Valentín Gómez Farías (Spanish pronunciation: [balenˈtiŋ ˈɡomes faˈɾias]; 14 February 1781 – 5 July 1858) was a Mexican physician and liberal politician who became president of Mexico twice, first from 1833 to 1834, during the period of the First Mexican Republic, and again from 1846 to 1847, during the Mexican–American War.
Gómez Farías was elected to his first term in March 1833 along with Antonio López Santa Anna, with whom he would share the presidency. Both Congress and the administration elected during his term were notably Liberal, and pursued curtailing the political power of the Mexican Army and Catholic Church. Measures to prosecute members of the previous, conservative and autocratic presidency of Anastasio Bustamante were also carried out, but Gómez Farías sought to moderate them. Conservative revolts against these policies flared up, and eventually Gómez Farías' own vice-president Santa Anna switched sides and led his deposing in April 1834.
In the wake of Gómez Farías' fall, the First Mexican Republic was replaced by the Centralist Republic of Mexico. Gómez Farías would continue to support a return to the federalist system and in 1840 he led a failed revolt against the government of Anastasio Bustamante who had returned to the presidency, culminating in a siege of the National Palace.
The federal system eventually would be restored in 1846 after the beginning of the Mexican–American War, and in the subsequent presidential elections Gómez Farías would be re-elected along with Santa Anna who was now a supporter of federalism and with whom Gómez Farías had reconciled. They proceeded to share power as they had during their first administration. In order to fund the war effort, the Gómez Farías administration in January, 1847 nationalized and sold church lands. The measure was met with controversy and sparked revolts from Mexican conservatives. Meanwhile, Santa Anna was returning to Mexico City from the Battle of Buena Vista to focus on Winfield Scott's expedition at Veracruz. He received news of the revolt en route, and eventually took the role of arbitrator. Once again, Santa Anna would depose Gómez Farías after the two men had been elected together.
Gómez Farías did not disappear from public life, and in 1856, he was elected to the congress which inaugurated the pivotal La Reforma which led to the Constitution of 1857, incorporating many of the reforms he had first attempted during his presidencies. He died in 1858 during the Reform War.
Valentin Gómez Farías was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco on 14 February 1781.[4] He attended university in the same city, studying to be a physician. During his studies he learned French and read the Enlightenment works that were clandestinely being shared throughout New Spain at the time. His dissertation contained such a strong influence from Enlightenment authors that he managed to get the attention of the Mexican Inquisition, but no legal action was ever taken against him, and he opened a successful medical practice in Guadalajara.[5]
On October 17 1817, he married Isabel López in the city of Aguascalientes.[6]
In 1821, Mexican Independence was won under the leadership of Agustin de Iturbide through the Plan of Iguala which established the new nation as a monarchy. A congress was also elected to draft a constitution, a congress to which Gómez Farías was elected to. The original proposal for the throne was a member of the Spanish royal family, but after the Spanish government rejected the offer, Iturbide's supporters urged congress to elect him emperor. Among those supporting Iturbide at this time was Gómez Farías, who actually gave a speech in congress defending the right and legality of congress to elect Iturbide as Emperor, and Iturbide was subsequently elected as the emperor of the First Mexican Empire. The liberal Gómez Farías expected Iturbide to be a constitutional monarch, but in the subsequent months, Iturbide became increasingly autocratic, and viewed himself as sovereign over congress, even dissolving the body whereupon Gómez Farías turned on him.[7]
After the fall of the Mexican Empire in 1823, Gómez Farías supported the ultimately successful presidential candidacy of Guadalupe Victoria who was inaugurated as the first president of Mexico. When under liberal president Vicente Guerrero, Lorenzo de Zavala resigned as minister of the treasury, due to the fact that he was also governor of the state of Mexico at the time, Gómez Farías was given the offer to replace him, but he refused the post.[8]
When Santa Anna proclaimed the Plan of Veracruz against conservative president Anastasio Bustamante in 1832, Gómez Farías helped convince Governor Garcia of Zacatecas to side with the rebels.[9] The rebellion would rage for most of the year and end with the overthrow of the president. After the fall of Anastasio Bustamante, Gómez Farías supported the candidacy of Gomez Pedraza. Manuel Gomez Pedraza was invited to hold the presidential seat until the next scheduled elections which were on March, and he chose Gómez Farías as Minister of the Treasury.[10]
In the elections of March, 1833, Gómez Farías and Santa Anna would be elected president and vice president respectively. They would share and alternate offices, and when Gomez Pedraza's term legally ended on 1 April, he actually passed down power to Gómez Farías, as Santa Anna was not in the capital at the time. This has been suspected as a ploy by Santa Anna to gauge public opinion regarding Gómez Farías’ intended radical reforms aimed at the Catholic Church and at the army.[11]
With Gómez Farías’ ascension to power, the press started to become increasingly anticlerical. The clergy was accused of being worldly, greedy hypocrites, and the Bible was attacked as full of absurdities and falsehoods from an ignorant era.[12][13] The authority of the pope was also attacked.[14] Progressives proclaimed that Mexican independence was not only from Spain but from the pope as well, and the clergy were attacked as subject to a foreign power. Catholic priests were insulted and called ministers of Huītzilōpōchtli (who received human sacrifices), Pharisees, and aristocrats. Anti-clerical writers also quoted the speeches of the French Revolutionary Assembly in favor of their cause.[15]
Priests were placed under government surveillance.[16] Minister Miguel Ramos Arizpe decreed that papal bulls and other papal proclamations could not be published in Mexico without authority of the government. In keeping with the political atmosphere, it was proposed that congress take no break during Holy Week of 1833, but the measure failed to pass.[17]
The state of Mexico at this time governed by Lorenzo de Zavala, lifted the legal obligations to pay tithes. The congress of Veracruz and other state legislatures passed decrees to seize the goods of religious communities, and then the state of Veracruz suppressed all monasteries. This only provoked fears that the government was about to suppress all religion, and Gómez Farías had to release a message explaining that he had no such intentions.[17]
On 27 October 1833, a measure was passed lifting the legal obligation to pay tithes nationally. A commission of the chamber of deputies recommended nationalizing all church properties, but this was not passed as a law. On 6 November 1833, the legal obligation to fulfill monastic vows was lifted. On 17 December 1833, a measure was passed granting the Mexican government the power to make appointments to the church hierarchy, the so-called patronato. Previous appointments that had been made without government approval were declared annulled.[18]
The reformers hoped that removing the legal obligation to pay tithes would starve the church of funds, but most people kept paying them. Similarly most monks and nuns stayed in their religious communities in spite of now being legally allowed to leave.[19]
In October, clergy were then forbidden from teaching, and the University of Mexico was shut down due to being run by the church. The chapel of the university was turned into a brewery. In 1834, the anti-clerical campaign reached the height of its intensity. Religious feasts and their accompanying celebrations were suppressed throughout the country, and clergy were forbidden from forming cofraternities without a government license. In some local cases monasteries and churches were seized. Some churches were turned into theaters.[20]
When Gómez Farías first came into power, all of Anastasio Bustamante’s former ministers went into hiding, with the exception of Rafael Mangino y Mendívil, the former minister of the treasury. A tribunal was formed to judge former members of the Bustamante administration. On 23 June 1833, amidst insurrections flaring up all over the country, the congress passed a law, the so-called Ley del Caso authorizing the arrest and exile for six years of fifty one individuals considered enemies of the government among them, ex-president Bustamante, José Mariano Michelena, Zenon Fernandez, Francisco Molinos del Campo, Jose Maria Gutierrez Estrada, and Miguel Santa María.[21] Santa Maria published a pamphlet criticizing the government for filling the prisons with political dissidents.[22] The Ley del Caso was passed against the opposition of Gómez Farías who wished to be more moderate with his opposition. He was also opposed to the death penalty for political offenses.[23]
The government also began purging the army of undesirable generals,[22] measures which had begun under Gomez Pedraza,[24] and which were reviled as arbitrary, inspiring opposition against the government amongst the military.
On 26 May, in Morelia, Colonel Ignacio Escalada pronounced against the government, and invited Santa Anna to join him in overthrowing Gómez Farías. Santa Anna did not acquiesce, took arms against other insurrections that were flaring up across the country. Escalada would be defeated by General Valencia.[25]
At this point, Santa Anna's own troops mutinied against him on 6 June, at Xuchi, and he was taken to Yautepec. They proclaimed him dictator however and wished to join the rebels. The rebellion spread to the capital and on 7 June, soldiers and police revolted and began to attack the National Palace, only to be defeated.[26]
Gómez Farías organized six thousand troops, put the capital under martial law, and rewards were offered for anyone that helped Santa Anna escape. Meanwhile, Santa Anna after noticing the failure of the insurrection at the capital, escaped from his rebel troops, and returned to the government.[27]
On 10 July, Santa Anna marched out of the capital with two thousand four hundred men and six pieces of artillery. He drove the rebel general Mariano Arista, who had initially invited Santa Anna to join the rebels into Guanajuato where the latter surrendered on 8 October. The country was pacified for the moment.[28]
Santa Anna had already rejected multiple offers to join in overthrowing Gómez Farías, but in 1834, as there was increasing backlash against the anti-clerical campaign, as his estate at Manga del Clavo was being flooded with pleas from all over the country to restrain Gómez Farías and Congress, and as there was ongoing infighting among Gómez Farías’ progressive supporters, Santa Anna decided in April to finally take action.[29]
Congress was dissolved, the patronato was annulled, bishops who had been in hiding were restored to their sees. The tribunal for judging former members of the Bustamante administration was abolished, the University of Mexico was restored, and those who were exiled were allowed to come home.[30]
Gómez Farías would leave Mexico and move to New Orleans where he lived off of his savings. He would return in 1838, and was greeted by his supporters at Veracruz. When he entered the capital, some members of the public cheered their old president. Gómez Farías was legally permitted to be in the country, but after learning of the clamor with which he was greeted, the council of ministers passed a resolution to keep him under surveillance. [31]
Gómez Farías was able to meet with President Bustamante, whom he had helped overthrow in 1832, and assured him that he would respect the government. The government arrested him on suspicion of sedition anyways, and Gómez Farías admitted to the judge that he had held political meetings at his home. Farias was nonetheless shortly released as a result of one of Bustamante's short lived ministries whom were sympathetic to federalism.[31]
Meanwhile, a conspiracy was being organized by the Federalist General José de Urrea, who had already tried to overthrow Bustamante in 1838. He was imprisoned but had kept in communication with his federalist associates and on 15 July 1840, he escaped from prison. With a few hundred troops, Urrea broke into the National Palace, snuck past sleeping palace guards, overpowered Bustamante's private bodyguard, and surprised the president in his bedchambers. As Bustamante reached for his sword, Urrea announced his presence, to which the president replied with an insult. The soldiers aimed their muskets at Bustamante, but were restrained by their officer who reminded them that Bustamante had once been Iturbide's second in command. The president was assured that his person would be respected, but was now a prisoner of the rebels. Almonte, the minister of war had meanwhile escaped to organize a rescue.[32]
The rebels now offered command of the revolution to Gómez Farías and he accepted. Government and federalist forces converged at the capital. Federalists occupied the entire vicinity of the National Palace while government forces prepared their positions for an attack. Skirmishes broke out the entire afternoon, sometimes involving artillery. A cannonball crashed through the dining room where the captive president was having dinner, covering his table with debris.[33]
The conflict appeared to be reaching a stalemate, and the president was released in order to try and reach a negotiation. Negotiations broke down and the capital had to face twelve days of warfare, which resulted in property damage, civilian loss of life, and a large exodus of refugees out of the city. Now news was received that government reinforcements were on the way under the command of Santa Anna. Rather than face a protracted conflict that would destroy the capital, negotiations were started again and an agreement was reached whereby there would be a ceasefire, and the rebels would be granted amnesty.[34]
Gómez Farías went into hiding, and on 2 September, he left for Veracruz. He headed then to New York and then to Yucatán which at this point had declared independence and advocated a return to the federalist system. He lived there for two years and then moved back to New Orleans, finally returning to Mexico in 1845, after the overthrow of Santa An