He was certainly entitled to the consideration of the leaders of the Liberal party, and deserved well of the people he had so nobly battled for to conserve as a nation.
There were then, the followers of Juarez—Juaristas; those of Lerdo—Lerdistas—who opposed the principle of re-election as anti-democratic; and a party of the opposition, mainly officers of the army, who fixed upon Porfirio Diaz, and hence called themselves Porfiristas, or "Constitutionalists."
In the beginning of 1870 the principal papers of the republic took sides with one party or the other, and party
PORTRAIT OF LERDO DE TEJADA.
quarrels were soon commenced. In May, 1871, the first of the series of pronunciamientos declared itself at Tampico, when the federal garrison pronounced against the constitutional government. Troops were sent against them, and a battle resulted, in which more than six hundred men were either killed or wounded. The most terrible of the rebellions against constitutional authority was that which took place in the capital on the 1st of October, in which the rebels got possession of the citadel, containing arms and military stores, armed nearly six hundred prisoners
