Editing Benito Juárez (section)

==Early political career==
[[File:Valentín Gómez Farías, portrait.JPG|thumb|upright|Early in his career, Juárez supported president [[Valentín Gómez Farías]] who attempted to carry out many of the reforms Juárez would eventually pass.]]

===Legal career===
From the very beginning of his legal career, Juárez became an active partisan of the [[Liberal Party (Mexico)|Liberal Party]]. As a lawyer, Juárez took cases of Indigenous villagers. Community members of Loxicha, Oaxaca hired him for their denunciation of a priest, whom they accused of abuses. He did not win the case, and was thrown into jail along with community members, "thanks to the collusion between Church and the state," writing later that it "strengthened in me the goal of working constantly to destroy the pernicious power of the privileged classes."<ref>Chassen-López, ''From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca'', 252; Juárez quoted in Chassen-López, 252.</ref> Juárez gained the goal of fighting for equality before the law in the face of the lingering legal privileges that remained in Mexico from the colonial legal system, as were accorded to the Mexican Catholic Church, the army, and Indigenous communities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sinkin |first=Richard N. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/925061668 |title=The Mexican reform, 1855-1876 : a study in liberal nation-building |date=1979 |publisher=The University of Texas, Institute of Latin American Studies |isbn=0-292-75044-7 |location=Austin |oclc=925061668}}</ref> He became a prosecutor for the State of Oaxaca and was soon elected to the Oaxaca state legislature in 1832, serving for two years during the Liberal presidency of [[Valentin Gomez Farias]].{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=591}}

A [[Conservative Party (Mexico)|Conservative Party]] coup led by [[Antonio López de Santa Anna|Santa Anna]] overthrew the presidency of Gomez Farias in 1834. As part of the constitutional reorganization involved in the subsequent transition from the [[First Mexican Republic]] to the [[Centralist Republic of Mexico]], Oaxaca became a department controlled by Mexico City and the state legislature of Oaxaca was dissolved. Juárez protested the dissolution of local government that was being imposed upon Oaxaca, and in fact, the rest of Mexico, as part of the transition to the [[Centralist Republic of Mexico]] in which the states of the nation were replaced by departments directly administered by Mexico City. For this, Juárez was briefly imprisoned, but he was shortly released.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=56}} Juárez then returned to private practice.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=591}} After practicing law for several years. In 1842 Liberal governor of Oaxaca [[Antonio León (soldier)|Antonio León]], appointed Juárez to serve as a Civil and Revenue Judge for the state of Oaxaca, a position which he held until 1846.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=56}}<ref>Hamnett, ''Juárez'', p. 253.</ref>

===Governor of Oaxaca===
The Centralist Republic itself would be overthrown in 1846 at the beginning of the [[Mexican American War]], and Oaxaca regained its federal autonomy, its executive now led by a triumvirate which included Juárez.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=56}} He was subsequently elected to the national congress as a deputy for Oaxaca.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=591}} Juárez supported President [[Valentín Gómez Farías]], who had returned to power. There was a revolt against the state of Oaxaca during this time, causing Juárez to abandon his congressional post and return to Oaxaca to try and maintain order.

In November, 1847, he assumed the governorship.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=591}} When Santa Anna fell from power disgraced by his loss in the Mexican-American War, Governor Juárez did not allow the ex-president to establish himself in Oaxaca, which gained for him the future enmity of Santa Anna.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=592}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rojas |first=Rafael |date=2008 |title=Los amigos cubanos de Juárez |url=http://www.istor.cide.edu/archivos/num_33/dossier3.pdf |journal=Istor |pages=42–57 |volume=9 |issue=33 }}</ref> Juárez was faced with chaos in the state finances, the state justice department, and the state police organization. Juárez proceeded to carry out a program of economic improvements which included an elimination of the state deficit, the construction of roads and bridges, and the development of education.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=592}} Governor Juárez also prepared and published a Civil and Penal Code. Oaxaca became a model state, and Juárez’ gained fame as an able administrator throughout the nation.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=58}}

Upon finishing his one term permitted by the state constitution, Juárez became the director of the [[Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca|Oaxaca Institute of Science and Arts]] where he had previously studied law and also taught science. Juárez also continued his practice of law.{{sfn|Rivera Cambas|1873|p=592}}

===Exile in New Orleans===
[[File:Melchor Ocampo.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Melchor Ocampo]], a radical Liberal whom Juárez met in their New Orleans exile]]

Mexico experienced relative peace and stability in the years immediately following the conclusion of the [[Mexican-American War]], through the moderate presidencies of [[José Joaquín de Herrera]] and [[Mariano Arista]] but in 1852 a Conservative coup overthrew Arista, and brought back Santa Anna for what would end up being his final dictatorship.

Juárez fell victim to the restored Santa Anna, and the authorities confined him to the fortress of San Juan de Ullua.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=62}} He was eventually released and exiled to Havana, from which he then traveled to [[New Orleans]].{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=63}} There he found a day job as a cigar maker in one of the city's factories,<ref name="Columbia">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Juárez, Benito|url=http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0826681.html|encyclopedia=The Columbia Encyclopedia |year=2007|edition=6th}}</ref> while his wife remained in Mexico with their children, and were looked after by Liberal partisans.<ref name="auto1">Hamnett, ''Juárez'', 51</ref> His time as governor of Oaxaca had not left him with a vast fortune, and he survived off of his cigar rolling job and funds sent to him from Mexico by his wife.<ref name="esposa">{{cite web|url= https://pagina3.mx/2015/03/margarita-a-maza-de-Juárez-mucho-mas-que-una-esposa/|title=Margarita a Maza de Juárez: Mucho más que una esposa (Margarita to Maza de Juárez: Much more than a wife)|author=Agencia Seméxico |work=Pagina 3|date=21 March 2015|access-date=29 June 2020}}</ref><!-- Used page option for translation from Spanish-->

Juárez met other Liberal exiles in New Orleans including the anti-clerical former governor of [[Michoacan]] [[Melchor Ocampo]],<ref>Jan Bazant, "From Independence to the Liberal Republic, 1821–1867" in ''Mexico Since Independence'', [[Leslie Bethell]], ed. New York: Cambridge University Press 1991, p. 32.</ref> and the Cuban separatist exile, {{ill|Pedro Santacicilia|es|Pedro Santacilia|vertical-align=sup}}, who later married Juárez's oldest daughter, and served as a valuable ally during the [[Reform War]] and the [[Second French intervention in Mexico|second French intervention]]<ref>Hamnett, ''Juárez'', 51–53</ref>

As the Liberal [[Plan of Ayutla]] broke out against Santa Anna in March of 1855, Juárez sought to return to Mexico. He arrived at the port of [[Acapulco]] near the Southern center of the revolt in the summer of 1855.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=63}} Santa Anna fled the nation and a subsequent Liberal assembly elected Juan Alvarez as the new president. Juárez, who had been secretary to the assembly was made Minister of Justice and Religion.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=64}}

===La Reforma===
{{Main|La Reforma|Constitution of 1857}}
[[File:Los Constitucionalistasde1857.jpg|thumb|Liberals posing with a copy of the [[Constitution of 1857]].]]

The [[Plan of Ayutla]] had inaugurated what would come to be known as ''La Reforma'', a period of unprecedented constitutional change for Mexico, and Juárez was to be a key figure throughout this era. Before ''La Reforma'', and dating back to the legal system of [[New Spain]], neither clerics nor soldiers were under the jurisdiction of the civil judiciary, and could only be tried for all offenses under their own respective, independent court systems.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=64}}

It was the aim of the Liberal Party to abolish all such sovereign court systems and bring all offenses under the jurisdiction of the state. This was done through the ''Ley Juárez'', named for the Minister of Justice, and promulgated under the presidency of Alvarez.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=65}} The law would remain on the books, but President Alvarez resigned in December 1855, amid increasing opposition to his administration, passing over the presidency to the more moderate Liberal [[Ignacio Comonfort]], whom it was hoped could more effectively pass progressive reforms.

Juárez did not continue as Minister of Justice, and spent the pivotal year of 1856, peacefully retired in Oaxaca, although continuing to correspond with his Liberal allies in Mexico City as they continued their aims in furthering ''La Reforma''.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=66}} Juárez personally lobbied for a measure expelling the Jesuits from Mexico which was passed in June, 1856.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=70}}Meanwhile, the Mexican Congress was drafting a new Constitution which integrated into itself the Ley Juárez along with the ''[[Lerdo law|Ley Lerdo]]'', which with the aim of selling them off to stimulate economic development, had nationalized most of the Catholic Church's properties, along with the communal properties of Mexico's Indigenous communities. The new constitution which would come to be known as the [[Constitution of 1857]], was promulgated on 5 February 1857, with the aim of coming into effect on Mexican Independence Day, 16 September of that year. It had abandoned Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and aimed to establish religious freedom, freedom of association, civil rights, the abolition of monopolies, and the abolition of hereditary privileges.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=69}}

As opposition to the Constitution of 1857 threatened civil war, Comonfort's ministers resigned on 20 October 1857, and among the replacements was Juárez who was appointed as Secretary of Home Affairs (''Secretario de Gobernacion''), and was made Chairman of the Council of Ministers.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=71}} When, one month later, Comonfort was formally elected as the first president under the new constitution, Juárez was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.{{sfn|Burke|1894|p=72}}