The Mexican revolutionary and president Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920) led the constitutionalist movement against the Huerta government and convoked the constituent assembly which drafted the Constitution of 1917.

Venustiano Carranza was born in Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, on Dec. 29, 1859. He began his political career during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, serving as municipal president, local deputy, and senator of his birthplace. During the political upheavals of 1908-1910 he became an early supporter of the presidential candidacy of Francisco Madero. The support of the Porfirian politico added prestige to the Madero rebellion of 1910. Carranza served in the revolutionary movement's cabinet and, subsequently, as governor of Coahuila. After Madero's assassination Carranza became the chief of the movement against the usurper Victoriano Huerta to restore constitutional government.

The revolutionary coalition of Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata began to dissolve even before Huerta fled into exile in 1914. Carranza sought to...