150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE CREATION OF THE SECULAR MEXICAN STATE

Abstract

"Mexican liberalism went from the struggle for Independence from Spain to the Independence of the Mexican state from the Catholic Church and the Army." These are the words with which the Mexican historian Patricia Galeana begins her study of one of the main facts of Mexican and Latin American History: the fight between conservatives and liberals throughout the nineteenth century to build a model of a nation which represented their respective interests. In Mexico's case the resolution was the promulgation of the Law of Reform in 1859 by the government of Benito Juárez.