Since independence a new generation of Mexicans had been born; appalled at the easy victory the United States had won, the more thoughtful among them felt that Mexico’s survival as an independent country depended on fundamental reform. Among the new faces was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian educated as a middle-class liberal, who had moved to New Orleans and had discussed and planned Mexico’s future with fellow expatriates. With no military force to implement their plans, they bided time until their opportunity came, in 1854, when Juan Álvarez, a surviving hero of independence, and Ignacio Comonfort, a political moderate, proclaimed a liberal rebellion against Santa Anna and forced him out of the presidency.

Neither Álvarez, who served a short term as president, nor Comonfort, who succeeded him, had any clearly defined program. The role of the returned expatriates was to act as a brain trust to carry out La Reforma (“The Reform”). Its aims were to abolish remnants of colonialism by removing special ecclesiastical and military privileges; to separate church and state by secularizing education, marriages, and burials; to reduce the economic power of the church by forcing it to sell its properties; to foster an economic development that envisaged Mexico as a country of yeoman farmers and small industrialists; and, above all, to establish a single standard of legal justice.

Juárez was made minister of justice. Among his first reforms was the so-called Ley Juárez (November 23, 1855), which abolished fueros (special exemptions) and the use of special military and ecclesiastical courts in civil cases. The minister of finance, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, sponsored the Ley Lerdo (June 25, 1856), which restricted the right of ecclesiastical and civil corporations to own lands by decreeing that church lands not directly used for religious purposes and lands held in common by indigenous communities (ejidos) must be sold.

The reformers called a convention to draft a new constitution, which would provide a legal base for the reform. It was promulgated on February 12, 1857, but did not become effective until the following September 16, the 47th anniversary of the “Grito de Dolores.” The constitution of 1857 prohibited slavery and abridgments of freedom of speech or press; it abolished special courts and prohibited civil and ecclesiastical corporations from owning property, except buildings in use; it eliminated monopolies; it prescribed that Mexico was to be a representative, democratic, republican country; and it defined the states and their responsibilities. This constitution, which remained in force until 1917, increased the power of the central executive.

Neither the religious community nor the military accepted the 1857 constitution, and both inveighed against the reform, calling for retention of “religion and fueros.” The church excommunicated all civil officials who swore to support the constitution. When civil war erupted, Comonfort went into exile after his efforts at compromise failed; Juárez automatically succeeded him as constitutional president. The conservatives captured Mexico City and set up a competing regime. Juárez and his government moved to Veracruz, where they controlled the customs receipts.

Foreign powers, rarely bashful about aggressively asserting their influence in Mexican affairs, became even more influential. On April 6, 1859, the United States recognized the Juárez government; President James Buchanan permitted war matériel to be shipped to Juárez’s forces. Americans were encouraged to serve the liberal cause as volunteers, but Spain and France generally favoured the conservatives, as did Great Britain.

In July 1859 Juárez issued a series of decrees: all church property except buildings used for worship was to be confiscated without compensation; all marriages apart from civil marriages were declared annulled; the formal separation of church and state was proclaimed; cemeteries were declared public property, and burial fees were abolished. Moneys from the sale of confiscated church property, though less than anticipated, speeded the end of the civil war. On December 22, 1860, the liberals won a critical battle, and, when the conservative president, Miguel Miramón, fled, the conservative cause collapsed. The victorious liberal army of about 25,000 men entered Mexico City on New Year’s Day, 1861. On his return (January 11) Juárez was greeted by an enthusiastic populace who welcomed the end of the long and devastating civil war and the reestablishment of government under the constitution of 1857.

French intervention

Exiled Mexican conservatives, who continued to intrigue, enlisted the help of a powerful ally, the French ruler Napoleon III, who wanted to create a Latin league that would include the Mediterranean lands and the former possessions of Spain and Portugal in the New World as well. (The term Latin America dates from this time and concept.) With its strategic position and its economic potential, Mexico seemed especially attractive to the Napoleonic imperial scheme. A French bastion in Mexico would check the Manifest Destiny of the United States and provide a base from which Central and South American protectorates could be added. The fact that the United States was engaged in the American Civil War (1861–65) was a determining element. In 1861 Napoleon III found it convenient to believe the Mexican conservatives’ assertions that the masses of Mexican people would support his intervention to restore religion and establish a second monarchy in independent Mexico.

Mexico’s chaotic economic situation afforded Napoleon III the perfect opportunity to implement his scheme. The Juárez government had a huge foreign debt, and in 1861 it suspended all payments to Spain, Britain, and France. The three European powers prepared to send a punitive expedition to Mexico. The intervention was spearheaded by Spain, the forces of which landed at Veracruz on December 14, 1861, and were followed soon after by French and British contingents. When the allies fell into dispute over the $15,000,000 French claim for payment of certain questionable bonds, both Spain and Great Britain disengaged from the joint venture.

The French expeditionary force began its march toward Mexico City. When the Mexican army made a stand in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862—a victory recalled to this day in Cinco de Mayo celebrations—the French retreated to await reinforcements. Napoleon dispatched 30,000 more troops under the command of the French general Élie-Frédéric Forey. The Mexicans could not withstand French might, and on June 10, 1863, Forey rode as conqueror into Mexico City. The French rapidly secured much of central Mexico, forcing Juárez and his government to keep constantly on the move in the north.

Napoleon III had already identified a pair of puppets to place on the Mexican throne: Maximilian of the house of Habsburg and his wife, Carlota, daughter of the king of Belgium. Assured of Napoleon’s continued military support and the economic backing of the British, Maximilian and Carlota arrived in Veracruz on May 28, 1864, having passed through Rome to confer with the pope before they embarked. On June 12 Emperor Maximilian was welcomed in Mexico City.

Maximilian attempted to follow a policy of national conciliation, hoping to unite Mexican factions and interests. But he proved too much a Habsburg to be an effective tool of Napoleon’s schemes, too much a liberal to please the conservatives who had engineered his coronation, and too tainted by conservative sponsorship to win republican support. Maximilian was perhaps less naive than he has been pictured. Not fully convinced that a majority of Mexicans welcomed him as emperor nor sure that he should place full reliance on French troops, he tried to create a Mexican rural guard and a separate imperial army around a nucleus of Austrian and Belgian volunteers. His proposal to reduce the number of regular Mexican army generals to 18 brought early disillusionment to the army, a mainstay of conservatism, which had expected Maximilian to be a puppet. The Mexican officers became further irritated when, with Maximilian’s approval, French officers outranked them.

At the same time, clerical groups, eager to reap rewards for their efforts on the emperor’s behalf, pressed him to reverse La Reforma. A papal nuncio from Rome arrived with a message asking that Maximilian revoke the controversial laws of La Reforma, establish Roman Catholicism as the exclusive religion, restore the religious orders, remove the church from its dependence on civil authorities, turn education over to ecclesiastics, and return properties confiscated and sold by the republicans. Replying that he, not outsiders, would decide such matters, Maximilian issued decrees establishing religious toleration, with Roman Catholicism favoured but still dependent on the state. He confirmed that the previous sales of church property under the laws of La Reforma were legal and that revenues the church had received from property Juárez had nationalized were to be ceded to the state. Thus, Maximilian’s conservative support further dwindled because the clergy and their followers felt betrayed.

In September 1864 Maximilian took what amounted to a guided tour of the cities that supported his empire. The warm welcomes he received from the people led him to conclude that a majority of Mexicans wanted peace and justice, which the activities of the republican guerrillas threatened. He therefore decreed on November 4 that, thenceforth, republicans would be considered bandits and brigands, subject to extreme penalties; this negated Maximilian’s attempts to woo their supporters by inviting them into his council of state.

In 1865 French troops chased Juárez to, but not over, the U.S. border. Believing that the Mexican president had left national territory and that republicanism had therefore collapsed, Maximilian on October 2 issued a strong decree, ordering that all guerrillas captured carrying arms should be shot within 24 hours; the same penalties were to apply to persons who hid them or otherwise helped them. Juárez had earlier issued a parallel decree (January 1862) against those who aided the French interventionists and imperialists.

French troops, though effective in keeping republicans on the outskirts of major productive areas, were also costly. Napoleon’s Mexican adventure came under heavy press and parliamentary fire in France as costs in men and money mounted without economic or political advantages to compensate for the expenditures. There was criticism from abroad as well; with its civil war ended, the United States began to assert its influence. William H. Seward, the U.S. secretary of state, brought mounting diplomatic pressure on Napoleon to withdraw French troops; in February 1866 Napoleon agreed to clear foreign troops from Mexico by November 1867. A U.S. request to the Austrian government to stop enrollment of volunteers for the Mexican imperial army also brought an affirmative response.

In liquidating his Mexican venture, Napoleon said that, since Maximilian had not carried out his part of the pact to bring peace and orderly government to Mexico, the French were relieved of their obligations for military and financial support. Stunned, Maximilian sought to have the decision reversed. The empress Carlota tried without success to persuade the French ruler to honour his solemn pledge. From Paris she traveled to Rome to plead with the pope; there she went mad and was taken to Belgium, where she lingered insane until her death in 1927. The French commander, Achille-François Bazaine, ordered to withdraw all French troops immediately, auctioned off military material not worth shipping to France—including horses and saddles—and destroyed large supplies of powder and projectiles rather than turn them over to Maximilian. In February 1867 Bazaine left Mexico City, and by March 12 his army of nearly 29,000 men had embarked.

As French power withdrew, republican forces reconquered Mexico, and Maximilian was left with only a regiment of Austrian hussars, a battalion of infantry, and a small army of relatively untrained Mexican draftees. After first considering abdication, Maximilian decided to defend his imperial status and his honour as a Habsburg by making as strong a stand as possible, though planning, in the event of defeat, to negotiate an honourable exile. With these resolves he concentrated most of his troops—9,000 men—at Querétaro, a city loyal to the imperial cause. On May 5, 1867, the republican forces laid siege, initially with 32,000 men, later with an additional 10,000. By May 14 the starving imperialist force, reduced to about 5,000, had decided to withdraw and take a stand in the mountains. A disaffected imperial officer, in return for a promise that Maximilian be spared, placed republican soldiers, whom he passed off as relief troops, at strategic places in Querétaro. The siege ended the next day when Maximilian and his generals surrendered.

Under Juárez’s decrees of 1862, Maximilian and his two leading generals were court-martialed and sentenced to death by firing squad. President Juárez, aware that almost 50,000 Mexicans had lost their lives fighting the French, refused to be swayed by the petitions for mercy that poured in from foreign governments. He wanted to demonstrate that Mexico could act independently; that, as La Reforma contended, all men were equal under law; that foreign monarchical adventures in Mexico were futile; and that the honour of the Mexican dead would be redeemed. Maximilian and the generals were executed on June 19, 1867, terminating a bizarre interlude of Mexican history.

The restored republic

When Juárez reentered Mexico City on July 15, 1867, his immediate task was to abate the rancors of civil war. The vindicated Juárez regime took few major reprisals—principal imperialists were fined, some were imprisoned for short terms, and a few were exiled. One of Juárez’s first acts was to start rebuilding the shattered economy. In an era of goodwill engendered by the sympathy and aid the United States had extended to the Mexican cause, the claims of the two countries against each other were settled by peaceful arbitration. Diplomatic relations were gradually reestablished with Europe.

In December 1867 Juárez was reelected president. Apart from trying to foster political tranquillity, his main aims were to improve public education and to put the economy on a sound footing. In part to outmaneuver the Roman Catholic Church, Juárez entrusted the development of a national educational system to Gabino Barreda, a follower of the French thinker Auguste Comte, who had said that the human mind and society passed through three successive stages—religious, metaphysical, and positive. Known as positivists, Barreda and his followers contended that La Reforma, by displacing the church and militarism, had done away with the earlier two stages and that Mexico was in the third, or positivist, stage. The public-education law for the Federal District, which was to serve as the national model, stressed the secular state as the inculcator of scientific ethical norms, with “Liberty, order, and progress” as the means, base, and product of the system.

The chief architect of economic rehabilitation was Matías Romero, who had been Juárez’s ambassador to the United States and who believed that Mexico’s development was dependent on three basic elements: immigration, communication networks, and the exploitation of natural resources. In 1867 and ’68 the government renewed concessions to British capitalists for the completion of the Veracruz–Mexico City railway and issued concessions for others; it authorized the opening of new roads and the extension of the telegraph system. Work was begun on reforming the tax systems and tariff schedules.

The reelection of Juárez in 1871 was contested more heatedly than that of 1867 had been. Thereafter, despite formidable opposition in Congress, tariff reform was approved, as was Mexico’s adoption of the metric system, which ended the chaotic colonial system of weights and measures. After a short illness, Juárez died suddenly on July 18, 1872, his death closing one era and opening another. Behind him lay Mexico’s long colonial history and its partial survivals through the early 19th century. The notion of a Mexican monarchy had been forever buried with Maximilian. Under Juárez, Mexicans had begun to modernize the economy and some of the social institutions, to expand rail, road, and telegraph networks, and to develop secular education. These advances presaged even more dramatic change that was to occur during the last quarter of the 19th century.

Juárez’s death also brought temporary political peace. Without incident, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, the president of the Supreme Court, and next in line of succession, was sworn in as acting president on July 19. Congress immediately began to lavish posthumous honours on Juárez, who by his innate abilities and great strength of character had led his people through unprecedented travail. He remains a major figure in the history of Mexico.

A national election placed Lerdo in the presidential chair in his own right on November 16, 1872. The course Juárez had charted remained unchanged. On New Year’s Day, 1873, the Veracruz–Mexico City railway was inaugurated. The archbishop of Mexico blessed the new line and in doing so signified a reduction in church-state tensions. Congress and the executive branch of government continued to dole out railway and telegraph concessions. To safeguard the country against future bloodshed, Congress on May 31 added specific laws from La Reforma to the constitution of 1857—church and state were explicitly declared independent of each other; freedom of religion was proclaimed; church acquisition of real estate was abolished; religious oaths were banned in civil courts; forced labour was forbidden; and personal liberty in respect to labour, education, and religion was declared inviolable. The degree to which La Reforma had triumphed was evidenced by the fact that no national movement developed against these additions to the organic laws. The Lerdo government in 1874 renewed diplomatic relations with France, Spain, and Prussia.