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Veracruz

One of Juárez’s first challenges in the new capital was meeting French and English claims over loans that had been forced upon English and French merchants by the Liberal General Garza. Juárez warded off the threat of military intervention by recognizing the legitimacy of the claims.

The Conservatives meanwhile were suffering infighting, and after a series of victories, General Miguel Miramon became the new Conservative president on December, 1858. President Miramon gathered an army and prepared a siege of Veracruz.

On December 29, 1858, President Juárez called upon the inhabitants of Veracruz to prepare for an attack by collecting arms, provisions, and organizing fortifications. The first Conservative siege of Veracruz failed in March, 1859.

Meanwhile the Liberal armies were making advances upon Mexico City. General Degollado occupied the suburbs of Mexico City throughout February and March, 1859, only to be repulsed by the efforts of the Conservative General Marquez, who then gained infamy for shooting all of his prisoners of war in the suburb of Tacubaya.

Juárez remained entrenched in Vera Cruz. In the course of the war through 1859, the Liberals captured Mazatlan and Colima. By April, the United States had recognized the Liberal government as the legitimate government of Mexico and sent Robert Milligan McLane as its official representative.

On July 7, 1859, Juárez laid out an agenda of legislation decreeing the de jure separation of church and state, the greater independence of the judiciary, the expansion of affordable education, a program of road construction, a program of railroad construction, financial reform, the reduction of duties, the encouragement of foreign commerce, the subdivision of great estates to encourage peasant proprietorship, and the encouragement of immigration.

On July 12, a series of anti-clerical laws were passed adding upon those that had already been implemented as part of the Constitution of 1857. The properties of the Catholic Church were almost entirely nationalized, the responsibility of carrying out marriages was completely removed from the Catholic Church and was declared to be a purely civil contract, and the registration of births and deaths was also removed from the Church and handed over to the state. Furthermore monasteries were dissolved although nunneries were allowed to remain with the condition that they accept no more novices.