MEXICO 203
and proceeded to buy it at auction for paltry sums.
The law provided that the native owners should
have the fi rst opportunity to buy, but few could
pay the minimum purchase price. When they re-
sponded with protests and revolts, Lerdo explained
in a circular that the intent of his law was that
their community lands should be divided among
the natives, not sold to others. But he insisted that
“the continued existence of the Indian communi-
ties ought not to be tolerated... , and this is exactly
one of the goals of the law.”
Lerdo was also adamant that those who rented
indigenous lands had the right to buy them if they
chose to do so. Consequently, during the summer
and fall of 1856, many pueblos lost crop and pas-
turelands from which they had derived revenues
vitally needed to defray the cost of their religious
ceremonies and other communal expenses. In-
digenous resistance and the liberals’ need to at-
tract popular support during their struggle with
the conservative counterrevolution and French
interventionists in the decade 1857–1867 slowed
enforcement of the Lerdo Law as it applied to na-
tive villages, but the long-range tendency of liberal
agrarian policy compelled division of communal
lands, facilitating their acquisition by hacendados
and even small and medium-sized farmers. This
strengthened the latifundio and increased the size
of the rural middle class.
Meanwhile, a constitutional convention domi-
nated by moderate liberals drafted the constitution
of 1857, which proclaimed freedom of speech,
press, and assembly; limited fueros; forbade ecclesi-
astical and civil corporations to own land; and pro-
claimed the sanctity of private property. It restored
the federalist structure of 1824, but it replaced the
bicameral national legislature with a single house
and eliminated the offi ce of vice president. A few
voices denounced the land monopoly, peonage,
and immense inequalities of wealth. “We proclaim
ideas and forget realities,” complained the radical
delegate Ponciano Arriaga. “How can a hungry,
naked, miserable people practice popular govern-
ment? How can we condemn slavery in words,
while the lot of most of our fellow citizens is more
grievous than that of the black slaves of Cuba or
the United States?” Despite his caustic attack on the
land monopoly, Arriaga offered a relatively moder-
ate solution: the state should seize and auction off
large uncultivated estates. The conservative oppo-
sition promptly branded Arriaga’s project “com-
munist”; the moderate majority in the convention
passed over it in silence.
Because the new constitution incorporated
the Lerdo Law and the Juárez Law, the church
now openly entered the political struggle by ex-
communicating all public offi cials who took the
required oath of loyalty. Counterrevolution had
been gathering its forces for months, and the Three
Years’ War soon erupted in 1857. As the struggle
progressed, both sides found themselves in serious
fi nancial diffi culties. The conservatives, however,
had the advantage of generous support from the
church. In July 1859, Juárez struck back at the
clergy with reform laws that nationalized with-
out compensation all ecclesiastical property ex-
cept church buildings; the laws also suppressed all
monasteries, established freedom of religion, and
separated church and state.
By the middle of 1860, although conservative
bands in the provinces continued to make devas-
tating raids, the tide of war had turned in favor
of the liberals. The war was effectively over, but
diehard reactionaries now looked for help abroad.
The conservative governments of England, France,
and Spain had no love for the Mexican liberals and
Juárez. Moreover, there were ample pretexts for
intervention, for both sides had seized or destroyed
foreign property without compensation, and for-
eign bondholders were clamoring for payments
from an empty Mexican treasury. The three Euro-
pean powers demanded compensation for damages
to their nationals and payment of just debts. Noting
the dubious nature of some of the claims, Juárez
vainly pleaded poverty, but the three powers none-
theless invaded and occupied Veracruz in 1862.
But France wanted more than payment of debts.
A group of Mexican conservative exiles had con-
vinced Napoleon III that the Mexican people would
welcome a French army of liberation and the estab-
lishment of a monarchy. Napoleon had visions of a
French-protected Mexican Empire that would yield
him great political and economic advantages. It re-
mained only to fi nd a suitable unemployed prince