José María Luis Mora Lamadrid (12 October 1794 – 14 July 1850[1]) was a priest, lawyer, historian, politician and liberal ideologist.

His family lost its wealth during the 1810 revolt of Father Miguel Hidalgo, but Mora gained access to the prestigious ex-Jesuit academy of Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City, where he studied theology.

Blocked from advance within the Catholic Church, he turned in 1821 to secular political matters, becoming a journalist and following Mexican independence in September 1821, a liberal politician shaping the newly sovereign state.

[4] In 1823 Mora advocated for the curricular reform of San Ildefonso to emphasize more modern approaches to learning in Spanish, rather than rote memorization and emphasis on Latin.

In Benjamin Constant, Mora saw a thinker who in post-revolutionary France sought to guarantee the rights of the individual against the strength of popular sovereignty, which he opposed because it led to the bloody excesses of the French Revolution, favoring instead a Constitutionalist system.

Historian Charles A. Hale contends that Mora's drive to use the strong state to effect reform undermined basic tenets of liberal thought such as individual rights and laissez-faire.

[9] Owing to ongoing political unrest Mora became disillusioned with constitutionalism and therefore increasingly focused his sights on breaking the privileged position of the Roman Church and the army.

[10] Mora supported vice president Valentín Gómez Farías, who was Antonio López de Santa Anna's running mate.

However, Conservatives and the military, led by Antonio López de Santa Anna, opposed the Gómez Farías reform program and forced the vice president to resign in early 1834.