debacle of Miramón outside Veracruz in March 1859 and Márquez’s successes at Tacubaya, Morelia and Guadalajara in April and May and Mejía’s in May to September against Vidaurri’s second attempt to control San Luis. The defeat at Veracruz ensured the survival of the Liberal regime but Conservative successes guaranteed the continuation of the military struggle, with the Conservative army as yet undefeated.

In contrast to Liberal commitment to the 1857 Constitution, federalism and the Reform Laws, the Conservatives presented no alternative plan of government, beyond vague mentions of the Bases Orgánicas. The Liberal moderates had been disgraced by the Plan of Tacubaya. This left radicals, opposed to compromise, at the controlling helm in the party. Neither Juárez nor Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada and state governors such as Doblado, despite commitment to the 1857 Constitution and the supremacy of the civil power, were ideologically committed to the radical position. The appearance of a contingent of northerners – Vidaurri, De la Garza, Zuazua, Escobedo, Zaragoza and Quiroga – on the military and political scene pointed forward to later impact during the Revolution of the 1910s.