Investor's Business Daily, June 25th, 2007
It's doubtful that Benito Juarez's New Orleans employers paid much attention to him in 1853. After all, he was a short, middle-aged Indian performing menial work, just one more of the city's poor laborers.
But looks can be deceiving. Juarez was actually a former Mexican governor and political refugee hiding out in America. Despite his poor fortune during this brief period, he never gave up on his dream of returning to Mexico and to politics.
He did just that in 1855. He rose to the presidency of Mexico, becoming the strife-torn nation's greatest reformer and statesman.
Juarez (1806-72) was called the "Abraham Lincoln of Mexico." Like Lincoln, he had a reputation for impeccable honesty and fairness. By never wavering from his democratic and reform-minded goals -- even in the face of great instability and personal peril -- Juarez made Mexico a modern, independent nation.
He helped write Mexico's constitution, free the nation from foreign invasion, heal the wounds of two civil wars, promote free enterprise and open the nation to trade.
His origins couldn't have been humbler. Juarez was born in the southern region of Oaxaca. A full-blooded Zapotec Indian who didn't speak Spanish, he was orphaned as a child and taken in by a bookbinder.
Juarez refused to become another anonymous peasant. He wanted more, and he figured out how to get it. Through hard work and education, he shed his rural ways and learned Spanish. In 1829, he entered the Oaxaca Institute of Arts and Sciences and earned a law degree.
Education opened his eyes to roots of the problems Mexico faced. Newly independent, it was still crippled by authoritarian leaders, choking bureaucracy and corruption.
If the country ever was to become a modern state with strong institutions, it would need real reformers, he realized. So Juarez entered politics, joining the reformist Federalist-Liberal Party. He won municipal office in Oaxaca while in his 20s.
He impressed friend and foe alike with his evenhandedness.
He shared a warm correspondence with Lincoln that dated from 1857, years before Lincoln became U.S. president. It was a testimony to their shared democratic ideals for the emerging continent.
Like Lincoln, Juarez sought to reconcile and include his opponents in his efforts rather than settle old scores. Only by giving everyone a stake in the outcome, he reasoned, could he build support broad enough to make his policies work.
"Between people, as with nations, respect of each other's rights ensures the peace," he said.
His efforts won him popular support, and Juarez began a steady rise up the political ladder. In time he became governor of Oaxaca.
As governor, he pushed for more democracy and free-market reforms. He became the nation's foremost proponent of a constitution-based federalist government and the rule of law. Mexico needed them for stability, he said.
Those plans were put on hold in 1853 when forces led by Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna took over the government and established a military regime. Backed by the Mexican aristocracy and the church, they forced Juarez to flee to the U.S.
But the democratic institutions Juarez pushed were attractive to Mexico's people. The Santa Anna government lacked popular support and lost control in 1855. In the new government, Juarez was made minister of justice and later chief justice of the Mexican Supreme Court.
In 1857, he helped write a national constitution modeled on the U.S. model. He also threw out the special courts for elites and instead promoted equality before the law.
He spurred economic development by breaking the church's control over most of the land. But Juarez resisted pressure within his party to let the government simply seize the land. He required it to be sold off in parcels. This let ordinary Mexicans buy property, laying the foundation for a new middle class.
Juarez also pushed for the separation of church and state. He guaranteed freedom of worship and nationalized services previously done by the church, such as issuing birth and marriage certificates. This let the government build a census and better understand people's needs.
Juarez resisted pressure to abandon debts. He believed it was important to Mexico's international standing to honor them. He postponed payment for two years while the government rebuilt itself.
Most creditor nations grumbled and considered military action. But it was an era where sovereign defaults were common, and in the end they agreed to wait. France was the exception. It used the nonpayment as a pretext to launch an invasion.
Despite a defeat at Puebla on May 5, 1862 (now celebrated as Cinco de Mayo), the French captured Mexico City and set up Austrian archduke Maximilian as their puppet ruler. Juarez retreated to Veracruz, maintaining his government in exile and refusing to give in.
He used a two-pronged strategy: His soldiers resisted as he sought U.S. support to enforce its Monroe Doctrine, which forbade European interference in the Americas. His old friend Lincoln, mired in the U.S. Civil War, gave covert support.
The pressure worked: France abandoned Maximilian, and his monarchy collapsed. In 1867, the democratic government returned to power. Mexico was free and united.
This story originally ran March 23, 2004, on Leaders & Success.
