Reform War (1857-1861): Benito Juarez and Mexico's Liberal Reform

The Reform War (Guerra de Reforma) was a civil war fought in Mexico between December 1857 and January 1861. Liberals led by Benito Juárez defended the Constitution of 1857 and its curbs on the Catholic Church and the army, while conservatives fought to overturn them. The liberal victory separated Church and state in Mexico, but the war’s debts soon opened the door to a French invasion.

Background: La Reforma

After defeat in the Mexican-American War and the fall of Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1855, a new generation of liberals set out to modernise Mexico. They saw the Church, the largest landowner in the country, and the army, with their special legal privileges, as obstacles to a nation of equal citizens.

A series of laws followed. The Ley Juárez (1855), named after Benito Juárez as justice minister, limited the separate courts (fueros) of clergy and soldiers. The Ley Lerdo (1856) forced corporations, including the Church and Indigenous communities, to sell land they did not directly use. The Constitution of 5 February 1857 enshrined many of these changes and guaranteed freedom of speech and education, while leaving out Catholicism as the official religion. The Church threatened to excommunicate officials who swore an oath to it.

Coup and two governments

President Ignacio Comonfort, a moderate, doubted that the constitution could work. On 17 December 1857 General Félix Zuloaga proclaimed the Plan of Tacubaya, dissolving Congress, and Comonfort joined him. Juárez, now president of the Supreme Court and therefore constitutional successor to the presidency, was arrested.

The conservatives soon dropped Comonfort as well, and in January 1858 they named Zuloaga president in Mexico City. Before leaving the country, Comonfort released Juárez, who declared himself the legitimate president. Mexico now had two governments. Juárez moved through Guanajuato and Guadalajara, where he narrowly escaped being shot by mutinous troops, before sailing via Panama and New Orleans to Veracruz in May 1858. The port’s customs revenue sustained his government for the rest of the war.

The course of the war

The conservatives, who held most of the professional army, won the early battles. Their best commander, the young general Miguel Miramón, became the conservative president in 1859. Liberal armies, often led by lawyers and politicians such as Santos Degollado, suffered repeated defeats but kept fighting across the countryside.

The war was brutal on both sides. After a conservative victory at Tacubaya on 11 April 1859, General Leonardo Márquez had prisoners executed, including doctors and medical students who had been treating the wounded, earning him the nickname “the Tiger of Tacubaya”.

Miramón twice besieged Veracruz, in 1859 and 1860, and failed both times. In March 1860 US naval vessels intercepted ships bringing supplies for his second siege at Antón Lizardo, a blow to the conservative effort. From mid-1860 the tide turned as liberal commanders Jesús González Ortega and Ignacio Zaragoza won at Silao in August, took Guadalajara in November and defeated Miramón decisively at Calpulalpan on 22 December 1860.

The Reform Laws

From Veracruz, Juárez went further than the constitution. In July 1859 his government nationalised Church property, created civil marriage and a civil registry of births and deaths, and placed cemeteries under civil control. A law of 4 December 1860 established freedom of religion. Together these decrees, known as the Reform Laws, separated Church and state.

Both sides sought foreign help. The conservatives signed the Mon-Almonte Treaty with Spain in 1859, while the liberals negotiated the McLane-Ocampo Treaty with the United States, which would have granted transit rights across Mexican territory. The US Senate rejected it in 1860.

Consequences

Miramón abandoned Mexico City on 24 December 1860. González Ortega’s army made its formal entry on 1 January 1861, and Juárez returned on 11 January. Conservative guerrillas continued to fight; in mid-1861 they captured and executed the liberal leader Melchor Ocampo, and Degollado was killed pursuing them.

The war left the treasury empty. When Juárez suspended payments on foreign debt in July 1861, Britain, Spain and France sent forces to Veracruz. France stayed on, was defeated at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, but later installed Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor with conservative support. The Reform War thus flowed directly into the French intervention, which ended with the execution of Emperor Maximilian in 1867.

Timeline

• 1857, 5 February: The liberal Constitution of 1857 is proclaimed.
• 1857, 17 December: Félix Zuloaga issues the Plan of Tacubaya.
• 1858, January: Conservatives name Zuloaga president; Juárez claims the presidency.
• 1858, May: Juárez establishes his government in Veracruz.
• 1859, 11 April: Conservative victory at Tacubaya, followed by executions of prisoners.
• 1859, July: The Reform Laws nationalise Church property and create civil marriage.
• 1860, 22 December: Liberals defeat Miramón at Calpulalpan.
• 1861, 11 January: Juárez re-enters Mexico City.

Why it matters

The Reform War decided that Mexico would be a secular, liberal republic, a principle that survived the French intervention and shaped the country’s later constitutions. It made Benito Juárez, a Zapotec lawyer from Oaxaca, a national symbol, while the bitterness and debts it left behind invited a foreign war.