Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/400

380 authors and sponsors called themselves constitutionalists, and yet went to work, by means of violence and bloodshed, to break the constitution they made their battle-cry. Allowing that the reëlection of Juarez had been unjustifiable and illegal, and that his title should have been set aside with all the energy of the nation, why was Lerdo de Tejada, president of the supreme court, and the official designated by the constitution of 1857 as the legal temporary successor, also set aside? It is surmised that the revolutionists mistrusted him; but if so, they failed to express it in their plan. The result of it all was that the plan met with but few supporters, the liberal party, as a whole, looking upon it as hostile to the constitution of 1857, as an impending military dictatorship prompted by the spirit of militarism, as Juarez called it, and as exclusive. Had the revolutionary movement been well directed, however, without resorting with such precipitancy to arms, its chances of success might have been greater, for its possibilities were large, whole states having made declarations against the general government.

But previous to Diaz' open rupture with the government, his partisans had broken out into rebellion in several parts of the republic. A