Reform Before La Reforma: Liberals, Conservatives and the Debate over Immigration, 1846––1855

Abstract

This article examines some of the key points attributed to the Liberal Reform of 1857 as they appeared in the debate over immigration policy in Mexico from 1836 to 1855. It argues that many of the key provisions of reform that are attributed to the radical Liberals of 1857 were, in fact, part of a more broad-ranging and moderate debate for decades before. In this manner, immigration policy debates often served as a ““test balloon““for what would later be defined as the essential points of liberalism.