Venustiano Carranza

José Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (Spanish pronunciation: [benusˈtjano kaˈransa ðe la ˈɣaɾsa]; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920), known as Venustiano Carranza, was a Mexican land owner, revolutionary, and politician who served as the 44th President of Mexico from 1917 until his assassination in 1920, during the Mexican Revolution. He was previously Mexico's de facto head of state as Primer Jefe (Spanish: "First Chief") of the Constitutionalist faction from 1914 to 1917, and previously served as a senator and governor for Coahuila. He played the leading role in drafting the Constitution of 1917 and maintained Mexican neutrality in World War I.

Born in Coahuila to a prominent landowning family, he served as a senator for his state during the Porfiriato, appointed by President and dictator Porfirio Díaz. After becoming alienated from Díaz, he supported the Liberal Francisco Madero's challenge to Díaz during the 1910 presidential election. Madero was defeated in a sham election and imprisoned. Madero ordered an overthrow of the government, sparking the Mexican Revolution, and Díaz resigned in May 1911. As president, Madero appointed Carranza as the governor of Coahuila. When Madero was murdered during the counter-revolutionary Ten Tragic Days coup in February 1913, Carranza drew up the Plan of Guadalupe, a political strategy to oust Madero's usurper, General Victoriano Huerta. Carranza organized militias loyal to his state and allied northern states in Mexico into a professional army, the Constitutional Army, to oppose Huerta. The Constitutionalists defeated Huerta's Federal Army and Huerta was ousted in July 1914. Carranza did not assume the title of provisional president of Mexico, as called for in his Plan of Guadalupe, since it would have prevented his running for constitutional president once elections were held. Furthermore his government in this period was in a pre-constitutional, extralegal state, to which both his best generals, Álvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa, objected to Carranza's seizure of the national presidency.