Juárez did not continue as Minister of Justice, and spent the pivotal year of 1856, peacefully retired in Oaxaca, although continuing to correspond with his Liberal allies in Mexico City as they continued their aims in furthering La Reforma. Juárez personally lobbied for a measure expelling the Jesuits from Mexico which was passed in June, 1856.Meanwhile, the Mexican Congress was drafting a new Constitution which integrated into itself the Ley Juárez along with the Ley Lerdo, which with the aim of selling them off to stimulate economic development, had nationalized most of the Catholic Church's properties, along with the communal properties of Mexico's Indigenous communities. The new constitution which would come to be known as the Constitution of 1857, was promulgated on 5 February 1857, with the aim of coming into effect on Mexican Independence Day, 16 September of that year. It had abandoned Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and aimed to establish religious freedom, freedom of association, civil rights, the abolition of monopolies, and the abolition of hereditary privileges.
Juárez did not continue as Minister of Justice, and spent the pivotal year of 1856, peacefully retired in Oaxaca although continuing to correspond with his Liberal allies in Mexico City as they continued their aims in furthering La Reforma. Juárez personally lobbied for a measure expelling the Jesuits from Mexico which was passed in June, 1856.Meanwhile, the Mexican Congress was drafting a new Constitution which integrated into itself the Ley Juárez along with the Ley Lerdo, which with the aim of selling them off to stimulate economic development, had nationalized most of the Catholic Church's properties, along with the communal properties of Mexico's Indigenous communities. The new constitution which would come to be known as the Constitution of 1857, was promulgated on 5 February 1857, with the aim of coming into effect on Mexican Independence Day 16 September of that year. It had abandoned Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and aimed to establish religious freedom, freedom of association, civil rights, the abolition of monopolies, and the abolition of hereditary privileges