Popular interest in liberal constitutionalism was not confined to rural
communities aspiring to greater autonomy from oppressive cabaceras. The early introduction of universal male suffrage and frequent electioneering, combined with repeated calls of citizens to arms during pronunciamientos, civil wars, and foreign invasions, fostered an important popular urban constituency. Donald Stevens has shown how radical liberals (puros) proved more adept at mobilizing this constituency than moderate liberals or conservatives. From the mid-1820s, the spread of Masonic associations, political clubs, cafés, and intellectual circles; the proliferation of popular newspapers and broadsheets; and increasing literacy fostered the beginnings of a secular culture of liberal citizenship among artisans, lawyers, government officials, militia officers, and teachers. Not until the middle of the century, however, is there evidence of any widespread diffusion of a broader liberal discourse beyond Mexico City and the main provincial capitals. The dawning of Mexico's democratic age came following the promulgation of the Liberal Constitution of 1857, with the widespread recruitment of peasants and artisans into National Guard companies during the Three Years War ( 1858-61) and the French Intervention ( 1862-67).
The ordinances of the National Guard, formed in 1847 to confront the American invasion, and the Constitution of 1857 made explicit reference to a range of individual rights and guarantees (freedom from compulsory services and forced recruitment, freedom of conscience, and freedom of association and suffrage) as well as to the duties of citizenship (including the obligation of all Mexican males to defend the patria). If applied effectively, these two charters would satisfy the desire of peasant communities for reciprocity and equilibrium in their relations with higher authorities. During the 30 years of civil and patriotic warfare in Mexico that followed the U.S. Civil War, especially in regions that experienced intensive military recruitment (such as the sierras of Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz, and Oaxaca), villagers became accustomed to negotiating their terms of service to the liberal state, seeing the democratic organization of the National Guard, with its locally elected officers, as the guardian of their constitutional rights. Tax exemption in exchange for military service and the payment of a head tax (pensidn de rebajados) to avoid forced recruitment were two of the most attractive contracts struck between villagers and liberal leaders. Also attractive to Indian communities was the constitutional proscription of unremunerated compulsory services,
compulsory parish dues, corporal punishment, and jails on haciendas. A bedrock of popular liberalism was formed in these Sierra regions, particularly in those district capitals where local Liberal leaders succeeded in applying the Liberal Reform without antagonizing Indian communities, or, in the case of certain villages in the Puebla Sierra, with their active support. This base of support was exploited over a 30-year period by leaders such as Porfirio Diaz and the "Tres Juanes" of the Puebla Sierra ( Juan N. Méndez, Juan Crisóstomo Bonilla, and Juan Francisco Lucas) who, after the Revolution of Tuxtepec in 1876, achieved supreme authority on district, state, and federal levels, dividing the spoils among their popular followings.
