Valentín Gómez Farías

Infobox_President
name = Valentín Gómez Farías


order = President of Mexico
term_start = 01 April 1833
term_end = 15 May 1833
successor = Antonio López de Santa Anna
predecessor = Manuel Gómez Pedraza
term_start1 = 03 June 1833
term_end1 = 18 June 1833
predecessor1 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
successor1 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
term_start2 = 05 July 1833
term_end2 = 27 October 1833
predecessor2 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
successor2 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
term_start3 = 16 December 1833
term_end3 = 24 April 1834
predecessor3 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
successor3 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
term_start4 = 24 December 1846
term_end4 = 21 March 1847
predecessor4 = José Mariano Salas
successor4 = Antonio López de Santa Anna
birth_date = birth date|1781|02|14|df=y
birth_place = Guadalajara, Mexico
death_date = death date and age|1858|07|05|1781|02|14|df=y
death_place = Mexico, Mexico
spouse = Isabel López
party = Liberal

Valentín Gómez Farías (14 February 1781 – 5 July 1858) was several times acting president of Mexico in the 1830s and 1840s.

The first presidency of Santa Anna from 1833 to 1836 was a temporary victory for the Mexican Liberals. In his first term, Santa Anna preferred simply holding the title of President rather than actually acting within the office. With President Santa Anna residing at his estate in Veracruz and uninterested in administering his government, the actual executive duties fell to the Vice President Valentín Gómez Farías, who used this power to sponsor Liberal Reforms specifically targeting the army and the church.

Hoping to prevent future coups and to limit the political influence of the Mexican Army, the Gómez Farías administration reduced the size of the military and abolished the fueros (privileges) that excluded military officers from civil trials and laws. Their attacks on the Roman Catholic Church were more severe. Following the reform models of the Bourbon monarchs a century earlier, Gómez Farías questioned the usefulness of the Mexican clergy and sought to limit their political and economic power. Initially, the Goméz Farías administration advised Catholic clerics to limit their sermons to religious concerns rather than including political commentaries.

When this order to the Church did not stir the Conservatives against them, Goméz Farías along with his principal advisors, the moderate Liberal [http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Luis_Mora|José María Luis Mora] and the radical Liberal Lorenzo de Zavala, then pressured the Mexican Congress to pass a series of anti-clerical measures. The first of these anti-clerical measures was to secularize Mexican education. The University of Mexico, its faculty consisting primarily of priests, was closed and reorganized.

When these educational reforms did not provoke an immediate backlash by the Conservatives, the new secular schools organized by the Goméz Farías administration were central to the education and political views of the following generation of Liberals, including the future president Benito Juárez and the reformer Melchor Ocampo. Finally, the administration declared that all clerical appointments within Mexico were to be made by the government of the Republic rather than by the Papacy. This practice was not itself novel, but had its roots in Papal approved policies of the Spanish colonial government

These reforms raised little criticism or response from political opponents, and the Goméz Farías government enacted its final clerical reforms, over the disapproval of José María Luis Mora. Ideologically, Zavala and Mora disagreed on several key issues, such as popular political action and the question of Church wealth. The last reforms, inspired by Lorenzo Zavala, abolished mandatory tithes and seized Church property and funds. When Vice President Goméz Farías and his Congress struck at the economic health of the Roman Catholic Church, the Conservatives, the Church, and the Army quickly responded by calling for the removal of the Liberal government.

Ironically enough, the Conservatives asked President Santa Anna to lead them. Santa Anna, who had been a supporter of the Liberal cause since 1821, changed his sympathies in the wake of the Goméz Farías Reforms. Denouncing the Vice President and his administration, Santa Anna removed the Republic’s leaders, a practice he would continue until the 1850s.

Santa Anna formed a new, openly Conservative, Catholic and Centralist government, forcing Goméz Farías and many of his supporters to flee Mexico for the United States. The new presidency’s first actions abolished the Constitution of 1824, rescinded the Liberal Reforms enacted by Goméz Farías, and created a new constitution.

External links

* [http://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q=valentin+farias&t=text&q2=%22LDO%22&t2=collection Letters of Valentín Gómez Farías] hosted by the [http://texashistory.unt.edu/ Portal to Texas History] .