Editing Benito Juárez (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Mexico.DF.HemicicloJuarez.01.jpg|thumb|left|[[Benito Juárez Hemicycle|Monument to Juárez]] in central Mexico City, built by his old political rival [[Porfirio Díaz]] to commemorate the centenary of Juárez's 1806 birth.]]

Juárez came to be seen as "a preeminent symbol of Mexican nationalism and resistance to foreign intervention".<ref name="StevensP333">Stevens, "Benito Juárez", 333.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Weeks |first=Charles A. |title=The Juárez myth in Mexico |date=1987 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=0-585-26147-4 |location= |oclc=45728281}}</ref> His policies advocated [[civil liberties]], [[equality before the law]], [[Separation of church and state|the sovereignty of civilian power over the Catholic Church]] and [[Civilian control of the military|the military]], the strengthening of the [[Federal government of Mexico|Mexican federal government]], and the depersonalization{{Explain|date=July 2023}} of political life.<ref>Hamnett, ''Juárez'', 238–239.</ref> For Juárez's success in ousting French invasion, Mexicans considered Juárez's tenure as a time of a "second struggle for independence, a second defeat for the European powers, and a second reversal of the Conquest".<ref>Hamnett, ''Juárez'', p. xii.</ref>

Today, Benito Juárez is remembered as being a progressive reformer dedicated to democracy, equal rights for Indigenous peoples, reduction in the power of organized religion, especially the Catholic Church, and a defense of national sovereignty. The period of his leadership is known in Mexican history as ''La Reforma del Norte'' ("reform of the north"). It constituted a liberal political and social revolution with major institutional consequences: the expropriation of church lands, the subordination of the army to [[civilian control of the military|civilian control]], liquidation of peasant communal landholdings, the [[separation of church and state]] in public affairs, and the disenfranchisement of bishops, priests, nuns, and lay brothers, codified in the "[[Juárez Law]]", or "Ley Juárez".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/2/999/19.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141127104026/http://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/2/999/19.pdf |archive-date=2014-11-27 |url-status=live|title=La ley Juárez, de 23 de noviembre de 1855}}</ref>

''[[La Reforma]]'' represented the triumph of Mexico's liberal, federalist, [[Anti-clericalism in Latin America#Reform War|anti-clerical]], and pro-capitalist forces over the conservative, centrist, [[Corporatism|corporatist]], and [[Theocracy|theocratic]] elements that sought to reconstitute a locally run version of the colonial era. It replaced a semi-feudal social system with a more market-driven one. But, following Juárez's death, the lack of adequate democratic and institutional stability soon resulted in a return to centralized autocracy and economic exploitation under the regime of [[Porfirio Díaz]]. The ''[[Porfiriato]]'' (1876–1911), in turn, collapsed at the beginning of the [[Mexican Revolution]].{{fact|date=November 2024}}