, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. The insurrection
had not gained much headway, however, when the provisional government of
the mother country instructed a new Governor and Captain General--whose
name, Dulce (Sweet), had an auspicious sound--to open negotiations with
the insurgents and to hold out the hope of reforms. But the royalists,
now as formerly, would listen to no compromise. Organizing themselves
into bodies of volunteers, they drove Dulce out. He was succeeded by one
Caballero de Rodas (Knight of Rhodes) who lived up to his name by trying
to ride roughshod over the rebellious Cubans. Thus began the Ten Years'
War--a war of skirmishes and brief encounters, rarely involving a
decisive action, which drenched the soil of Cuba with blood and laid
waste its fields in a fury of destruction.

Among the radicals and liberals who tried to retain a fleeting control
over Mexico after the final departure of Santa Anna was the first
genuine statesman it had ever known in its history as a republic--Benito
Pablo Juarez, an Indian. At twelve years of age he could not read
or write or even speak Spanish. His employer, however, noted his
intelligence and had him educated. Becoming a lawyer, Juarez entered
the political arena and rose to prominence by dint of natural talent
for leadership, an indomitable perseverance, and a sturdy patriotism. A
radical by conviction, he felt that the salvation of Mexico could never
be attained until clericalism and militarism had been banished from its
soil forever.

Under his influence a provisional government had already begun a
policy of lessening the privileges of the Church, when the conservative
elements, with a cry that religion was being attacked, rose up in arms
again. This movement repressed, a Congress proceeded in 1857 to issue
a liberal constitution which was destined to last for sixty years. It
established the federal system in a definite fashion, abolished special
privileges, both ecclesiastical and military, and organized the country
on sound bases worthy of a modern nation. Mexico seemed about to enter
upon a rational development. But the newly elected President, yielding
to the importunities of the clergy, abolished the constitution,
dissolved the legislature, and set up a dictatorship, in spite of the
energetic protests of Juarez, who had been chosen Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, and who, in accordance with the terms of the temporarily
discarded instrument, was authorized to