Page "Francisco I. Madero" Paragraph 2

Born into a very wealthy landowning family in the north of Mexico, he was the proto-type of the respectable upper-class politician ; a background which supplied the centre around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce.

Writing the book The Presidential Succession in 1910 ( 1908 ), he called on voters to prevent the sixth re-election of Porfirio Díaz, which he considered anti-democratic.

His vision was to lay the foundation for a democratic 20th Century Mexico, but without polarizing the social classes.

To that effect, he founded the Anti-Reelectionist Party ( later the Progressive Constitutional Party ) and incited the Mexican people to rise up against General Díaz, which ignited the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

Arrested by the dictatorship shortly after being declared Presidential candidate by his party, the opposition leader escaped from prison and launched the Plan of San Luis Potosí from the United States, in this manner beginning the Mexican Revolution.