He lived first in Havana and then in New Orleans. In Mexico, Santa Ana had run the country into further bankruptcy. The ensuing period , known as the Three Year War, proved to be one of the most bloody and wasteful in Mexican history. Armies defining themselves often arbitrarily as Conservative or Liberal roamed the countryside looting and burning. The economy was again halted; Mexico, bankrupt and divided, tempted foreign intervention.
He served as minister of government and later as president of Mexico's Supreme Court under Ignacio Comonfort. Simultaneously the Conservatives had named one of their own number the president of Mexico, repealed the laws of reform, and sent their troops northward to exterminate Liberal resistance.
The Church helped the Conservatives with money, troops, and moral persuasion. The angered Liberals reacted in by promulgating drastic anticlerical laws, confiscating all ecclesiastical property, except buildings, without compensation. Senate for badly needed funds to prosecute the war. The Conservative armies disintegrated, and their leaders went into exile. He exiled the archbishop of Mexico, five bishops, and the Spanish ambassador, all of whom had aided the Conservative cause. The new government strictly enforced the anticlerical codes of the constitution, seizing for the nation Church lands and monastic buildings.
The government, seeking to develop a large agrarian middle class, tried to distribute the lands to those working them. However, the Liberals needed money to pay the army bureaucracy and the national debt. Pressed for funds, public officials allowed these lands to go to those who could pay for them immediately, mostly rich speculators and foreigners.
The land reform did not create a large yeoman class but instead allowed secular individuals to monopolize the large former Church estates and to gain control of Indian communal lands, also abolished by the reform laws and the Constitution of The same financial exigencies which forced the government to curtail its ambitious land reform program caused it in to declare a 2-year suspension of the external debt.
This gave England, France, and Spain the excuse to intervene in Mexico. In November , the law on the administration of justice was passed. He then called elections and was re-elected. On December 17, the Tacubaya Plan was proclaimed. He was released in January and fled the capital. He held elections and won a mandate to continue. He entered politics promoting reforms for the Mexican people.
During the military regime of Santa Ana, he went into exile but returned to help overthrow the dictator. He then resisted the French occupation and worked to overthrow Emperor Maximillian. He served a total of five terms as president seeking to institute constitutional reforms and create a democratic Mexico. He entered Oaxaca Institute for the Arts and Sciences in and received his law degree in He quickly began to help poor farmers of Oaxaca in their battles with land owners.
At this time, Mexico was coming out of thirty years of domestic violence. The treasury was nearly bankrupt as two political factions emerged: conservatives, who represented the large landholders, the Catholic Church and the military and wanted to protect the status quo. The Liberals represented small merchants and rural ranchers and farmers and wanted to institute democratic reform.
Making matters worse, the Catholic Church was often an ally to the rich and thwarted any resistance toward them. The union increased his standing among conservatives and he frequently accepted appointments from Conservative state authorities.
Known for his impeccable honesty and simple tastes, he was immune from corruption. He promoted a guerrilla resistance toward the United States and opposed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
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