The Reforma, Juárez and the French intervention
Liberals led by Benito Juárez separate church and state, fight a civil war against conservatives, and defeat a French-imposed emperor, Maximilian, who is executed in 1867.
- Juárez — Brian Hamnett, Longman (1994)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
After the disaster of 1848, a generation of liberals set out to build a modern nation. The Reform laws of 1855–56 abolished the special courts of the clergy and army and forced the Church, and Indigenous communities, to sell corporate landholdings; the Constitution of 1857 enshrined civil liberties. Conservatives and the Church resisted, and the Reform War (1858–61) followed, which Benito Juárez’s liberals won.
- Juárez — Brian Hamnett, Longman (1994)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
When Juárez suspended payments on foreign debt, France’s Napoleon III invaded. On 5 May 1862 a Mexican army under Ignacio Zaragoza beat the French at Puebla, but the French returned and in 1864 installed an Austrian archduke, Maximilian, as emperor with conservative backing. Juárez kept a government on the move across the north. With the US Civil War over and France withdrawing its troops, the republicans won; Maximilian was shot at Querétaro on 19 June 1867.
- Juárez — Brian Hamnett, Longman (1994)
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
- Juárez — Brian Hamnett, Longman (1994)
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
Juárez and the liberals saved the republic, established equality before the law and freed the nation from the dead hand of church privilege and foreign meddling.
- Juárez — Brian Hamnett, Longman (1994)
- Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996 — Enrique Krauze, HarperCollins (1997)
The liberal laws attacked the faith of the people, confiscated church property and broke up Indigenous communal lands, which ended up in the hands of speculators and hacienda owners.
- The Course of Mexican History — Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman and Susan M. Deeds, Oxford University Press (2014)
Why it matters today
The Reforma made Mexico a secular state, a principle still taken very seriously in a deeply Catholic country. Juárez is the model of the honest, unbending patriot, and the 5 May 1862 victory at Puebla gives the world Cinco de Mayo, which is a far bigger party in the United States than in most of Mexico.