The Liberal Party of Mexico was the main liberal party in Mexican politics during the 19th century, existing from 1822 to 1884. The party was founded upon Mexican independence, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was an early leader of the party before becoming a conservative. Under Santa Anna, Mexico pursued anti-clerical policies, and landowners lost power. The Liberals would find another able leader in Benito Juarez, who would defeat the Conservative Party of Mexico in the bloody Reform War of 1857-1861 and defeat both France and Maximilian I of Mexico's forces during the Franco-Mexican War of 1861-1867. Juarez pursued a program of liberalism, capitalism, and anti-clericalism, and he sought to transform Mexico into a nation of property-holders, confiscating both Catholic Church and Native American lands in the process. From 1867 to 1892, Mexico was effectively a one-party state, as the Conservatives had disbanded following Maximilian's overthrow, and Juarez's popularity enshrined the Liberal Party as the party of Mexican republicanism. Juarez died in 1872, and Porfirio Diaz took advantage of factional infighting within the Liberals to seize power for himself in the 1876 Tuxtepec Revolution. He led the Liberal Party to several electoral victories through corruption and violence, and he soon came to dominate a nationwide political machine in which he had the power to appoint the governors, political bosses, mayors, congressmen, and judges. In 1892, he decided to form the National Porfirist Party to consolidate his supporters into one party, and the Liberal Party survived as a smal oppositional faction. In 1911, the Liberal Party nominated Emilio Vazquez Gomez for President (as a "Pure Liberal", opposed to the Radical Liberal candidate Francisco Leon de la Barra) and Fernando Iglesias Calderon for Vice-President, but they lost with just .43% of the vote to Progressive Constitutionalist Party leader Francisco I. Madero's 99.27%. The Liberal Party disbanded after this failure, and the PCP became Mexico's new liberal party.
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