6 - Reconstruction, 1867–1940

Summary

Liberal triumph in 1867 could not solidify a lasting constitutional system or make federalism effective. After 1884, personal rule by the Liberal General Porfirio Díaz, a rival of Juárez, aborted the development of constitutionalism and by the 1900s created an insoluble succession question. Even so, peace enabled the recovery of the economy, the development of a railway network, and the expansion of tropical produce. A series of capable Finance Ministers, culminating in Limantour in the 1890s and 1900s, put Mexican finance in order and made the country attractive to foreign investors and developers. Pressure on land and water resources and on the labouring population, however, exacerbated social tensions. The impact of recession from 1907 combined with paralysis at the political top level over the succession question provided the opening for social revolution during the 1910s. This meant that the country would have to be reconstructed on a different institutional basis under the 1917 federal Constitution. Governments from 1920 onwards strove to recover the economic expansion and fiscal stability of the Díaz era. They moved away from personal rule into the long-lasting rule of a monopoly party, from 1929 onward. The most left-ward position was reached in 1938 with Cárdenas’s nationalization of the oil industry.