As Juarez was using military force to stamp out all conservative opposition to his rule, and amassing huge debts in the process, he assumed vast powers on the basis of a national emergency. He sold out to the United States by signing the often overlooked McLane-Ocampo Treaty which stipulated that the USA would pay Juarez $4million in return for perpetual rights of transit across the isthmus of Tehuantepec, protected trade routes in certain areas and ports on both coasts, the right of the US to intervene militarily at the request of Mexico if trade were threatened or even without the request or permission of Mexico if there was an “emergency”. Juarez also gave the US the right to send in military forces on this transit routes as the US saw fit, Juarez promised that no other nation would be given the same preferential treatment and Mexico would effectively be under the protection of the United States. The American plan at the time was to eventually construct a railroad across Tehuantepec or a canal and thus make vast amounts of money on the lucrative trade with and through Central America (a sort of forerunner of the Panama Canal idea). The extent of this treaty was never completely formalized but it nonetheless demonstrates something which would shock any patriotic Mexican; that is that Benito Juarez was willing to totally sell out the sovereignty of his country to the USA for $4million to ensure victory in a war he was waging for his own power against his own people.
Thus is it not surprising that the US government always supported Juarez against his conservative rivals and the Emperor Maximilian. Juarez occupied Mexico City in January of 1861 and then claimed to be the properly elected president after an election which was conveniently held under the constitution of 1852 and which was done after the conservatives had been defeated in battle and all of their leaders killed, imprisoned, forced into hiding or chased into exile; still not exactly a fair example of democracy in action. He then defaulted on the debts Mexico owed which prompted the French intervention. The conservatives allied with them and the result was, eventually, the coronation of Emperor Maximilian. One of the main supporters of intervention was the Empress Eugenie of France who supported intervention on behalf of the Catholics of Mexico of whom Juarez was an avowed enemy. Not only was Juarez a mason who had secularized the country and nationalized Church property, at one point he even attempted to set up his own government ruled church in Mexico with a pliant bishop as the national “pope” but his plan was thwarted when Pope Pius IX refused to ordain the man and forbid any Catholic to go along with such a move and even among those most inclined toward the liberals the common people were overwhelming Catholic and would not go along with outright break with Rome. Thus Mexico was soon at war again between Juarez and his liberal republicans on one side and the French and conservative Mexicans on the other.
Juarez and his forces were soon defeated by the French, but before fleeing, however, the liberal controlled Congress granted Juarez dictatorial powers for the duration of the national emergency. To the unbiased eye in might seem rather odd for the self-proclaimed champion of democracy and republicanism to be granted absolute power for the second time in an over extended presidency to which he was never fairly elected by a majority of all people. However, an even more significant action by Juarez had already taken place when he issued an order in 1862 that any foreigner taken in arms in Mexico would be shot, any Mexican opposing his regime taken prisoner armed would be shot and any Mexican citizen who gave any aid to any of these people would also be shot. Today history still condemns Emperor Maximilian for his "Black Decree" of October 1864 (which was rarely enforced as Maximilian was constantly granting pardon to captured rebels) which stated that any rebel taken in arms would be shot within 24 hours. However, very few historians are honest enough to relate that Juarez had issued a far worse decree years earlier, which violated his own constitution and which meant death not only for all prisoners of war but even for any citizen who so much as gave them food or water! This is the side of the Juarez regime that is never talked about.
