What is the Lerdo Law about: 161 years after the death of its author

This Tuesday, March 2, marks 161 since the death of one of the most important figures during the administration of President Benito Pablo Juárez García: Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, who held the position of Minister of Finance and Public Credit during the Juárez government.

Miguel Lerdo de Tejada was the author of one of the laws that triggered the War of Reformation, also known as the Three Years' War. This was the Law on the Disentailment of Rural and Urban Farms Owned by Civil and Ecclesiastical Corporations, which was approved and decreed on June 25, 1856, during the administration of President Ignacio Comonfort.

This law is better known as Lerdo Law, after the surname of its principal promoter, who served as Minister of Finance when it was enacted. It enacted the sale of rural properties of the Catholic Church and civil corporations to individuals, with the aim of encouraging economic activity, creating a rural middle class and obtaining taxes from it.

This was part of the so-called Reform Laws, which were issued between 1855 and 1861 by the liberal political system of Mexico, which initiated a reorganization of the government and the separation between the State and the Church, which had a strong bond that united them.

The economic purpose of the liberal legislation on disentailment was to encourage small private property, which meant for some to be able to acquire at a good price several huge possessions that the Church had accumulated over the centuries, especially during the time of the Viceroyalty, but on the other hand it had a character socio-political: the secularization of society.

Since then, the State assumed the function of legislating on the religious question, in particular on the patrimonial regime, to which nationalized ecclesiastical property should be subject. Liberal thought was guided by the need to limit the economic and political power of the Church, with the aim of consolidating the power of the State: no higher power, either inside or outside.

The founding principle of the Mexican legal order was “state independence from the Church”. It did not eliminate the legal personality of the Church, as article 130 of the Constitution of 1917 would later repeal, but it did cut its powers and powers.

In 1855, the federalist current was influenced by the principles of natural law and the ideas of the French Revolution, including: the need for members of a social group to participate in the manner in which the nation was to be constituted; the individual above all social corporations; the submission of the State of Right; and the imperative that everything be agreed and established in fundamental laws with justice.

Ignacio Comonfort became president on December 11, 1855 and formed a cabinet composed of Guillermo Prieto, Melchor Ocampo, Ponciano Arriaga, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and Benito Juárez. This group of liberal figures was notably distinguished by their intense legislative activity, which resulted in a series of laws of a political liberal but also economic nature. Among the basic concepts is that of individual property, an expression of the ideas of liberalism prevailing at the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. It gave priority to the idea of full rights and free movement of the market, seeking to regulate property rights and privileging individual possession.

The Lerdo Law did not imply eviction and expropriation, it admirably reconciled the interests of the people, the treasury and the clergy. Its key was to limit the patrimonial capacity of the Church, which was confirmed in article 27 of the Federal Constitution of 1857, where religious corporations were expressly prohibited from acquiring or managing real estate, except for buildings intended immediately and directly for the service or purpose of the institution. It is one of the liberal laws that shaped the new legal and social order within Mexican federalism, consolidating a transformation in terms of property rights. Many of the properties were auctioned to foreigners and nationals resulting in the formation of large estates.

The reformists knew what the reaction would be to face. Opponents used every means to thwart the reforms, portraying them as something diabolical and exciting the people, especially the indigenous communities. Conservatives and the Catholic Church resorted to any subterfuge to try to evade the law.

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