a foreign intervention supported by Mexican conservatives. Pragmatic politicians, preeminently Benito Juárez, born in a Zapotec village in Oaxaca, as well as Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, his brother Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, and Melchor Ocampo aimed at transforming liberal ideas into legislation and reform. They were all guided by liberal principles and fought for them. Liberals enacted reform laws to curtail the power of the Church and the army in the Juárez Law (1856) and undermined the Church's economic power with the 1856 Lerdo Law, which prohibited corporations—the Roman Catholic Church, as well as indigenous communities—for holding title to land. In 1857, liberals drafted and promulgated a new constitution and required Mexicans to take an oath of fealty to it. Many in the army opposed the Liberal Reform and the Catholic hierarchy in November 1857 forbade Catholics from taking the oath or face ex-communication. Moderate liberal politician, Ignacio Comonfort sought to forge a middle ground when General Félix Zuloaga promulgated the Plan of Tacubaya, which declared the liberal constitution nullified, but allowed President Comonfort to retain his office and with enhanced powers. Comonfort signed onto the plan and many liberals were jailed, including Juárez. When it quickly became clear that Comonfort's hope to chart a middle course between conservatives and liberals had failed, he resigned from the presidency after freeing the jailed liberals. Benito Juárez had been head of the Supreme Court and with Comonfort's resignation, he succeeded to the presidency as Mexico was plunged into civil war. With the ouster of the French in 1867 and the discrediting of Mexican conservatives who had supported the regime of foreign monarch Maximilian I of Mexico, Juárez, and his successor following his death of natural causes in 1872, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada could implement the Reform laws passed in the 1850s. With religious toleration mandated, the Roman Catholic Church was no longer the sole spiritual institution in Mexico; it was excluded from its former role as the only educators of the nation; and its economic power was diminished. With that major liberal victory won, a third generation of liberals emerged during the presidency of liberal general and military hero of the Second French intervention in Mexico, Porfirio Díaz (r. 1876–1911). During the Porfiriato, a new group of liberals in name only, the "científicos," were influenced by the Positivism of French philosopher Auguste Comte, and Saint-Simon, scientist Charles Darwin, and Herbert Spencer, known