Felix Maria Zuloaga He was a Mexican politician and military man born in March 1813. In 1858, he became president of Mexico after proclaiming the Plan of Tacubaya, which was unaware of the Constitution of 1857 and the liberal laws approved by previous governments..
His military vocation led him to enlist in the army when he was still very young. During the following years he participated in the war against the Texan independentistas, in the First French intervention and in the war against the United States. Zuloaga proved his worth in those conflicts and rose through the ranks until he reached commander.
His participation in the internal politics of Mexico was characterized by his ideological changes. At first, he seemed to sympathize with the liberals, although he soon began to support the Santa Anna government. When he was captured during the Ayutla Revolution, Zuloaga changed sides again to support Ignacio Comonfort, the future president..
A few weeks after having promised Comonfort his loyalty, Zuloaga launched the Plan of Tacubaya that sought to end his government. This rebellion meant the beginning of the War of Reform, which ended with the victory of the Liberals of Benito Juárez and, practically, the end of Zuloaga's political and military career..
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Félix María Zuloaga Trillo was born in Álamos, Sonora, on March 31, 1812. As a child, he completed his primary education at a school in Chihuhua and later moved to Mexico City to enter a seminary..
The young Zuloaga left the seminary in 1834 to enlist in the civil militias of Chihuahua. His first military experience took place during the well-known Comanche wars, in which he fought this tribe and the Apaches, whose warriors frequently attacked the populations of Sonora and Chihuahua itself..
Zuloaga returned to Mexico City in 1838 to enlist in the regular army with the rank of second lieutenant. That same year, the military participated in the War of the Cakes, the first armed conflict that confronted Mexico with France..
In addition, Zuloaga also fought in some campaigns against Texans who had de facto declared the independence of that territory. His outstanding participation in these wars earned him the appointment of president of the War Council of the Mexico City garrison..
According to his biographers, in those years Zuloaga seemed to sympathize with the Mexican liberals. However, his side changes were constant.
In 1840, he was a passionate defender of Anastasio Bustamante, but only a year later he became a staunch supporter of Antonio López de Santa Anna and his Regeneration plan..
Zuloaga was promoted to captain and, in 1842, posted to Yucatán to fight the separatists. His next destination, in 1843, was Tabasco, where he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the following years, he was commissioned to fortify Monterrey and Saltillo.
The military man once again demonstrated his courage during the war that confronted Mexico with the United States, between 1846 and 1848. During the conflict, he received a special license to occupy the mayor's office of the city of Chihuahua.
At the end of the war with the United States, Zuloaga left his post in Chihuahua and returned to the army to become president of the War Council..
When the Ayutla Revolution broke out in 1854, Zuloaga remained faithful to Santa Anna and fought against the Liberals. During the war, he was taken prisoner and confined in the Hacienda de Nuzno. The military man was only saved from being shot by the intervention in his favor of Ignacio Comonfort.
In gratitude, Zuloaga joined the liberal forces to fight, this time against Santa Anna, whom he denigrated in a letter written in 1856 and in which, in addition, he swore allegiance to Comonfort. Only 20 months later, the military would lead the Plan of Tacubaya.
After being released, Zuloaga was promoted to Brigadier General. Also in 1855, he served as representative of the state of Chihuahua in the Board of State Representatives in Cuernavaca.
Despite having fought them, Zuloaga sympathized with the Conservative Party, especially after the laws passed by the liberal governments.
These reforms had already formed part of the spirit of the Ayutla Plan, proclaimed in 1854. Although its main point was to overthrow the dictator Santa Anna, the rebels also declared the need to change many aspects that, from their point of view, did not allow progress from the country.
After their victory over the Conservatives, the Liberals proceeded to approve their reforms. Among the objectives of the liberals was the reduction of the power of the Catholic Church and in formalizing the separation between that institution and the State..
In addition, they also intended to reduce the privileges of the military and grant Mexican citizenship with all rights to indigenous people..
Zuloaga ended up supporting the point of view of the most conservative in the country. In addition, he convinced the president who emerged from the Ayutla Revolution, Ignacio Comonfort, that Mexico was ungovernable with the Constitution of 1857, which he called too radical.
On September 17, 1857, Zuloaga led the pronouncement of the Plan of Tacubaya. He was unaware of the Constitution of 1857, as well as President Ignacio Comonfort. In addition, it demanded that an extraordinary Congress be convened to draft a new constitution..
Two days after the Plan was made public, Comonfort joined its postulates. In this way, the president carried out a kind of coup against his own government..
The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Benito Juárez, refused to support the conservatives and Comonfort ordered his arrest.
Zuloaga demanded that Ignacio Comonfort resign from his post on January 11, 1858. During the next 10 days, the still president tried to resist, and even released Benito Juárez and other liberals.
On January 23, Zuloaga proclaimed himself president of the country, with the support of conservative generals and the Catholic clergy. At the same time, Benito Juárez, who as president of the Supreme Court was next in line for the presidential succession, proclaimed his right to occupy the post..
The conservatives, led by Zuloaga, had the support of the military at that time, so Juárez had to organize his own government in Guanajuato. In this way, the so-called War of Reform began..
The first stage in the presidency of Zuloaga lasted until the end of 1858, when an uprising caused him to be replaced by Manuel Robles Pezuela.
Only a month later, General Miguel Miramón returned to reinstate Zuloaga as president. In turn, Zuloaga appointed Miramón as his replacement in February and resigned shortly after..
From that moment on, Zuloaga remained politically active, although he adopted a very low profile..
The Liberals, for their part, did not recognize any of these governments, as they considered them unconstitutional. Zuloaga and the other conservative presidents were also not accepted by the United States, which recognized Juárez as the legitimate president..
On May 9, 1860, Zuloaga made one last move to regain the presidency. The next day, Miramón seized him and took him with the troops to the interior campaign..
On August 3, Zuloaga took advantage of the low surveillance to escape, when he was with the conservative army in León, Guanajuato. From there he moved to Mexico City, where he appeared before the Governing Council.
This body flatly rejected his intention to regain the presidency. Even so, with the help of some conservative soldiers, he assumed office on August 13, although he immediately went to fight the liberals and did not carry out any type of legislative activity..
On December 22, 1860, the Liberal Army defeated the Conservatives at the Battle of Calpulalpan and sealed the final fate of the War of the Reform. Benito Juárez entered the Mexican capital on January 1, 1861 and restored constitutional order in the country.
The conservatives, despite the defeat, continued to recognize Félix María Zuloaga as president. The government of Juárez, for its part, declared him outside the law for the murder of Melchor Ocampo.
Zuloaga's mandate in the itinerant government that he tried to form ended on December 28, 1862, after two years of unsuccessful attacks against the federal army. The conservatives then put their hopes in preparing the Second Mexican Empire, which would be proclaimed in 1863.
Zuloaga tried to ally himself with the Empire, but did not achieve his goal. In 1865, he had to go into exile and settled in Cuba.
His return to Mexico came after the death of Juárez. In his later years, Zuloaga made no attempt to return to politics and devoted himself exclusively to growing tobacco. He died in Mexico City, on February 11, 1898..
Zuloaga was elected by the Catholic clergy and by the more conservative generals to occupy the presidency of Mexico after the coup that ended the liberal government.
The military man took office on January 23, 1858. His first government was made up of civilians and priests, with the Ministry of Justice in the hands of Father Francisco Xavier Miranda..
With the start of the War of the Reform, politics took a back seat. Generals Luis G. Osollo and Miguel Miramón, heads of the conservative army, assumed royal power, while Zuloaga's role was rather symbolic. For this reason, his main activity at that time was to attend mass..
Some of the conservatives did not approve of his passivity and, in December 1858, they proclaimed the so-called Christmas Plan.
The author of the Christmas Plan was Miguel María de Echegaray, a conservative and former supporter of Zuloaga. His intention was to reform the constitution and change the president.
Echegaray intended to run for president, but found rejection from other conservatives. Finally, it was decided that the position should go to General Miguel Robles Pozuela, since the highest valued candidate, Miguel de Miramón, was at the front.
Zuloaga, upon learning of the conspiracy that was taking place against him, preferred not to offer resistance and left the presidency on December 24, 1858..
Pozuela tried to unite civil and military sectors to approve a new constitution. Benito Juárez, for his part, limited himself to rejecting any attempt to change the constitutional order that he considered legal.
The Christmas Plan ended up being a failure and Zuloaga returned to assume the presidency in January 1859.
Miramón returned the presidency to Zuloaga in January 1859, but a month later, on February 2, he deposed him again to assume the position himself and, in this way, become one of the youngest leaders in the history of Mexico..
In May 1860, with Miramón still in the presidency, Zuloaga made one last attempt to regain office. His attempt at insurrection was unsuccessful and Miramón arrested him and forced him to accompany the army, as a detainee, during their campaign from the interior..
Zuloaga, to whom the soldiers were not paying much attention, managed to escape and went to Mexico City in search of support. Although the Conservative Government Junta did not accept his return to power, he acted as if he were president.
With the victory of the Liberals and with Juárez as constitutional president, the Conservatives once again recognized the presidency of Zuloaga at the end of 1860.
The politician organized a roving government and spent the next two years trying to defeat government forces..
During these campaigns, Zuloaga ordered the capture of Melchor Ocampo, a liberal militant whom he accused of being an atheist and who had demonstrated against the power of the Church..
Ocampo, who was living in retirement on his farm in Michoacán, was captured and shot by Zuloaga's conservative militias. This prompted the Juárez government to issue a search and arrest warrant against the conservative leader..
The official end of Zuloaga's presidency, recognized only by the few supporters who followed him, occurred on December 28, 1862..
The presidency of Zuloaga, in any of its periods, was marked by the War of the Reform. For this reason, its legislative activity was very scarce.
A few days after Comonfort had to leave office, the new president Zuloaga held a Te Deum in the Cathedral of Mexico and approved one of the few laws of his mandate.
The so-called Five Laws consisted, in reality, in the repeal of the liberal legislation previously approved.
Thus, Zuloaga ordered the repeal of the Iglesias Law, which reduced the economic power of the Church, the Juárez Law, which eliminated the special courts, and the Lerdo Law, which favored the creation of a rural middle class..
These measures were approved by means of a presidential decree that, in addition, returned their old positions to those who refused to swear the Constitution of 1857.
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