The Reform and the French Invasion

In our last episode, Mexico had lost half of its territory after the American Invasion, including California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Texas, also Wyoming, Colorado, and part of Kansas.

Santa Anna dictatorship had radicalized the political positions. Even though both parties, the conservatives, and the liberals, aspired to progress, their ideas to achieve it were different.

The conservatives insisted on a monarchy and a corporate society. The liberals considered that a representative republic, federal and popular similar to the North American model, could guarantee it and considered urgent to erase all colonial heritage confiscating all the clergy’s properties. Still, even the liberals divided among themselves had different ideas of how to achieve it.

In 1855 The Liberals occupied the capital and elected a provisional president Juan Alvarez, who formed a cabinet with Benito Juarez among the participants, the “pure liberals”; however, Alvarez resigned the presidency, and Comonfort took his place.