Pedro Lascuráin

Pedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes^[2] was born on 8 May 1856^[b] in the Rancho la Romita (now Colonia Roma) in Mexico City. He was the son of Francisco Lascuráin é Icaza and Ángela (Ana) Paredes Cortés.^[3][9][11] Francisco Lascuráin was a wealthy merchant originally from Veracruz who had moved to Mexico City and married Paredes, whose family was of Basque origin, established in Mexico in the early 19th century.^[3] Pedro Lascuráin Paredes was the fourth of his parents' seven children. His elder siblings were Francisco, María de los Angeles, and José, while his younger siblings were María de los Dolores, María, and Ignacio. Francisco, José, and Ignacio all died in infancy.^[11]

Lascuráin's maternal grandfather was Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, who served as the 15th president of Mexico from 1845 to 1846,^{[2][3][4][10][12]} and his maternal grandmother was Josefa "Pepita" Cortés.^[13] His paternal grandparents were Pedro Lascuráin and Dolores de Icaza y Jiménez del Arenal.^[14]

Lascuráin was raised in a Catholic family,^[3] and was reportedly very religious himself.^[7] In 1890, Lascuráin married María Enriqueta Flores y Manzanera (born 1873^[7]), the daughter of Juan Manuel Flores, a governor of Durango during the Porfiriato.^[15] They had six children: Pedro, Ana, Fernando, Francisco, Enrique, and José de Jesús. Pedro Lascuráin y Flores died as an infant.^[11]

In his youth, Lascuráin studied law at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria.^[10] He concluded his studies at the Escuela Nacional de Jurisprudencia (National School of Jurisprudence) in Mexico City. He received his law degree there in 1880.^[3][5][10] He became a prominent lawyer and legal theorist, while also serving as a prestigious businessman in real estate.^[10]

Beginning in 1902, Lascuráin served as a syndic for the ayuntamiento of Mexico City.^[16] He became the mayor of Mexico City in 1910^[5][16] while Francisco I. Madero began a campaign against the re-election of Porfirio Díaz. Lascuráin was a supporter of Madero, and after Madero was elected president to replace Díaz, Lascuráin served twice as foreign secretary in Madero's cabinet, from 10 April 1912 to 4 December 1912, and from 15 January 1913 to 19 February 1913. In between the two terms, he again was the mayor of Mexico City. As foreign secretary, he had to deal with the demands of Henry Lane Wilson, the United States ambassador to Mexico.

On 9 February 1913, a coup d'état to overthrow Madero, known as the Ten Tragic Days (Spanish: Decena Trágica), began.^[17] By the 18th, the pro-Madero general Victoriano Huerta switched sides and joined the coup, capturing Madero and part of his cabinet. The president and vice president signed their resignations the following day.^[18] Lascuráin was one of the people who convinced Madero to resign the presidency while he was being held prisoner in the National Palace and claimed that his life was in danger if he refused.

Under the 1857 Constitution of Mexico, the vice president, the attorney general, the foreign secretary, and the interior secretary stood in line to the presidency. As well as Madero, Huerta had ousted vice president José María Pino Suárez and attorney general Adolfo Valles Baca.^[19] To give the coup d'état some appearance of legality, he had Lascuráin assume the presidency, who would then appoint him as his interior secretary, making Huerta next in line to the presidency, and then resign.

The presidency thus passed to Huerta. As a consequence, Lascuráin was president for less than an hour; sources quote figures ranging from 15 to 56 minutes.^[c] This makes his presidency the shortest in the history of Mexico and the world.^[10]

Huerta called a late-night special session of Congress, and under the guns of his troops, the legislators endorsed his assumption of power. A few days later, Huerta had Madero and Pino Suárez killed.

Huerta offered Lascuráin a post in his cabinet, but Lascuráin declined. He retired from politics and began practicing again as a lawyer. He was the director of the Escuela Libre de Derecho, a conservative law school, for 16 years and published extensively on commercial and civil law.^[9] Lascuráin died on 21 July 1952 at his home in Mexico City.^{[5][6][7][9][22]} His wife had died over a year earlier, on 20 June 1951.^[7] The couple are buried in the Panteón Francés in Mexico City.^[7]

Lascuráin is today most known for the brevity of his term.^[3] Manuel Ajenjo, writing for El Economista, remarked that Lascuráin's name was longer than his presidency. He jokingly stated that this brevity made him go down in history as the "best president in Mexican history" because he did not have time to "dirty the bathroom".^[23]

• List of heads of state of Mexico