There an older sister gave him refuge and found him a job working inn the home of a Franciscan lay brother whop did bookbinding in his spare time. In return for work, the Franciscan paid Benito's first schooling, which eventually led him to study law. Benito received his certificate in 1831 at the age of twenty-five. Early on he was attracted to letters and to the law, and it was certainly not hard to develop the sense of injustice in Mexican society and of the need for reform that marked his career.
Even as he entered politics in Oaxaca, successively being elected to the city council, state legislature, and eventually the governorship (1848), he found time to defend poor people exploited by members of the clergy who demanded exorbitant fees for the sacraments, and to protest the actions of the local landholding elites against the poorer villagers and farmers, most of them Amerindians.
By the early 1850s Juarez's liberal credentials were well established, and when Santa Ana returned to power one last time, he had Juarez arrested and exiled. Juarez Found other liberals in New Orleans, where he joined them in plotting the overthrow of this last Santa Ana dictatorship. The exiles drew up a statement of principles that evolved into another one of Mexico's famous plans, this one the Plan of Ayutla. It was, as usual, a call for insurrection, outlining grievances and offering solutions. For Santa Anna, it was the beginning of the end. He resigned and went into exile for the last time in 1855. For Juarez and his Liberals, it was the beginning of a prolonged internecine war that savaged Mexico from 1858 to 1860.
It was not long before the Liberals an Juarez, the secretary of justice, struck at some of their favorite Conservative targets. The Constitution of 1857 was a Liberal instrument, and it attacked the Church and the rights and privileges of both the military and the clergy. The Conservative reaction was violent and led to civil war.