Plan of Guadalupe

The initial plan was limited in scope, denouncing Victoriano Huerta's usurpation of power and advocating the restoration of a constitutional government.

In 1914, Carranza issued "Additions to the Plan of Guadalupe", which broadened its scope and "endowed la Revolución with its social and economic content.

Huerta's "military dictatorship, notable for political corruption and rule by imprisonment and assassination"[5] juxtaposed the formerly "liberal"[2] government which he was appointed the minister of war in Madero's Revolutionary cabinet.

Manifesto to the Nation: Considering that General Victoriano Huerta, to whom the constitutional President Don Francisco I. Madero had trusted the defense of the institutions and legality of his Government, when siding with the enemies who rebelled against that same Government, to restore the latest dictatorship, committed the crime of treason to scale in power, arresting the President and Vice-president, as well as their Ministers, demanding of them by violent means to renounce their posts, which is verified by the messages that the same General Huerta sent to the Governors of the States communicating to them that he had taken prisoner the Supreme Magistrates of the Nation and their Cabinet.

Considering that the Legislative and Judicial Powers in spite of the laws and constitutional rules have recognized and protected General Victoriano Huerta and his illegal and unpatriotic procedures, and considering, of having violated the sovereignty of those States, whose Governors should have been the first to not recognize him, the following subscribers, Chiefs and Officers commanding the constitutional forces, have agreed and will sustain with arms the following:

March 26, 1913The initial plan was extremely narrow in scope, bringing together northern forces that defeated Huerta and gained U.S. backing against his regime.

The First Chief of the Revolution vested with Executive Power will expedite and put into effect during the struggle all the laws, dispositions and measures designed to give satisfaction to the economic, social, and political necessities, thus accomplishing the reforms which public opinion demands as indispensable for establishing the regime, which may guarantee the equality of Mexicans among themselves; [for promoting] agrarian laws which will favor the formation of small property by dissolving the big landholdings [latifundios] and restoring to the people the lands of which they were unjustly deprived; [for drafting] fiscal laws designed to secure an equitable system of taxation on real estate; [to design] legislation to improve the condition of the rural peasant, of the laborer, of the miner, and the working classes in general; [to secure] establishment of municipal liberty as a constitutional institution; [to provide] bases for a new system of organization of an Independent Judicial Branch, both in the Federation and in the States; [to order] revision of the laws relative to marriage and the civil state of persons; [to declare] dispositions which guarantee the strict fulfillment of the laws of the [Liberal] Reform, revision of the Civil, Criminal, and the Commercial codes; reforms of judicial procedure with the aim of expediting and making effective the administration of justice, revision of laws relative to the exploitation of mines, oil, water, timber, and the natural resources of the country, and to prevent this being done in the future; [to institute] reforms which may guarantee the faithful application of the Constitution of the Republic, and in general to provide laws which may be deemed necessary in order to assure to the inhabitants of the country the full and effective enjoyment of their rights and of equality before the law.

[13]Article 3 lays out implementation of the reforms, with the "Chief of the Revolution" empower to use the Constitutionalist Army for that purpose, and conveys on him other sweeping powers.

In order to be able to continue the struggle and in order to be able to bring to accomplishment of the work of the reforms which are referred to in the preceding Article, the Chief of the Revolution is expressly authorized to convoke and to organize the Constitutionalist Army and to direct the operations of the campaign; [he is authorized] to name governors and military commanders of States and to remove them freely; he is also to make expropriations on grounds of public welfare which may be necessary for division of lands, the funding of towns, and other public services; [he is authorized] to contract loans and to issue notes on the National Treasury with indication of the properties which will guarantee them; he may also name and freely remove federal employees as well as those of the civil administration of States to make directly or through the Chiefs [jefes] which he may authorize the requisitions of lands, buildings, arms, horses, vehicles, provisions, and other necessities of war; and to establish military decorations and to decree recompense for services devoted to the Revolution.