JOSÉ MARÍA IGLESIAS INZAÚRRAGA: BIOGRAPHY - HISTORY - 2025

José María Iglesias Inzaúrraga was a lawyer, liberal politician, professor and journalist who held the presidency of the United Mexican States on an interim basis for three months, between October 1876 and January 1877. Among his most outstanding political works, it is important to mention the Churches Law.

The objective of this law was to regulate the strong income that the Mexican Church had at the time, to seek to reduce the impoverishment of the nation. Although short, his mandate was never officially recognized at the time, as he would have claimed it based on two articles of the Mexican Constitution issued in 1857.

This Constitution promulgated by Benito Juárez was not especially well received by most of the Mexican people, which kept the liberals out of the way with the Zuloaga insurrection and the conservatives.

Iglesias proclaimed himself interim president using two articles of the Constitution, which according to him gave him the right to take power momentarily. For this, Iglesias was known as the "legalistic president."

In addition to his political works, José María Iglesias wrote a series of books, sometimes in collaboration with other authors. His books dealt with political and social issues, and in some instances he also wrote opinions and critiques for local newspapers.

Biography

the beginning

José María Iglesias Inzáurraga was born on January 5, 1823 in Mexico City, with Juan Iglesias and Mariana Inzaúrraga as parents. His family had high purchasing power and were one of the wealthiest in Mexico, but his father passed away when Iglesias was only 12 years old. His uncle helped in his upbringing and took over his education.

Iglesias entered the Jesuit school San Ildefonso, to later dedicate himself to the study of law and graduate as a lawyer with good grades.

Practice as a lawyer

After his studies, Iglesias was allowed to practice as a lawyer in 1845. He was always openly liberal and opposed the regime of then-conservative president Antonio López de Santa Anna.

He joined the municipal council of Mexico City and was promoted to serve on the Supreme Military Court during the war between Mexico and the United States in 1846.

When the war ended, the war hero and now president Mariano Arista gave him an important position in the Mexican Department of the Treasury.

These events began a political life that would continue in an upward spiral for another decade.

Political life

Iglesias was elected to be part of the Mexican Congress in 1852, where he stood out among the rest for his good command of the legal language and for his eloquence. However, when Santa Anna was reinstated in power as dictator in 1853, Iglesias was removed from his post as a public employee.

This happened because Iglesias, being a writer and editor in several newspapers, openly criticized the conservative dictatorial regime of the then president who, by getting upset with all his critics, removed them from the positions of power they had in the government.

His absence from the public sphere was relatively short, but while Santa Anna remained in power, Iglesias dedicated himself to practicing as a lawyer on his own. Iglesias returned to her previous position when the Ayutla Plan was executed in 1855 and Santa Anna was again removed from power.

Removal of Santa Anna

With the end of the dictator's term, the liberal politician Ignacio Comonfort was appointed president. This appointed José María Iglesias as head of the Treasury Department, and later Secretary of Justice.

The liberal movements for Mexican reforms put Iglesias on the front page, as he was asked to draft a law for the decrease of money that was directed to the Catholic Church. The subsequent law he created was known as the Iglesias Law.

Churches Law

The Iglesias Law was promulgated on April 11, 1857 and got its name precisely from its creator. This law is considered one of the famous reform laws, which would cause the Three Years' War between conservatives opposed to the reforms proposed by the current regime and the liberals who were in power.

objective

The Churches Law was aimed at reducing the ecclesiastical sacrament, a tax that all citizens had to pay to the Catholic Church.

This problem had already been foreseen by the also liberal politician Melchor Ocampos in 1850, who accused the Church of impoverishing the citizens with less purchasing power of Mexico by asking them to pay a tax whose price they could not reach.

However, the Catholic Church and all the conservatives who supported it saw the law as an attack on the institution to diminish its power, as this was another of the many liberal laws that had progressively taken power away from the Church.

According to the same Church, the payment of ecclesiastical sacraments was key in the sustenance of the institution and for the payment of the priests.

Consequences

Conservatives and the Church itself, considering this reform an attack on the institution, refused to abide by it. For the liberals, the problem with the system that was in place was that it required the poorest to pay money that they simply did not have.

This made the owners of the haciendas where they worked pay their debts for them, but at the same time the poorest became more indebted and had to work longer with the owner of their hacienda, "serving their debt."

After all the anti-ecclesiastical liberal measures and their consolidation with the promulgation of the Mexican Constitution of 1857 by Benito Juárez, the conservatives caused a revolt against the government.

Supported by Félix Zuloaga, they argued with Comonfort (then president) to publicly reject the new measures. He accepted and soon ceded the government to Zuloaga.

This series of events gave rise to the formation of two parallel governments: the unconstitutional one of the conservatives led by Zuloaga and the constitutional one of the liberals supported by the law, led by Juárez.

The differences caused the so-called War of the Reform, a civil conflict that lasted three years and pitted both sides against each other. Throughout all of this confrontation, Iglesias continued to widely support the liberal cause in the Mexican press.

Relationship with Juárez and the French invasion

After the end of the Three Years War, the liberal constitutional regime had been reestablished. Although the conservatives still did not recognize President Juárez, there was a constitutional thread and the liberals had returned to power.

Suspension of payments

However, the peace did not last long: at the end of the same year that the war ended, President Juárez gave the order to suspend the payment of interest to European countries.

That move caused anger among the Spanish, French, and British monarchs, resulting in an invasion of Mexico by France.

During this invasion, Mexican troops engaged the French at the Battle of Puebla, and Juárez was forced to flee to Mexico City. Being a liberal and constitutionalist supporting the then president, Iglesias joined him on the trip.

This war had pitted the forces of Benito Juárez (some 70,000 Mexicans) against the forces of France, commanded by Napoleon III and the Mexican forces that opposed the ideas of Juárez and Iglesias, commanded by Maximiliano l (some 50,000 soldiers, total).

Secretary of Justice

During this time, Juárez appointed José María Iglesias his secretary of Justice. In 1865, after the Civil War in the United States, the Americans sent troops to help Juarez in battle and drive the French out of America.

In 1867, order was restored in Mexico and Juárez was able to return to power. During the war, Iglesias also worked alongside Juárez as his secretary of the Treasury.

End of the war and return to Mexico City

After the French were expelled from Mexico, the Juárez cabinet returned to the capital to reestablish the government.

Already in Mexico City, José María Iglesias was voted to be part of Congress, and in the same 1867 he became president of the Chamber of Deputies. He also held the position of Secretary of Internal Relations before being reappointed Secretary of Justice.

Political exercise

His relationship with the Juárez regime was quite broad and the president considered him one of his most reliable men.

Iglesias served as Secretary of Justice until 1871, when he had to retire from political life due to problems attributed to his health. However, he returned the following year and was appointed President of the Supreme Court. By his return, Juárez was no longer president, as he had died that same year. Who would be in charge of the country would be Lerdo de Tejada.

Declaration of fraud

When the Mexican Congress appointed Lerdo de Tejada as the new president of Mexico, Iglesias used his authority in the Supreme Court to declare the elections fraudulent and interrupted the constitutional succession. According to the law, it would be Iglesias himself, as president of the Supreme Court, who would take the position of president.

His presidency and the Plan of Tuxtepec

When Iglesias was proclaimed president, the military and general Porfirio Díaz had just launched the Plan of Tuxtepec, a military move whose objective was to overthrow Lerdo de Tejada and restore Porfirio Díaz himself to power.

However, while Tejada was still in power, he arrested several followers of José María Iglesias and he had to flee to Guanajuato.

The governor of Guanajuato decided to recognize Iglesias as the legitimate president of Mexico. With the support he now had, he sent a manifesto announcing his assumption of the country's presidency and subsequently appointed his cabinet.

By December 1873, Iglesias had the backing of the states of Jalisco, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and San Luis Potosí.

Although it had the support of several states, the Plan of Tuxtepec was already in motion. Lerdo de Tejada lost a last battle fought in Puebla against General Porfirio Díaz, who expelled Tejada from the capital.

Unsuccessful negotiations

Iglesias and Díaz began to negotiate what the new government would look like after the departure of Lerdo de Tejada, but the discussions stopped because Iglesias never wanted to recognize the Plan of Tuxtepec as legitimate.

On January 2, 1877 Iglesias established his government individually together with his cabinet in Guadalajara, ready to face the armies of Porfirio Díaz.

After the defeat he suffered in the battle of Los Adobes, he had to retreat again to Colima, but the pressure he was suffering from the now proclaimed president Porfirio Díaz was so great that he had to withdraw to the United States.

This last movement put an end to his political life and, consequently, to his attempt to proclaim himself president of Mexico.

Last years

After his flight from Mexico, Iglesias arrived in New York. There, he wrote a book called The Presidential Question, where he explained the reasons for his actions and justified them with the various laws in force in Mexico.

In 1878, Porfirio Díaz allowed his return to his country without problems and, in fact, he was offered a series of public positions, which Iglesias preferred to decline.

Journalistic exercise

Iglesias remained active practicing the profession of journalist and writer. He became the editor-in-chief of several major newspapers in Mexico and published two books that went down in history as important sources of two historical moments in Mexico:

- Historical magazines on the French intervention.

Iglesias kept his principles firm until the end, defending the Constitution of 1857 as far as he could. However, he lived peacefully after his return to Mexico from New York. He died in Mexico City on December 17, 1891.

The Díaz government sought to make the people forget the death of Iglesias, since the latter being the defender to the fullest extent of the laws, he was always against the now dictatorship established by Porfirio Díaz in Mexico.

The autobiography of José María Iglesias was published in 1893, three years after his death.

References

1. Official website of the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso. Text about its history. Taken from sanildefonso.org.mx
2. García Puron, Manuel, Mexico and its rulers, v. 2. Mexico City: Joaquín Porrúa, 1984.
3. Orozco Linares, Fernando, Governors of Mexico. Mexico City: Panorama Editorial, 1985.
4. The Iglesias Law, (nd). March 23, 2017. Taken from wikipedia.org
5. Maximilian I of Mexico, (nd). February 24, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org
6. José María Iglesias, (nd). January 19, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org
7. Second French Intervention in Mexico, (nd). February 18, 2018. Taken from wikipedia.org
8. Plan of Tuxtepec, (nd). July 30, 2017. Taken from wikipedia.org