eral of division, and finally became the most conspicuous military leader in the war of the intervention and empire. When Escobedo captured Queretaro and Maximilian, Diaz was besieging Mexico at the head of an army of sixty-five thousand men, and soon after the fall of Queretaro he took the capital, thus re-establishing the republic.
As a rival of Juarez, General Diaz in 1871 aspired to the presidency, and after the death of the former he probably would have succeeded to the executive power but for an article in the constitution which required that the office devolve on the chief-justice, then Sebastian Lerdo, one of the most scholarly men of the country. Before the expiration of the term to which Lerdo was elected, Diaz had inaugurated a revolution, and Lerdo was forced to retire, taking up his residence in New York.
But the first genuine peace that Mexico knew was when Porfirio Diaz became president on the 5th of May, 1877. He had fought bravely and suffered much; had been the hero of many desperate adventures and hairbreadth escapes, and had fully earned all the honors his country saw fit to confer upon him. He rescued her from a state of continuous revolution, and by his strong arm and steady nerve guided the battered ship into a haven of quiet. All went well for a period of four years; peace reigned, the tariff was revised and the finances improved, while those gigantic railway enterprises were projected which have since then opened up the country to the admiration and interest of the world.
At the expiration of his term—no man being allowed under the constitution to hold the office of president for two consecutive terms—the reins of government were placed by General Diaz in the hands of his friend and companion-in-arms, General Manuel Gonzales. The wonderful natural resources of the country had recuperated and rallied under the fostering care of President Diaz, and hopes were high that, in this era of peace and prosperity, the troubles of the country were at an end. But brave soldier as Gonzales had proved himself to be, he was unequal to the demands of the occasion. The history of his administration is well known.
