José María Luis Mora

José María Luis Mora Lamadrid (12 October 1794, Chamacuero, Guanajuato - 14 July 1850, Paris, France) was a priest, lawyer, historian, politician and liberal ideologue. Considered one of the first supporters of liberalism in Mexico, he fought for the separation of church and state. Mora has been deemed "the most significant liberal spokesman for his generation [and] his thought epitomizes the structure and the predominant orientation of Mexican liberalism."

Born in 1794 during Spanish colonial rule of Mexico, Mora came from a prosperous American-born Spanish (criollo) family from the Guanajuato. 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. In 1820 he received his doctorate and ordination to the priesthood. He was a faculty member at the colegio and also served as librarian. He became a deacon in the archbishopric of Mexico, the seat of ecclesiastical power, but did not rise in the hierarchy. 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. 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.

After the proclamation of the republic in Mexico in 1824, he was one of the drafters of the Constitution of the State of Mexico and was a member of the state congress. He criticized the Mexican Constitution of 1824 as incoherent and because its protection of Roman Catholicism as the sole religion rather allowing religious freedom. He opposed the expulsion of Spaniards in Mexico, and used the newspaper he edited, El Observador, funded by the wealthy Fagoaga family to support the post-independence presence of Spaniards in Mexico. As a journalist, he advocated for the Scottish Rite Masons. He was an opponent of the populist former insurgent leader Vicente Guerrero, who came to power in 1829, and therefore supported the coup of Anastasio Bustamante to oust Guerrero from the presidency. However, When Bustamante became a military dictator, Mora opposed him too.

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