The Plan of Guadalupe was a document drafted on March 23, 1913 by Venustiano Carranza

Venustiano Carranza

Venustiano Carranza de la Garza, was one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution. He ultimately became President of Mexico following the overthrow of the dictatorial Huerta regime in the summer of 1914 and during his administration the current constitution of Mexico was drafted...

 in response to the overthrow and execution of Francisco I. Madero

Francisco I. Madero

Francisco Ignacio Madero González was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician, he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce...

, then President of Mexico

President of Mexico

The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...

. It was formally proclaimed three days later on March 26 in Carranza's hacienda

Hacienda

Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

.

Madero's overthrow was the work of Victoriano Huerta

Victoriano Huerta

José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and president of Mexico. Huerta's supporters were known as Huertistas during the Mexican Revolution...

, who was Madero's top general and had sided with the opposition forces during the Mexican Revolution

Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...

. The document accused Huerta of restoring a dictatorship and committing treason

Treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

 by executing the Constitutional

Constitution of Mexico

The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constitutional convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constitutional Congress on February 5, 1917...

 leader of Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 (during the decena trágica

La decena trágica

The Ten Tragic Days was a series of events that took place in Mexico City between February 9 and February 19, 1913, during the Mexican Revolution. They culminated in a coup d'état and the assassination of President Francisco I...

).

There were seven parts to this plan which purported to remove any claim of legitimacy Huerta's government might have had, reinstated government powers into officials loyal to Madero, and announced a call for elections once peace had been restored to the country.

The Plan was subscribed to by such leading figures in the Revolution as Pancho Villa

Pancho Villa

José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....

, Álvaro Obregón

Álvaro Obregón

General Álvaro Obregón Salido was the President of Mexico from 1920 to 1924. He was assassinated in 1928, shortly after winning election to another presidential term....

, Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata

Emiliano Zapata Salazar was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution...

, and Felipe Ángeles

Felipe Ángeles

Felipe Ángeles Ramirez was a Mexican military officer, noteworthy for his participation in the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920.-Early life:...

.

Text of the Plan

Manifesto to the Nation:

Considering that General Victoriano Huerta, to whom the constitutional President Don Francisco I. Madero had trusted the defense of the institutions and legality of his Government, when siding with the enemies who rebelled against that same Government, to restore the latest dictatorship, committed the crime of treason to scale in power, arresting the President and Vice-president, as well as their Ministers, demanding of them by violent means to renounce their posts, which is verified by the messages that the same General Huerta sent to the Governors of the States communicating to them that he had taken prisoner the Supreme Magistrates of the Nation and their Cabinet. Considering that the Legislative and Judicial Powers in spite of the laws and constitutional rules have recognized and protected General Victoriano Huerta and his illegal and unpatriotic procedures, and considering, of having violated the sovereignty of those States, whose Governors should have been the first to not recognize him, the following subscribers, Chiefs and Officers commanding the constitutional forces, have agreed and will sustain with arms the following:

PLAN

1. General Victoriano Huerta is not recognized as President of the Republic.
2. The Legislative and Judicial Powers of the Federation are also not recognized.
3. The Governments of the States that still recognize the Federal Powers that form the present Administration, are also not recognized thirty days after the publication of this Plan.
4. For the organization of the army entrusted with fulfilling our intentions, we name as First Chief of the Army that will be denominated Constitutionalist, the citizen Venustiano Carranza, Governor of the State of Coahuila.
5. When the Constitutionalist Army
   Constitutional Army
   The Constitutional Army was the army that fought against Huerta's Federal Army, and later, against the Villistas and Zapatistas during the Mexican Revolution. It was formed in March 1913 by Venustiano Carranza, so-called "First-Chief" of the army, as a response to the murder of President Francisco I...
   
    occupies Mexico City
   Mexico City
   Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
   
   , the citizen Venustiano Carranza, First Chief of the Army, will be in interim charge of the Executive Power, or whoever would have substituted him in command.
6. The interim president of the republic will call for general elections as soon as the peace has been consolidated, handing over power to the citizen who is elected.
7. The citizen acting as First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army in the states whose governments have recognized that of Huerta, will assume command as provisional governor and will call for local elections, after having taken possession of their posts the citizens having been elected to carry out the powers of the federation, as called for by the previous rule.

Note: This document was the immediate answer of the constitutionalist forces against the military coup d'etat against the Madero regime which, from its inception confronted uprisings from civilian and military groups discontent with its way of governing, seeking the restoration of the Porfirista regime. The most important were the revolts headed by Generals Bernardo Reyes, in November 1911 and Félix Díaz in October 1912. Once the Plan de Guadalupe was drafted, among the principal signers of this document were Jacinto B. Treviño, Lucio Blanco, Cesáreo Castro y Alfredo Breceda.

The Constitutionalist Army, headed by Venustiano Carranza, with the Plan of Guadalupe as its standard, managed to defeat to the Federal Army in August of 1914, thus initiating another stage of the history of Mexico that culminated in February of 1917 with the promulgation of the Political Constitution of the United States of Mexico, whose text incorporated the principal demands of the revolutionary groups.

The Plan of Guadalupe of March 26, 1913, Venustiano Carranza would say in 1917, was "the war cry that the most select of the Mexican youth propelled to the four corners of the nation against the triumphant iniquity, and that cry was no more than the vibrant and sonorous expression of the national conscience, an expression that reassumed the firm intention, the deliberate will of the Mexican people of not consenting any more to a pretorianism that would again seize the destinies of the Nation. . . Under such virtue, with the Plan of Guadalupe was perfectly planted - the issue of legality against the usurpation of the law, against the disturbance of the free institutions; against the military dictatorship."

March 26, 1913

External links

• Text of the plan
• History of the plan