nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a direct result of the
postindependence political institutions of the country. The
chaos of the Santa Ana era was followed by an abortive
attempt by the French government of Emperor Napoleon II
to create a colonial regime in Mexico under Emperor
Maximilian between 1864 and 1867. The French were
expelled, and a new constitution was written. But the
government formed first by Benito Juárez and, after his
death, by Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada was soon challenged
by a young military man named Porfirio Díaz. Díaz had
been a victorious general in the war against the French and
had developed aspirations of power. He formed a rebel
army and, in November of 1876, defeated the army of the
government at the Battle of Tecoac. In May of the next year,
he had himself elected president. He went on to rule
Mexico in a more or less unbroken and increasingly
authoritarian fashion until his overthrow at the outbreak of
the revolution thirty-four years later.
Like Iturbide and Santa Ana before him, Díaz started life
as a military commander. Such a career path into politics
was certainly known in the United States. The first president
of the United States, George Washington, was also a
successful general in the War of Independence. Ulysses S.
Grant, one of the victorious Union generals of the Civil War,
became president in 1869, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the
supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during
the Second World War, was president of the United States
between 1953 and 1961. Unlike Iturbide, Santa Ana, and
Díaz, however, none of these military men used force to get
into power. Nor did they use force to avoid having to
relinquish power. They abided by the Constitution. Though
Mexico had constitutions in the nineteenth century, they put
few constraints on what Iturbide, Santa Ana, and Díaz could
do. These men could be removed from power only the
same way they had attained it: by the use of force.
Díaz violated people’s property rights, facilitating the
expropriation of vast amounts of land, and he granted
monopolies and favors to his supporters in all lines of
business, including banking. There was nothing new about
this behavior. This is exactly what Spanish conquistadors
had done, and what Santa Ana did in their footsteps.
The reason that the United States had a banking industry