Throughout this trying time Juarez defended his position vigorously and rejected every offer of compromise.

In 1859 he promulgated his famous Reform Laws which nationalized ecclesiastical property, secularized cemeteries, suppressed religious communities, granted freedom of worship, and made marriage a civil contract.

For Mexico, however, as for other Spanish American countries, measures of the sort were far too much in advance of their time to insure a ready acceptance.

Although Juarez obtained a great moral victory when his government was recognized by the United States, he had to struggle two years more before he could gain possession of the capital.

Triumphant in 1861, he carried his anticlerical program to the point of actually expelling the Papal Nuncio and other ecclesiastics who refused to obey his decrees.