Constitution of Mexico - History

History

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is one of the main products of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Francisco I. Madero originally led the revolution against the longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz and he became president in November 1911 after Villa and Orozco defeated Díaz in Ciudad Juárez. Madero was eventually overthrown and executed in 1913 by the dictator Victoriano Huerta, who had conspired with Félix Díaz, Bernardo Reyes, and the U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson to remove Madero from power. The reaction to Huerta usurpation was Venustiano Carranza's Plan of Guadalupe, calling for the creation of a Constitutional Army, for Huerta's ouster, and for the restoration of a constitutional government.

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States was redacted by the Constitutional Congress convoked by Venustiano Carranza in September 1916 after the triumph of the Constitutional Army. The new constitution was approved on February 5, 1917, and it was based in the previous one instituted by Benito Juárez in 1857. Several of its articles reflected the social distress existing in Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century: articles 3 and 130 restricted the power of the Catholic Church as a consequence of the support given by the Mexican Church's Hierarchy to Victoriano Huerta dictatorship, article 27 stated in particular that foreign citizens cannot own land at the borders or coasts as a consequence of the United States occupation of Veracruz, and article 123 was designed to empower the labor sector as a consequence of the brutal repression of Cananea and Río Blanco strikes. Nevertheless Venustiano Carranza declared himself against the final redaction of the articles that enacted anticlerical policies and social reform; namely Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, 123, 130. But the Constitutional Congress contained only 85 conservatives and centrists close to Carranza's brand of liberalism, and against them there were 132 more radical delegates.

This constitution is the first one in the world to set out social rights, serving as a model for the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and the Russian Constitution of 1918. The most important articles: 3, 27, and 123 displayed profound changes in Mexican political philosophy that would help frame the political and social backdrop for the rest of the century. Article 3 forbids the setting up of a list of prohibited books and established the bases for a mandatory and lay education; article 27 led the foundation for land reforms; and article 123 was designed to empower the labor sector. The Constitution was also amended in 1927 to extend the president's term for four years to six years. The constitution was also amended in 1926 to presidential re-elections as long as the presidents didn't serve consecutive terms; this amendment would later be repealed in 1934.