Chapter 10

The Revolution of Ayutla and the First Stages of the Reform, 1854–1856

Emilio Rabasa made the valid point in 1912 that the Plan of Ayutla was not Liberal in origin or character. Although referring neither to the religious question nor specifically to federalism, it did, however, state that Mexico would be exclusively a ‘República representativa popular’.¹ How, then, did the Revolution of Ayutla become transformed into the Liberal Reform Movement of 1855–76?² According to Rabasa, the transition came when, despite the initial absence of Liberal provisions, Liberal leaders, still in exile, adhered to it. The plan’s origin with Álvarez greatly appealed to radical Liberals such as Ocampo, Arriaga and Juárez. On 11 March in Acapulco, Comonfort revised the plan, reassuring moderates and inserted the word ‘liberal’.³

The revision conceded ample powers to the interim President, expected to be Álvarez. While the President should respect individual guarantees, he received full faculties to reform government and administration. In contrast to August 1846, the 1824 Constitution was not automatically restored, since it was regarded as unviable. Fifteen days after the interim President had taken power in Mexico City, he would convene a Constituent Congress, in accordance with the 1841 decree, in order to formulate a new Constitution. It was not until February 1857 that this Constitution was published. No Congress was in session between 8 February 1853, when acting President, General Lombardini, terminated the Federal Congress, suspending the 1824 Constitution, and the 18 February 1856, when the Constituent Congress opened, a crucial three-year period. The new Constitution would provide ex post facto legitimacy for actions already taken and a platform for those that would follow.⁴

Richard Sinkin analysed the social composition of the revolutionary movement and the Constituent Congress of 1856–7. His findings corroborate the view that generational replacement lay at the heart of the Ayutla Revolution. Judging from the age group of thirty-six leading figures, twenty-six (73 per cent) had been born between 1810 and 1829. That is, they were men in their thirties and forties in 1855–60. This was the first generation to reach maturity after Independence, one which had grown up amid the political confusion of the decades immediately following it and witnessed defeat in the war of 1846–7.⁵

If a coherent and united Liberal Party had existed, the establishment of a one-party state might have resulted. As events revealed, the Liberals, once in power, would divide over every issue, not least whether by gaining power the revolution had been completed or whether this power should be used for the transformation of Mexican society, institutions and culture. These fatal divisions provided the opening for a Conservative seizure of power in January 1858, which undid everything Liberals had set out to achieve. Furthermore, the social objectives of the Ayutla/Acapulco movement remained ambiguous. Santa Anna’s regime had reinforced the rights of private proprietors. The decree of 28 July 1853 removed all laws and orders enabling public use of private pastures and woodlands, issues that had earlier stimulated rural opposition to private claims and forbade family groups from living on private lands constituting themselves as pueblos without the prior consent of the proprietors. Such measures were intensely provocative. They invited the use of force to repel peasant groups, at a time of population recovery, from expanding beyond specific, confined territories. The problem for that regime had been enforcement: how, given the parlous state of national finances, were the authorities to make their decrees effective – or would local proprietors be unofficially authorised to take the law into their own hands with the assistance of private bands of armed defenders? In the law of 31 July 1854, the regime appeared to countenance the privatising of municipal and communal lands by permitting individuals with no proper title to such lands to apply for them to the relevant municipalities and communities by paying two-thirds of their estimated value.⁶ What would the new regime’s responses to such measures be and how would their measures be enforced?

The Revolution in the South

The rebellion in the south in 1854–5 was launched against the historical background of the rural rebellions of the 1840s and early 1850s, pointing behind them to the ‘War in the South’ of 1831–2, and thence to the Insurgency of the 1810s. The complete collapse of Santa Anna’s last regime left the armed forces divided, the Conservative Party disillusioned and the Church vulnerable. Personalism had left no new institutions in place and no replacement for either the Federal Constitution of 1824 or the Bases Orgánicas of 1843. The failure of the ‘Regeneration’ of 1853–5 opened the way for the Liberals, if they could seize the initiative and then maintain themselves in power.

A Liberal form of Regeneration would be shaped in accordance with the wishes of the lawyers, soldiers, civilian administrators and journalists who composed the leadership.⁷ The overriding issue was whether they could command popular support. This had not been widely evident in 1835 or 1853, when they had been thrown from power, their measures partially or wholly revoked and the federal system demolished. More dangerous for Liberal leaders would be if the popular classes, whether in the name of Liberalism or not, took their own initiative and mobilised in defence and pursuit of their specific objectives. The outbreaks of the 1840s had shown them capable of doing so at local levels. How were capital city and professional-class Liberals to react to manifestations of a spontaneously organised ‘popular Liberalism’ or to popular-based defence of religion? Would they generate further fissures within the already divided body of Liberals? Would the National Guard be used to put down popular movements in favour of a different kind of reform?

The basic question is what relationship existed between the rebellions of the 1840s and early 1850s and the Revolution of Ayutla? Ayutla represented more than an extension of the rebellions of the 1840s. While these latter movements of dissent were certainly related to national events, they were not essentially directed at the removal of the system of government in existence at that time. In 1854–5, by contrast, Álvarez and Comonfort intended to change the regime at the centre. The 1840s rebellions had not been directly intertwined with the leadership and objectives of the Liberal Party, as Ayutla became during 1855, intentionally and intimately. Finally, the key determining factor distinguishing the two phenomena was the emergence of the northern and north-centre political figures, such as Manuel Doblado in Guanajuato and Santiago Vidaurri in Nuevo León, which ultimately transformed the Ayutla insurrection into a nationwide revolution.

The Liberals were relatively strong in the provincial capitals, such as Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Guadalajara or Oaxaca. In the central zones of Mexico City, Puebla and Querétaro, there was no clear indication that the party had a broad enough popular base to remain in power for any length of time. Accordingly, the relationship between the Liberal Party and the rural majority would become crucial. The ethnic dimension, furthermore, would rarely be absent where social relations were concerned. A divergence of perspective had always been evident between capital-city Liberalism, including state capitals, and its local cadres. Provincial Liberalism would be (or would have to be) more closely attuned to the interests and sentiments of the rural and small-town bases of Mexican political life.

The San Luis Potosí Movement

Have we given too much attention to the Ayutla movement in the south and not enough to what was happening elsewhere in the Republic? Strong bases of Liberal and federalist support had grown up in the States of Veracruz, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Oaxaca and Guerrero. The first six, along with Yucatán, had been centres of the federalist movement in 1823–4.

The opposition to Santa Anna was widespread, though by no means homogenous. Álvarez was a controversial figure, not naturally acceptable to most moderate Liberals and certainly not to Conservatives. Among the former, Lafragua, for instance, although a friend of Comonfort, refused to support the Plan of Ayutla and disliked Álvarez. Haro, located like Lares somewhere between the Conservatives and the moderate Liberals, had broken with Santa Anna and appeared to be involved in conspiracies. Suspecting that, Santa Anna ordered his arrest for treason under the law of 1 August 1853, which prescribed the death penalty upon capture. Haro sought refuge in the British Legation in December. Although anxious to secure the removal of Santa Anna, to whom he attributed the country’s disorder, Haro in the following spring made no move to contact or coordinate with the followers of the Plan of Ayutla. Instead, he allied with Governor Anastasio Parrodi of San Luis Potosí. After the fall of Santa Anna, they issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí on 13 August 1855. In effect, this plan was designed to be an alternative to the Ayutla/Acapulco Plan. It called for protection of property, the Church and army, and all ‘component classes’ of the Republic. It was not monarchist, since Haro had opposed the monarchist proposals emerging under Paredes and Santa Anna. Radical Liberals, however, viewed Haro as an ally of Alamán and the Conservatives. Haro appealed for support on 18 and 29 August from an old friend, Mariano Riva Palacio, a moderate Liberal, who also opposed the Plan of Ayutla.⁸

Haro quickly found himself caught between Comonfort in the south and Santiago Vidaurri (1808–67) in the north. The latter, aspired to bring the State of San Luis Potosí under his control, forming a powerful northern alliance of Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas and San Luis, as an autonomous Liberal movement with no loyalty to or dependence upon the Ayutla Rebellion. The Plan of San Luis was in part a political attempt to counter these forces. In fact, on the following day, Haro appealed to Vidaurri to join his movement. The latter rejected this, pointing to Haro’s previous cooperation with Alamán and Santa Anna. Both the Governors of Querétaro and Tamaulipas, however, did adhere to the Plan of San Luis. At the same time, Haro was attempting to persuade Governor Manuel Doblado of Guanajuato to come aboard. The latter, a Liberal moderate, had not adhered to the Plan of Ayutla but issued his own plan as an alternative, more as a means of consolidating his position in his own state than as a prospective national leader, which Haro aspired to be. Doblado, however, sat on the fence, waiting to see what would happen. In Mexico City, he had the support of Manuel Siliceo, a fellow moderate, and Prieto, who regarded the San Luis movement as clerical and reactionary. Comonfort’s forces were advancing from Guadalajara in the direction of Guanajuato. Juan Zuazua’s advance into San Luis on Vidaurri’s behalf weakened Haro’s position in relation to Comonfort. The latter’s proximity encouraged Haro and Zuazua to agree to an armistice on 14 September, leaving the latter’s forces on the Hacienda de la Parada, to the north of the city of San Luis. Two days later, the Lagos Convention between Comonfort, Haro and Doblado, resulted in both the latter agreeing to recognise the Plan of Ayutla and the supreme leadership of Álvarez. This ended the first phase of the power struggle following the collapse of Santa Anna’s regime.⁹

Haro had failed to construct an alternative government of moderates of both sides to counter the Ayutla movement. Since Mexico City would soon fall to the Ayutla rebels, the hope of moderates fell henceforth on Comonfort. A convention in Cuernavaca on 4 October nominated Álvarez President of the Republic. His cabinet of radicals exposed the extent of the moderates’ failure to stop the Ayutla movement from capturing power at the centre.

The Rebellion in the North

The northern dimension proved in the long run to be decisive. Nephew of a Liberal Governor of the State of Coahuila, Vidaurri was secretary to the Governor of the Department of Nuevo León. Although originating from Lampazos in Nuevo León, he had spent most of his youth in the Coahuila town of Monclova. When he initiated the rebellion in the north on 16 March 1854, he set in motion a chain of events which would bring him into conflict with two Liberal presidents, first, with Comonfort and, later, with Juárez. Vidaurri and his circle gained their first experience of fighting against the indios bárbaros. Zuazua, for instance, had been commander of volunteer forces. Both he and Mariano Escobedo (1826–1902), also fought against US forces in the battle for Monterrey on 20–24 September 1846. The authorities in the northern departments and states repeatedly complained that the government in Mexico City ignored their problems both before and after the war with the United States. In 1852, for example, indios bárbaros raided Zacatecas from the mining town of Sombrerete, near the Durango border, through Fresnillo and Jerez in the centre, and as far south as Teúl and Colotlán. A wave of larger raids during the autumn of 1857 carried off livestock across the northern states.¹⁰

Inviting Coahuila and Tamaulipas to join the insurrection against Santa Anna, Vidaurri made no mention of the Plan of Ayutla or of the leadership of Álvarez and Comonfort in the south. His intervention was a distinct northern movement, which had nothing to do with the social issues of the Indian, mestizo or mulato central and southern areas of the Republic. This movement in the north would present the central government with the most serious regionalist movement since the radical federalism of 1823–4. It had a more effective leadership than in 1823–4. The on-going dispute with the central power focused inevitably on control of revenues. At the same time, it reflected an intensified regional sentiment among northerners, who saw themselves as hardier, more individualistic and enterprising than the rest of Mexico, since no other part of the Republic had to endure the constant struggle, worsening from the 1840s, with the indios bárbaros.¹¹

Backed by the emerging business groups of Monterrey, enriched by the new cross-border trade into Texas and the port trade of Matamoros, Vidaurri, with the assistance of northern militia forces, attempted to become the leading figure in the Liberal movement between the years 1856–8. This drastically overstretched his capacity. The attempt collapsed with the rout of his army of 6,400 men in the extended battle at Ahualulco, in central San Luis Potosí State on 25–29 September 1858. That defeat represented a major victory by the principal Conservative General, Miguel Miramón, during the Civil War of the Reform. In this sense, Miramón and his two colleagues, Tomás Mejía and Leonardo Márquez, relieved Liberal President Juárez of the need to neutralise Vidaurri.

Vidaurri’s Plan of Monterrey on 25 May 1855 asserted the recovery of sovereignty by the State of Nuevo León, which Santa Anna had abolished in 1853. In Vidaurri’s view, no legitimate authority existed in the Republic until a new Constituent Assembly had established a fresh political structure. His next step was to begin the formation of a National Guard in Nuevo León, designed to defend his position. In perspective, this action would provide the starting point for a distinctive ‘Army of the North,’ independent of the forces led by Álvarez and Comonfort in the south.¹²

Santa Anna despatched General Adrián Woll, Governor of Tamaulipas, to finish off Vidaurri, but the intervention of the young Liberal commander, Ignacio Zaragoza (1829–62), thwarted his move. Instead, Vidaurri’s forces took Monterrey on 23 May 1855 and then Saltillo, the Coahuila State capital, on 22 July. Santa Anna, faced with conflict in the north and the south and unable to salvage his own position, departed the country on 12 August. However, the arrival of Nuevo León forces divided opinion in Saltillo. Vidaurri seized control of the Customs Houses of the Río Grande frontier, from Piedras Negras down to Camargo, and appropriated their revenues, intending on 24 August to centralise financial administration in Monterrey.¹³ In the aftermath of Comonfort’s agreement with Haro at Lagos, he wrote to Vidaurri on 18 September, asking him to adhere to the Plan of Ayutla. With reservations, the latter did so, while upholding incorporation of Coahuila as a revolutionary action.¹⁴

The Arrival of the Liberal Exiles

The linkage of the northern movement to the broader Liberal cause came through the Brownsville group of exiles on the Texas bank of the Río Grande. Between 22 May and 21 June 1855, they formed the ‘Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana’, with Ocampo as President, and Arriaga, Manuel Gómez, José María Mata (Secretary), and local figures of the north-east such as Juan José de la Garza and José María Carbajal, sustained by funds from the Brownsville merchants. They maintained relations with the other Liberal exiles, such as Juárez, still in New Orleans and made contact with Vidaurri. They were also aware of developments in Acapulco and its hinterland. The problem was that each of these potentially component elements remained a faction of its own.¹⁵

From Panama to New Orleans, the packet boat brought delayed news from Comonfort of developments in the south, notably the capture of Chilapa, centre of rebellion in 1842–4, followed by subsequent failures and shortage of funds. In Arrioja’s view, the relative remoteness of the southern core of the Ayutla rebellion prevented it from becoming an effective centre of revolution. The ship, ‘Bustamante,’ long overdue from New York, had still not arrived after 150 days with purchased munitions. Even so, news from Mexico City revealed the dire straits of the regime.¹⁶ Shortly afterwards, Juárez wrote to Ocampo, telling him that he had been trying to leave New Orleans, but had no money for the journey.¹⁷

Junta members met Vidaurri at Lampazos on 17 May 1855, shortly before his forces entered Monterrey six days later. In this small but rising city of 27,000 inhabitants, Vidaurri counted on the support of its leading merchants, Gregorio Zambrano and Evaristo Madero. The objective was to remove the Santa Anna dictatorship, dispense with centralism from Mexico City and then put the northern states under northern rule.¹⁸ Mata reported to the other members of the Brownsville Revolutionary Junta that he had heard from Vidaurri, but Ocampo commented that he had, until then, no knowledge of any such movement in Nuevo León but knew that Carvajal was raising forces though hamstrung for funds. Arriaga argued that the Monterrey rebel should prepare a political platform for public information. Ocampo commissioned him to write it. The Junta wrote to Álvarez, telling him of its installation and the state of the revolution in the north. Álvarez enthusiastically welcomed that news.¹⁹ In the centre-west, Michoacán adhered to the revolutionary movement. On 1 June, Ocampo announced the Revolutionary Junta’s support for Vidaurri.²⁰

The Ayutla Regime

It was not clear initially where the Revolution of Ayutla would be going. It took nineteen months for the movement, first set in motion on 1 March 1854, to capture power in Mexico City. The position of radicals in the Álvarez administration did not go unchallenged. The adherence of Ocampo pointed to the likelihood of a conflict at some stage with the ecclesiastical hierarchy over issues such as jurisdiction, education and revenues. Liberal commitment to assert the supremacy of the civil power formed a central tenet of Juárez’s political beliefs. Those two ministerial appointments horrified moderate Liberal opinion.

Juárez, in the meantime, had arrived in Acapulco to join the Álvarez movement. He reported to Ocampo that Toluca had fallen, and that Puebla, Orizaba and Córdoba had joined the rebellion, with Oaxaca and Veracruz expected to follow suit. The fall of Santa Anna was likely and with it the rebel occupation of Mexico City.²¹ Prieto, in Mexico City, was urging Doblado, in Guanajuato, to clarify his position with regard to the Revolution of Ayutla, since word had come that he had been co-operating with Haro.²² Arriaga advised Ocampo and Mata of his intention to go up-river to Camargo or Mier, in order to proceed southward by land down to Mexico City by way of San Luis Potosí. He reported the news that Santa Anna had fled from the capital on 9 August. The way was now open, he stressed, to uphold the inheritance of Hidalgo and Morelos. Along with other leading Liberals, Arriaga expressed his fears that the change of regime in the country might lead to anarchy, but also that the revolution (his term) might be derailed or adulterated by those intent upon maintaining the existing structures and stratifications. He was sceptical of the army’s current stance of presenting itself as the ally of the people and thought that Mexico would be better without it. A non-political force would end the previous forty years of trampling on laws and governments. At the same time, he feared civil war within the revolutionary camp.²³

The Ayutla rebels of the ‘Army for the Restoration of Liberty’ set up their preliminary base in Chilpancingo, the town where the Insurgent Congress of the Morelos era had met in 1813. Juárez accompanied Álvarez there. The latter urged Ocampo to hasten to join them, so that a ‘liberal ministry’ might be constituted. He called for a united revolutionary front. After he had arrived in Mexico City on 23 September, Ocampo travelled by stagecoach down to the more advanced base of Cuernavaca, which he reached on 3 October. From there, he wrote to Vidaurri urging unity and telling him that Álvarez had appointed him (i.e., Ocampo) Minister of Relations in the new administration.²⁴

Ocampo had been chosen as president of a commission appointed among leading figures supporting the Revolution to inform Álvarez that he had been chosen to be President of the Republic. After acceptance and the Te Deum of celebration, Álvarez had then asked Ocampo to act for an interim period as the minister assisting him in forming a cabinet, but this could not be done without the presence of Comonfort in Cuernavaca. Ocampo stated that he himself did not want a ministry on the grounds that he felt ignorant of affairs. He agreed that Comonfort should become Minister of War, and the latter agreed to Ocampo’s recommendation of Juárez and Prieto for the Ministries of Justice and Finance.²⁵

Ocampo distrusted Comonfort, to such an extent that the latter became his first bête noir. The second, in 1859–60, would be Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. Comonfort wanted a ministry divided equally between moderates and radicals, a principle with which Ocampo disagreed, on the grounds that ability not faction should be the criterion. Furthermore, he wanted to be an effective minister entrusted with internal affairs and not a nominal ‘head of cabinet’ without intervention. Comonfort regarded him a ‘radical,’ a term that Ocampo would have preferred not to be used. He stated that, ‘up to this day, I have viewed with complete indifference that subdivision of the Liberal Party’. He preferred to think of himself as ‘independent by character’. He said that he had not bothered to examine the points of difference between moderates and radicals and disliked the division of the party into two segments, although, he stated, he was aware of the discrepancies in the past between Gómez Pedraza and Gómez Farías. However, after a long conversation with Comonfort on this matter, Ocampo concluded that ‘radical’ would be a correct description of himself.²⁶

In general, he thought the radicals to be ‘more impatient, more straightforward, and more reckless’, whereas the moderates were more prudent but timid. He had drawn his friendships from both groups. Ocampo was inclined to set ‘progressives’ against two categories of opponents, ‘conservatives’ and ‘reactionaries’. He saw ‘moderates’ as a potential link to the ‘conservatives’, regarding them as little more than ‘conservatives in disguise’. For them no time was the right time for reform. Tension with Comonfort impelled Ocampo to withdraw from the government and seek refuge on his private estate, the Hacienda de Pomoca, near Maravatío, on the Michoacán side of the border with the State of Guanajuato.²⁷

Ocampo, however, went deeper than those passing comments:

The Liberals go only as far as their education allows, and, in practice, as far as their strength of character, how they conduct themselves, their independence of social ties, or their means of livelihood permit. It is not easy to classify people in Mexico. This is because first principles and primordial ideas are unfamiliar to most of us. Good intentions and well-meaning associations, rather than logic or systematic thinking are the characteristics of our Liberal Party.²⁸

Comonfort, in Ocampo’s view, diverged from the fundamental aims of the revolution in two respects. The first concerned the composition and function of the National Guard, of which Ocampo reminded his readers that he had been a prime initiator in 1846, and that he opposed the presence of two clerics on the state council. In his view, this conflicted with the anti-corporative aims of the Plan of Ayutla. Furthermore, Comonfort had described the revolution as one of ‘transactions’, whereas Ocampo believed it to be a ‘radical’ revolution, as understood in France by Edgar Quinet, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Louis Blanc. Comonfort described that as the ‘ruin of Europe’. Ocampo countered that Europe had not been ruined and that he himself had no interest in ‘transactions’. Ocampo left the ministry, which Álvarez reconstituted with Arriaga, Cardoso, Comonfort, Degollado, Juarez and Prieto. They then left for Mexico City, while Ocampo remained in Cuernavaca to await the council’s decision with regard to his resignation. The council rejected it but, instead, allowed him two months’ leave. As a result, Ocampo set off for his hacienda by way of Mexico City, leaving letters of farewell for Juárez, Prieto and Comonfort. He saw his resignation as a matter of conscience but left to contemporaries and posterity the final judgement.²⁹

Ocampo’s interest in his French contemporaries was profound. We find the Liberal regime’s representative in Paris, acquiring Jules Michelet’s Histoire de la Révolution française for him and the works of Proudhon, minus the last two volumes, which were banned in France. These had been applied for from Belgium, and, when secured, would be packed in the same box for shipment from Le Havre on 20 October 1858. In the meantime, the publication of Louis Blanc’s works on religion and philosophy would follow, when they had come from the press.³⁰

From this important document, we can see Ocampo’s perceptiveness and sensitivity. Clearly intelligent and well-read, he stands out as a thinking man in politics, though not as the pragmatic politician ready to compromise, even to engage in ‘transactions’, to which his contemporaries might have been more readily inclined. Both Doblado and Juárez represented more the political norm. The tendency to take a stand on principles, as he himself defined them, explained his usually short duration in office. Equally, withdrawal into family life and self-exile on his private estate represented, in realistic political terms, a character flaw. Ocampo had a tendency to say what he thought and act as he spoke.³¹ He appeared to put this before acquisition of positions of power. Ocampo’s reference to the leading ideological figures of the French Revolution of 1848 suggests that he might have regarded the Revolution of Ayutla as a kind of parallel historical moment.

Once in Mexico City, Álvarez set in motion the process for convocation of a new Constituent Congress on 17 October 1855, as promised in the Plan of Ayutla. The form of election was to be indirect in three stages. The secular and regular clergy, as well as Conservatives, were excluded, a controversial stripping of their citizenship, seen as a prelude to forthcoming measures directed against the Church. The elections took place during November, with one deputy to be elected in each district of 40,000 inhabitants or more, regardless of social category.³²

The Álvarez presidency lasted only from 4 October until 8 December 1855. Among the capital-city elite he was disliked as crudely provincial and the leader and representative of bands of ethnically differentiated peoples from remote and little-known parts of the Pacific hinterland. Many Liberals shared this dislike.³³ A movement for the removal of Álvarez began in Guanajuato initiated by Doblado.

The Ley Juárez

In effect, the Ley Juárez of 23 November 1855, the Law for the Administration of Justice, primarily concentrated on the structure and functions of the Supreme Court of Justice and the hierarchy of courts beneath it. This focus, although diverging, continued from the laws passed by Lares when Minister of Justice in 1853 in a different political context. Articles 42 and 44, however, were the scarcely concealed time bomb. They sought to restrict the area of jurisdiction hitherto practised by ecclesiastical courts and military tribunals. Juárez did not, however, set out to abolish them, but to allow members of the clergy to forego the fuero eclesiástico in criminal cases and apply, instead, for justice in the civil courts. The intention to establish the supremacy of the civil courts was the part which aroused the fiercest controversy. This presidential decree interfered with long-standing arrangements in the ecclesiastical sphere – without the sanction of the Holy See. In Pablo Mijangos’s view, this law ‘broke the fragile harmony between Church and State’.³⁴

The Ley Juárez provided the instrument with which clericals and moderate Liberals could attack and undermine the Álvarez administration. Doblado, who had religious sensitivities, was in contact with Bishop Munguía of Michoacán, the diocese within which Guanajuato lay. Siliceo, Doblado’s informant in Mexico City, told him that Comonfort was ‘moderate’ on the Church question. The latter also sent Doblado four letters during the month of November. On 19 November, for instance, he had reaffirmed his allegiance to the Plan of Ayutla, reformed at Acapulco, and his loyalty to Álvarez.³⁵

Juárez sent a copy of the Law to the Archbishop the day after publication. Archbishop Lázaro de la Garza, after discussing it with the cathedral chapter, declared, on 27 November, those aspects of the law to be unacceptable and that the government should have consulted the Holy See beforehand, since it was a matter pertaining to the Sacred Congregation of Rites. As it stood, they constituted an attack on the rights of the Catholic Church. The Archbishop proposed to consult the Pope to see whether the bishops should comply with the law or not.³⁶ On 3 December, the Bishop and Chapter of Oaxaca condemned the Law as illegal because the Executive had no authority to issue fundamental laws. The Bishops of Puebla, Guadalajara, Michoacán and San Luis Potosí followed on 5 and 7 December.³⁷

Conservative newspapers, such as La Cruz and La Verdad, then joined in. From the Sierra Gorda town of Tolimán, Mejía, on 2 December, had already launched his protest movement in cooperation with General José López Uraga, calling for reforms in the ministry’s policies for the benefit of popular education. In his view, ‘a faction’, by which he meant the radical Liberals, had exploited the Plan of Ayutla with the object of attacking the Catholic religion in the name of defence of liberty. This faction had deprived members of the clergy of the rights of citizenship and threatened ecclesiastical properties, which protected the poor. He upheld the 1824 Constitution, called for election of state governors rather than selection by the faction in power, denounced the ministry’s hostility to the army, and rejected pressure from the government in Washington.³⁸

Juárez responded by insisting that the bishops had an obligation to obey the law of the land. The recently appointed Bishop of Puebla, Pelagio Labastida, moderate and conciliatory by temperament and instinct, threw into question the right of the civil power to annul the fuero. He affirmed that the Church was a sovereign and independent society and, as such, could not be subordinated by the civil power. This view went against the Liberal perception of the supremacy of the civil power within the Republic. The conflict directly affected the consciences of many Mexicans: it forced them to choose between their duties as Catholics and their obligations as citizens of a Republic. Pope Pius IX’s subsequent Allocution of 15 December 1856 further muddied these waters. Neither De la Garza nor Labastida wanted an outright confrontation with the Liberal state, but events were spinning out of control.³⁹

Doblado declared against the Álvarez administration on 6 December, making the Ley Juárez the grounds for dissent. He protested, as Alamán might have done, that this law threatened the religious foundations providing the unifying element for all Mexicans. His proclamation to Guanajuato inhabitants on the following day denounced the actions of ‘unbridled and extreme Liberals’, which compromised the desire for a moderate government of order and unity. Doblado warned of the dangers of introducing Protestantism into the country, which he regarded as another form of threat from the United States. He appealed to Comonfort to take control of the ministry. Doblado claimed to be acting in the spirit of the Plan of Ayutla, reformed at Acapulco, from which the administration had departed by threatening the sovereignty of the states, allowing the press to criticise religion without restraint, and denying large sections of the population of the rights of citizenship. In his view, the measures taken to reduce the fueros of the army and Church had not been mentioned in the plans. Doblado, however, had overplayed his hand. There was no support for his view beyond Guanajuato. His precipitate action not only threatened to split the fragile Ayutla coalition but also opened the way for opponents of the plan to assert their own positions. No prospect existed of collaboration between Doblado and Mejía, however. The divide between even Catholic moderate Liberals and the Conservative-clerical military commanders was too great for that, since many other issues intervened, not least, their different beliefs on the origins, nature and purpose of the Mexican Republic. Doblado, for his part, unsuccessfully used the Guanajuato National Guard against the Mejía rebellion.⁴⁰

The Comonfort Presidency

Comonfort has suffered at the hands of historians. This is understandable in view of his catastrophic political error in December 1857, which split the Liberal Party inextricably and prepared the way for a seizure of power by Conservative generals in January 1858. The root of this miscalculation lay in his desire to avoid the confrontation that his own action undeniably precipitated. Yet, up to that point, there are grounds for sympathising with Comonfort’s attempt to hold the balance between radical and conservative forces in the country. In his letter of 19 November to Doblado, he had described the Mexican Republic as:

a building made of sand in danger of collapse on all sides, which, if undermined, will as a result be destroyed. What is required is careful attention and tact to enable it to be solidly preserved … This unfortunate country has suffered so much that the least violence might bring about its disintegration.⁴¹

Comonfort’s administration included the principal moderate Liberals – Lafragua at Interior, Montes at Justice, Payno at Finance, De la Rosa at Relations, and later Siliceo at Development. Lafragua defined his position on 22 December 1855, as a federalist with a medial position between an effective central authority and the internal autonomy of the states and supporting the National Militia. His Press Law of 28 December, however, aroused opposition, even though its purpose was to diminish passions and instil a sense of responsibility. Lafragua proposed to draw up an intermediate government statute until the new Constitution could be set in place. Even though this was a ministry of moderate Liberals, Comonfort never once repudiated the Ley Juárez or the Ley Lerdo of June 1856. Juárez, however, returned to Oaxaca as State Governor from 10 January 1856 until 25 October 1857. Furthermore, the Comonfort administration remained determined to avoid any further alienation of national territory.⁴²

Ocampo’s opinion of Comonfort, when President, did not improve. He told Mata that the President was a person devoid of character and of only middling education. His ‘spiritual mentor’ was Lafragua (a fellow poblano), well-educated but whose views differed from those of the radicals. Ocampo saw a government drifting without direction, too timid to spring an Executive coup against the radicals. Since he was afraid of seizure by ‘bandits’ incensed by his views on Church issues, Ocampo temporarily transferred his residence to northern Veracruz. Mata conveyed to him the news on the progress of the draft constitution through Congress. The Ley Lerdo of 25 June 1856 had been incorporated on principle into article 20, although Payno, another ‘moderate’, had unsuccessfully sought to have that law abolished in return for a loan of 2 million pesos from the Church.⁴³

The Puebla Crisis

Opposition in the city of Puebla was stirred up by Padre Miranda, a poblano priest of the Sacristy parish. The bishop protested at Miranda’s arrest on 20 November. Rumours spread about that the government intended to arrest the bishop, which Bishop Labastida found it politic to deny publicly. The city remained in an agitated state, the local clergy in outright opposition to the Ley Juárez. Parallel to the tension in the provincial capital, a pro-clerical rebellion broke out in December in the sierra town of Zacapoaxtla, led by the parish priest. This town was the seat of a prefecture and head-town of a district of 23,431 inhabitants. The rebellion, although directed against the Liberal administration and the Plan of Ayutla, also sprang from local roots in the sierra. This was yet another example of how local and national-level politics intertwined, despite their distinct contexts. The rival plan on 12 December called for return to the Bases Orgánicas and defence of the Church and army. Throughout the 1850s, the Zacapoaxtla municipal authorities, largely creole and mestizo, had been in conflict with landless Nahua farmers of the Cuatecomaco barrio in the same district, who wanted to constitute a formal village of their own. This racial dimension exacerbated the conflict. The farmers found an astute leader in the Indian, Juan Francisco Lucas, who, in the years before the Plan of Ayutla, had established a recognised base of power in that section of the sierra. Álvarez, when in power in Mexico City and aware of this, gave him support and sent arms. When Lucas’s men on 30 November threw back the Zacapoaxtla National Guard, sent to chastise them, a new armed force, led by an Indian, emerged in the sierra, loyal to the Plan of Ayutla and associated with the Liberal cause. Both lowland and highland Liberal leaders in Puebla were alarmed at the politicisation of lower socio-ethnic groups, even those in the districts of Tetela and Zacatlán, which had supported the Plan of Ayutla, especially where agrarian demands were involved.⁴⁴

The Zacapoaxtla rebels found two nationally known leaders in Haro and Francisco Güitán, who had been allies in San Luis Potosí. Comonfort had ordered Haro’s arrest in Mexico City on 2 January 1856 and despatch to Veracruz for exile in Europe, under the belief that he was at the root of conspiracies. However, Haro had escaped on 5 January and made his way up to Zacapoaxtla, where he assumed leadership of the rebellion. Rebel forces then proceeded down to the central valley and took the State capital on 23 January 1856. In this way, the two movements joined forces. Haro sought to recruit Doblado, but the latter had already aligned with Siliceo and Comonfort. However, the force sent by Comonfort to deal with the sierra rebels and under the command of Severo Castillo defected on the news of Haro’s escape. The presence of sierra forces in the provincial capital, combined with the extreme rhetoric of Miranda, deeply embarrassed Bishop Labastida, who had not anticipated the escalation of events in Puebla to such a degree.⁴⁵

The situation in Puebla threatened to derail the Comonfort administration’s policy of avoiding confrontation and an open breach with the Church. Labastida soon found himself compromised. Comonfort took personal command of an army of 12,000 men and besieged the city of Puebla for six days. The rebel position collapsed on 21 March. Comonfort blamed the clergy for the situation and ordered the removal of the bishop from his diocese, sending him out of the Republic into exile in Europe. As punishment for what he regarded as blatant opposition to government policy, Comonfort’s decrees of 31 March and 12 May 1856 levied the estimated cost of the military expedition, at 1.2 million pesos, against properties of the Puebla diocese estimated at 8.75 million pesos in value. That action amounted to a calculated attempt to weaken the financial support of the Conservative opposition. Labastida warned the President that his actions could provoke a popular insurrection. The President also applied to Haro the Santa Anna decree of 25 March 1853, condemning conspirators as traitors requiring immediate application of the death penalty. The latter, however, in the company of Conservative military commanders, Márquez and Osollo, escaped on a French ship to Havana. Thence, Haro sailed to New York, bound for Europe on 6 August.⁴⁶

A President of moderate conviction and conciliatory temperament had been forced to take strong measures, in order to deal with an inflammatory situation in the Republic’s second city. A bishop inclined to hold back from extreme position-taking and identification with the Conservative Party had been sent into exile and his diocese subjected to a punitive confiscation. In such a way, the intrigues of individual clergymen, failed politicians and unbridled army officers, rather than the actions of wild radicals in the Liberal camp, precipitated the country in the direction of civil war. That did not break out on this occasion. Comonfort had shown himself to be a capable leader, acting promptly, despite constant criticism by opponents in the Liberal camp, such as Ocampo. The Puebla crisis, however, came at a terrible moment in view of the situation in northern Mexico, where Vidaurri continued to expand his power and indios bárbaros were raiding into Mexican territory. Furthermore, the financial situation remained unresolved.

Vidaurri’s Northern Thrust

On 19 February 1856, Vidaurri unilaterally declared the union of Coahuila and the State of Nuevo León, despite opposition from the City Council of Saltillo, which protested to President Comonfort. The federal government rejected this annexation on 15 April. Comonfort regarded Vidaurri’s action as an outrage. Events in the north were taking place at the same time as a deepening crisis over the rejection by the diocese of Puebla of the initial Reform Laws, which the Liberal administration remained determined to impose. Since Comonfort had committed a large part of the federal army to deal directly with the situation in Puebla, he was unable to respond to the situation in the north. Instead, he commissioned the Governors of Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí to act on behalf of the federal government, but Vidaurri’s position proved too entrenched for them. A strongly worded letter of condemnation was sent to Vidaurri on 5 June. Agents of the national government reported, however, suspicious transportation of arms across the Río Grande under Zuazua’s supervision, destined for Monterrey. Vidaurri’s aim was the subordination of Tamaulipas. With this in mind, he seized control of Camargo, the highest point of navigation on the Río Grande. The insecure position of the Comonfort administration in Mexico City, beset by widespread opposition in the villages to Liberal policies, encouraged the national government to attempt a compromise with Vidaurri on 18 November. It would accept the annexation of Coahuila on condition Vidaurri subjected it to a popular vote. The vote went in favour: 4,056 against 260 opposed.⁴⁷

Vidaurri also had designs on the State of San Luis Potosí. This state became the focus of dispute in 1857–60, between the northern Liberals and both Liberal and Conservative parties in San Luis, which resisted domination by the ‘fronterizos’ or ‘northern barbarians’, as they described them. The San Luis Liberals found themselves caught between two hostile forces, the ‘Northerners’ and the local Conservatives led by Juan Othón. Conservative forces under Othón fought for control of the state capital between 15 January and 12 February, holding the main square. Their sharpshooters had taken up position in the highest buildings, such as the Bishop’s Palace, the Government Palace and the Mint, and daily battles were fought for control of the centre, with heavy rifle fire around the San Francisco Convent, a few blocks from the square. Artillery had been brought in by the defending Liberals, based in the Merced Convent, although their soldiers were poorly clothed for mid-winter and badly equipped. They finally managed to push out the Conservatives, when the Liberals cleared the main square and on 15 February took the Sanctuary of Guadalupe. Vidaurri’s forces, however arrived on 26 February. He complained to the Minister of War at the hostility towards himself and Zuazua, but warned that, if they left, anarchy would break out and the ‘lower orders’ sack the city.⁴⁸

Even so, Vidaurri took the decision on 11 March to evacuate San Luis and go back north to Monterrey, allegedly through fear of further Indian incursions across the frontier and the designs of ‘adventurers’ from Texas.⁴⁹ This, however, would not be the last of Vidaurri’s interventions in the State of San Luis Potosí.

The Organic Statute

Conscious of the anomaly of a Liberal administration governing without a Constitution, President Comonfort issued an Estatuto Orgánico Provisional, the work of Lafragua, on 15 May 1856, as an interim basis for government. This decree, however, further divided the Liberal Party. Radicals opposed what they regarded as its centralist tendency and several state governors refused to publish it. The Organic Statute, furthermore, departed from the long liberal opposition to the investiture of the Executive with full emergency powers. Article 82 stipulated that they were to be used in cases of invasion and threats to territorial integrity or public order. Lafragua, explained to the state governors on 20 May the need for such powers in the prevailing circumstances, although he had previously opposed them in 1843.⁵⁰ In the aftermath of the Puebla rebellion, Comonfort and Lafragua clearly believed that government effectiveness lay in the form of a reinforced executive. The states were to be confined to internal affairs.⁵¹

Opposition to Comonfort’s Organic Statute was particularly strong in the radical wing of the Liberal Party. Comonfort sought to justify the measure in a letter to Ocampo, Arriaga and Manuel Gómez on 21 October. He reaffirmed his support for the ‘Revolution of Ayutla’. He argued that he faced a national emergency, with enemies on all sides and the open rebellion of Vidaurri on the northern frontier. Comonfort rejected the notion that his government was introducing a new form of centralism and stated that they had no intention of reducing the powers of the states in the federation, which still retained control of their own revenues. The people, he stressed, had awarded him dictatorial powers for a transitory period until the implementation of the forthcoming Constitution. He expressed great sympathy for the northern states, with their love of liberty and loyalty to ‘Mexican nationality’, and did not plan to abandon them to the depredations of the indios bárbaros.⁵²

The first draft of the new constitution was put before Congress on 16 June 1856, a month after the publication of the Estatuto Provisional. The debate on each of the articles began in July. In the meantime, another Executive Decree of major significance was published under Comonfort’s authority from the new Minister of Finance, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, appointed on 20 May in the immediate aftermath of the Provisional Statute. A well-known radical Liberal, though former collaborator of Santa Anna in 1853, his appointment was welcomed by El Monitor Republicano and El Siglo XIX.⁵³

The Mexican Reform would become the most dramatic and extensive struggle in Latin America between reform and tradition. Within that broad context, a range of issues was contested, and two civil wars were fought in 1858–61 and 1862–7. Simmering since the early 1830s, these conflicts brought to a head the overriding question of the relationship between Catholicism, until 1857 officially regarded as the religion of state, and the pluralist policy objectives of Mexican Liberalism. This was not an offshoot of contemporary struggles in Catholic Europe, but the product of a specific Mexican situation. Polemicists in Mexico were familiar with Spanish events from the 1830s onward, where public education, religious uniformity, and disentailment became major issues in Church-State relations during the Liberal hegemony. Mexican conflicts were not unique in Latin America, except in scale and impact. New Granada declared the separation of State and Church in the Constitution of 1853, six years before the Juárez Government did so in Mexico. The same Constitution declared religious toleration, which the Mexican Constitution of 1857 did not do.⁵⁴