SEBASTIAN LERDO DE TEJADA (1825-1889)  , president of Mexico, was born at Jalapa on the 25th of April 1825 . He was educated as a lawyer and became a member of the supreme court . He became known as a liberal leader and a supporter of President Juarez . He was minister of foreign affairs for three months in 1857, and became president of the Chamber of Deputies in 1861 . During the French intervention and the reign of the emperor Maximilian he continued loyal to the patriotic party, and had an active share in conducting the national resistance . He was minister of foreign affairs to President Juarez, and he showed an implacable resolution in carrying out the execution of Maximilian at Queretaro . When Juarez died in 1872 Lerdo succeeded him in office in the midstof a confused civil war . He achieved some success in pacifying the country and began the construction of railways . He was re-elected on the 24th of July 1876, but was expelled in January of the following year by Porfirio Diaz . He had made himself unpopular by the means he took to secure his re-election and by his disposition to limit state rights in favour of a strongly centralized government . He fled to the United States and died in obscurity at New York in 1889 . Sec H .

H .

Bancroft, Pacific States, vol . 9 (San Francisco, 1882-1890) .