The constitution was designed to guarantee a limited central government by federalism and created a strong national congress, an independent judiciary, and a small executive to prevent a dictatorship.

The losing conservatives sought another way back into power, and their politicians invited Maximilian I of Mexico, a Habsburg, to establish a Mexican monarchy with the Church's support.

Having overthrown the dictatorship of Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1855, liberals sought to implement their ideology in new laws and briefly had Juan Álvarez in the presidency.

The following year, the incumbent president, Ignacio Comonfort, endorsed the call to move the headquarters to Mexico City.

During the sessions of Congress, an insurrection for the clergy supported by conservatives, the staunchest opponents of the liberals, gathered force in Zacapoaxtla and Puebla.

These were most relevant articles: Despite problems in Texas, some deputies unsuccessfully proposed a law granting certain rights to foreign colonization by arguing that the country needed to be settled.

[4] In 1841, Mexican justice Manuel Crescencio Rejón (Spanish: Manuel Crescencio García Rejón) was instrumental in placing the inaugural Amparo in the constitution of the Republic of Yucatán (now the State of Yucatán), a procedure adopted to strengthen the judicial enforcement of individual rights in that state.

[12][13][14] In 1847, Rejón (from Yucatán) and Mariano Otero (considered the "second father of Amparo[15]) were members of the six-member committee appointed to draft up the new 1857 Federal Constitution, that abrogated the Seven Laws ("Siete Leyes").

[28] The first Amparo Law had little effect due to the French intervention,[29] first by the war in which the nation was then engaged, and later by the establishment of the Empire under Maxmilian of Austria which suspended constitutional government.

[31] This law was more simple in its procedure, establishing a single suit to be judged in a summary proceeding by the district courts of the federal judiciary.

[49] In December 1856, Pope Pius IX denounced the new Constitution and criticized the Juárez Law and the Lerdo Law: "All privileges of ecclesiastical jurisdiction are removed; it establishes that no one can absolutely enjoy emoluments that are a serious burden for society; everyone who can be bound by any obligation that implies either a contract, or a promise, or religious vows is prohibited; the free exercise of all cults is admitted, and everyone is granted the full power to manifest publicly and openly all kinds of opinions and thoughts."

In March 1857, Archbishop José Lázaro de la Garza y Ballesteros stated that Catholics could not swear allegiance to the Constitution on pain of excommunication.

[4] In Mexico, the Congress presided over by Valentín Gómez Farías and the head of the Executive Comonfort swore the Constitution on 5 February 1857, which was promulgated on 11 March.

Despite the fact that Comonfort won the elections, and that in December he should extend his mandate for a new presidential term, he considered that his popularity was seriously affected by the constitutional reforms in religious matters.

States of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Michoacán, Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Colima and Veracruz supported the liberal government of Benito Juárez and the Constitution of 1857.

States of México, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, Durango, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Sonora, Sinaloa, Oaxaca and Yucatán supported the conservative government of Zuloaga.

In 1867 the liberal, republican forces succeeded in ousting the monarchy, and restored the Republic and bringing the constitution into effect.

Less well known is that Reform liberals, including Benito Juárez and Ignacio Comonfort saw the flaws of the 1857 constitution, which undercut the power of the executive.

Venustiano Carranza initially opposed calls for drafting an entirely new constitution in 1916, but advisers convinced him that doing that would be far easier than doing piecemeal amendments to the lengthy and complex charter for the nation.