Expropriation of Church Property in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Colombia: A Comparison

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Abstract
Among the major sources of conflict between liberals and conservatives in nineteenth-century Latin America was the controversy over the relationship between Church and State and the position of the Church in the newly independent states. Not infrequently the issues occasioned violence and bloodshed and long periods of instability while the conservative defenders of a privileged Church disputed with reforming liberals attempting to enforce their ideas. Such was the case in Colombia and Mexico when liberalism reached its apogee in the middle of the nineteenth century. In both countries there had been many years of conflict between conservatives who were generally pro-clerical and espoused centralist ideas about government and liberals who were anti-clerical and favored federalism. The liberals also believed in legal equality, the sanctity of private property, individualism, laissez faire, and the necessity of limiting the Church to a purely spiritual role in society. Although liberals in both countries had achieved national power prior to the 1850’s, the Mexican Constitution of 1857 and the Colombian Rionegro Constitution of 1863 symbolized the liberals’ victory and enshrined their principles; for years those constitutions provided the rallying point for liberals against the opposition.