| Constitution of Cádiz | |
|---|---|
 Original version of the Constitution kept in theSenate of Spain | |
| Cortes of Cádiz | |
| |
| Territorial extent |  Spanish Empire |
| Passed | 19 March 1812 |
| Enacted | 12 March 1812 |
| Signed by | President of the Cortes of Cádiz 174 deputies 4 secretaries |
| Effective | 19 March 1812 (first time) 1 January 1820 (second time,de facto) 1836 (third time,de facto) |
| Repealed | 4 May 1814 (first time) April 1823 (second time) 18 June 1837 (third time) |
ThePolitical Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy (Spanish:Constitución Política de la Monarquía Española), also known as theConstitution of Cádiz (Spanish:Constitución de Cádiz) and nicknamedLa Pepa,[1] was the firstConstitution of Spain and one of the earliest codifiedconstitutions in world history.[2] The Constitution was ratified on 19 March 1812 by theCortes of Cádiz, the first Spanish legislature that included delegates from the entire nation and its possessions, includingSpanish America and thePhilippines. "It defined Spanish and Spanish American liberalism for the early 19th century."[3]
With the notable exception of proclaimingRoman Catholicism as the official and sole legal religion in Spain, the Constitution was one of the mostliberal of its time: it affirmednational sovereignty,separation of powers,freedom of the press,free enterprise, abolished corporate privileges (fueros), and established aconstitutional monarchy with aparliamentary system. It was one of the first constitutions that alloweduniversal male suffrage, with some exceptions, through a complexindirect electoral system. It extended political rights for representation to Spanish America and the Philippines, a significant step for the demands of overseas-born Spaniards.[4]
WhenKing Ferdinand VII returned to power in 1814, he dissolved the Cortes and abrogated the constitution, re-establishingabsolute monarchy. The constitution was reinstated during theTrienio Liberal (1820–1823) and again in 1836–1837 while theProgressives prepared theConstitution of 1837. It was an important model for later constitutions in Spain and Spanish America.[5] However, during the interim, in 1815, a fresh wave of military conflict unfolded as Ferdinand VII dispatched Royalist troops to reclaim control of the Americas. This era is commonly labeled as the restoration or the re-conquest. Reflections on these terms, however, delve into differences between the two. All in all, being pondered whether this period should be viewed as a restoration of Spanish authority or a re-conquest of territories.[6]
Until theNapoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808, Ferdinand VII ruled as an absolute monarch.Napoleon forced Ferdinand's abdication as well as the renunciation of his fatherCharles IV's rights, and then placed his brotherJoseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne.
Seeking to create legitimacy for Joseph I of Spain, Napoleon called the Cortes, whose delegates he had selected, to proclaim Joseph as the legitimate monarch. The Cortes then approved the French-styleBayonne Constitution and called for a Cortes with 172 members, of which 62 were to be from Spanish America. There was to be a Council of State with a section forThe Indies, the name Spain persisted in using for Spanish America and the Philippines, which would be under the control of American-born and Philippine-born Spaniards.[7] Despite these formal attempts to legitimize the rule of Joseph Bonaparte by gaining consent of the Cortes, it was rejected by Spaniards from the peninsula, as well as Spanish America and the Philippines. It had great importance, since it "set off a process that led to the collapse of the Spanish empire. The Napoleonic regime in Madrid forced two issues: the relative freedom of the colonies to pursue their own affairs, and the rights to representation in imperial assemblies."[8]
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As Spaniards in the peninsula and overseas grappled with the new political reality, for them it created a crisis of legitimacy of rule. Many places in Spain createdjuntas to rule in place of the legitimate monarch. ASupreme Central Junta was created to coordinate the multiplicity of juntas. Napoleon opened a new way for the Spanish Empire to be constituted. His vision acknowledged the aspirations of Spanish colonies for greater equality and autonomy. Spaniards rejecting Napoleon's rule meant they needed to offer political inducements for Spanish America and the Philippines to stay loyal to the empire. A new Cortes was called with delegates from Spain and overseas components of theSpanish Empire in the Americas and the Philippines. The Spanish organized an interim Spanish government, theSupreme Central Junta, and called for a Cortes to convene with representatives from all Spanish provinces in the empire, in order to establish a government with a firm claim to legitimacy. The Junta first met on 25 September 1808 inAranjuez and later inSeville, before retreating to Cádiz. Cádiz was the most secure place for the Cortes to take place, since it was a fortified port. Retreating before the advancing French and an outbreak ofyellow fever, theSupreme Central Junta moved toIsla de León, where it could be supplied and defended with the help of the Spanish and British navies, and abolished itself, leaving a regency to rule until the Cortes could convene. The Cortes of Cádiz crafted and adopted the Constitution whilebesieged by French troops, first on Isla de León (nowSan Fernando), then an island separated from the mainland by a shallow waterway on theAtlantic side of theBay of Cádiz, and within the small, strategically located city of Cádiz itself.
When the Cortes convened in Cádiz in 1810, there appeared to be two possibilities for Spain's political future if the French could be driven out. The first, represented especially byGaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, was the restoration of the absolutistAntiguo Régimen ("Old Regime"); the second was to adopt some sort of written constitution.
The Cortes did not have revolutionary intentions, since the Supreme Central Junta saw itself simply as a continuation of the legitimate government of Spain in the absence of a monarch considered legitimate. The opening session of the new Cortes was held on 24 September 1810 in the building now known as theReal Teatro de las Cortes. The opening ceremonies included a civicprocession, aMass, and a call by the President of theRegency, Pedro Quevedo y Quintana, theBishop of Ourense, for those present to fulfill their task loyally and efficiently. Still, the very act of resistance to the French involved a certain degree of deviation from the doctrine of royalsovereignty: if sovereignty resided entirely in the monarch, then Charles and Ferdinand's abdications in favor of Napoleon would have made Joseph Bonaparte the legitimate ruler of Spain.[9]
The representatives who gathered at Cádiz were far more liberal than the elite of Spain as a whole, and they produced a document far more liberal than might have been produced in Spain were it not for the war. Few of the most conservative voices were at Cádiz, and there was no effective communication with King Ferdinand, who was a virtual prisoner in France. In the Cortes of 1810–1812, the majority were liberal deputies with the implicit support of the British protecting the city, while representatives of the Church and nobility constituted a minority. Liberals wanted equality before the law, a centralized government, an efficient modern civil service, a reform of the tax system, the replacement offeudal privileges byfreedom of contract, and the recognition of the property owner's right to use his property as he saw fit. Three basic principles were soon ratified by the Cortes: thatsovereignty resides in the nation, the legitimacy ofFerdinand VII as King of Spain, and theinviolability of the deputies. With this, the first steps towards a political revolution were taken, since prior to the Napoleonic intervention, Spain had been ruled as an absolute monarchy by theBourbons and theirHapsburg predecessors. Although the Cortes was not unanimous in its liberalism, the new Constitution significantly reduced the power of the Crown and theCatholic Church (although Catholicism remained thestate religion).
As the principal aim of the new constitution was the prevention of arbitrary and corrupt royal rule, it provided for a limited monarchy, which governed through ministers subject to parliamentary control. It laid out the structure of the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial.[citation needed]
The constitution has 384 articles in 10 major chapters (or Títulos). Chapter I was Of the Spanish Nation and Spaniards (articles 1–9). Chapter II (articles 12–26) was Of the Spanish Territory, Religion, Government and Rights of Citizenship. Chapter III (articles 27–167) dealt with the Cortes, the legislative branch of government. Chapter IV Of the King (articles 168–241) defined the powers of and the restrictions on the monarchy. Chapter V Of the Tribunals, and Administration of Civil and Criminal Justice (articles 242–308) concerned how laws would be administered by specific courts. Chapter VI Of the Internal Government of Provinces and of the Pueblos (articles 309–323) lays out governance at the provincial and local level. Chapter VII Of the Financial Contributions (articles 338–355) dealt with taxation. Chapter VIII Of the National Military Force (articles 356–365) specified how the military would operate. Chapter IX Of Public Education (articles 366–371) called for uniform public education from primary schools through university, as well as freedom of expression (article 371). Chapter X Of the Observance of the Constitution and the Way to Proceed to Amend it (articles 366–384).[10] The constitution had nobill of rights, which had been the case of theConstitution of the United States when it was first ratified. Rights and obligations of citizens were embedded in individual articles of the Spanish Constitution.[citation needed]
Malesuffrage, which was not determined by property qualifications, favoured the position of thecommercial class in the new parliament since there was no special provision for the Church or the nobility. Repeal of traditional property restrictions gave liberals the freer economy that they wanted. There was no provision for literacy of voters until 1830, which allowed men in the popular groups access to suffrage.[11] The constitution set up a centralized administrative system for the whole empire, in both Iberia and overseas components, based on newly-reformed and uniform provincial governments and municipalities, rather than maintaining some form of the varied historical local governmental structures.
The first provincial government created under the Constitution was in the province of Guadalajara con Molina. Its deputation first met in the village ofAnguita in April 1813, since the capitalGuadalajara was the site of ongoing fighting.[citation needed]
Among the most debated questions during the drafting of the constitution was the status of thenative andmixed-race populations in Spain's possessions around the world. Most of the overseas provinces were represented, especially the most populous regions. Both theViceroyalty of New Spain and theViceroyalty of Peru haddeputies present, as didCentral America, the islands of theSpanish Caribbean,Florida,Chile,Upper Peru and thePhilippines.[12] The total number of representatives was 303, of which 37 were born in overseas territories although several of them were temporary substitute deputies [suplentes] elected by American refugees in the city of Cádiz: seven from New Spain, two from Central America, five from Peru, two from Chile, three from theRío de la Plata, three fromNew Granada, and three fromVenezuela, one fromSanto Domingo, two fromCuba, one fromPuerto Rico and two from the Philippines.[13] Although most of the overseas representatives wereCriollos, the majority wanted to extend suffrage to all indigenous, mixed-race and free black people of the Spanish Empire, which would have granted the overseas territories a majority in the future Cortes. The majority of representatives frompeninsular Spain opposed those proposals as they wished to limit the weight of non-peninsulares. According to the best estimates of the time, continental Spain had an estimated population of between 10 and 11 million, and the overseas provinces had a combined population of around 15 to 16 million.[14] The Cortes ultimately approved a distinction between nationality and citizenship (that is, those with the right to vote).[citation needed]
The Constitution gave Spanish citizenship to natives of the territories that had belonged to the Spanish monarchy in both hemispheres.[15] The Constitution of 1812 includedIndigenous peoples of the Americas to Spanish citizenship, but the acquisition of citizenship for anycasta ofAfro-American peoples of the Americas was throughnaturalization excludingslaves. Spanish nationals were defined as all people born, naturalized or permanently residing for more than ten years in Spanish territories.[16] Article 1 of the Constitution read: "The Spanish nation is the collectivity of the Spaniards of both hemispheres."[17] Voting rights were granted to Spanish nationals whose ancestry originated from Spain or the territories of the Spanish Empire.[18] That changed the legal status of the people not only in Peninsular Spain but also in Spanish possessions overseas. In the latter case, not only people of Spanish ancestry but also indigenous peoples as well were transformed from the subjects of an absolute monarch to the citizens of a nation rooted in the doctrine of national, rather than royal, sovereignty.[19] At the same time, the Constitution recognized thecivil rights of free blacks andmulatos but explicitly denied them automatic citizenship. Furthermore, they were not to be counted for the purposes of establishing the number of representatives a given province was to send to the Cortes.[20] That removed an estimated six million people from the rolls in the overseas territories. In part, that arrangement was a strategy by the peninsular deputies to achieve equality in the number of American and peninsular deputies in the future Cortes, but it also served the interests of conservative Criollo representatives, who wished to keep political power within a limited group of people.[21]
The peninsular deputies, for the most part, were also not inclined towards ideas offederalism promoted by many of the overseas deputies, which would have granted greater self-rule to the American and Asian territories. Most of thepeninsulares, therefore, shared the absolutists' inclination towardscentralized government.[22] Another aspect of the treatment of the overseas territories in the constitution, one of the many that would prove not to be to the taste of Ferdinand VII, that by converting the territories to provinces, the king was deprived of a great economic resource. Under theAntiguo Régimen, the taxes from Spain's overseas possessions went directly to the royal treasury. Under the Constitution of 1812, it would go to the state administrative apparatus.[citation needed]
The impact of the 1812 Constitution on the emerging states of Spanish America was quite direct.Miguel Ramos Arizpe of Mexico, Joaquín Fernández de Leiva of Chile, Vicente Morales Duárez ofPeru and José Mejía Lequerica ofEcuador, among other significant figures in founding Spanish American republics, were active participants at Cádiz. One provision of the Constitution (article 310) provided for the creation of a local government (anayuntamiento) for every settlement of over 1,000 people. The provision was designed to transform the institution from one controlled by elites to representative institutions through elections.[23] Elections were indirect, favouring the wealthy and socially prominent. The proposal came from Ramos Arizpe. That benefited thebourgeoisie at the expense of the hereditary aristocracy both on the Peninsula and in the Americas, where it was particularly to the advantage of the Criollos since they came to dominate theayuntamientos. InCuzco, the local elites welcomed the opportunity to participate in governance on the ayuntamiento. They distributed copies of the Constitution, allied with the provincial deputation and the cathedral chapter, all dominated by creoles, to oppose peninsular-born bureaucrats.[24] The Constitution also brought in a certain measure of federalism through the back door, both on the peninsula and overseas: elected bodies at the local and provincial level might not always be in lockstep with the central government.[citation needed]
The Constitution was signed in March 1812, but it was not promulgated immediately throughout the empire. In New Spain, ViceroyFrancisco Javier Venegas allowed the Constitution to be published on 19 September 1812. In Peru, the other major viceroyalty, ViceroyJosé Fernando Abascal had the Constitution published on 1 October 1812. Venegas had to deal immediately upon taking up his post as viceroy the massive uprising of FatherMiguel Hidalgo y Costilla that had broken out days earlier. The inexperienced Venegas scrambled to handle two major simultaneous crises of power: a rebellion and the promulgation of a new system of government under the Constitution. Abascal was able to control the electoral process and control of the press (article 371) despite the provisions of the Constitution mandating its freedom. The constitution was not promulgated inQuito until 18 July 1813.[25]
When Ferdinand VII was restored in March 1814 by the Allied Powers, it is not clear whether he immediately made up his mind as to whether to accept or reject this new charter of Spanish government. He first promised to uphold the constitution, but was repeatedly met in numerous towns by crowds who welcomed him as an absolute monarch, often smashing the markers that had renamed their central plazas as Plaza of the Constitution. Sixty-nine deputies of the Cortes signed the so-calledManifiesto de los Persas ("Manifesto of the Persians") encouraging him to restore absolutism. Within a matter of weeks, encouraged byconservatives and backed by theRoman Catholic Church hierarchy, he abolished the constitution on 4 May and arrested manyliberal leaders on 10 May, justifying his actions as the repudiation of an unlawful constitution made by a Cortes assembled in his absence and without his consent. Thus he came back to assert the Bourbon doctrine that the sovereign authority resided in his person only.[26]
Ferdinand's absolutist rule rewarded the traditional holders of power—prelates, nobles and those who held office before 1808—but not liberals, who wished to see aconstitutional monarchy in Spain, or many who led the war effort against the French but had not been part of the pre-war government. This discontent resulted in several unsuccessful attempts to restore the Constitution in the five years after Ferdinand's restoration. Finally on 1 January 1820Rafael del Riego, Antonio Quiroga and other officers initiated a mutiny of army officers in Andalusia demanding the implementation of the Constitution. The movement found support among the northern cities and provinces of Spain, and by 7 March the king had restored the Constitution. Over the next two years, the other European monarchies became alarmed at the liberals' success and at theCongress of Verona in 1822 approved theintervention of royalist French forces in Spain to support Ferdinand VII. After theBattle of Trocadero liberated Ferdinand from control by the Cortes in August 1823, he turned on the liberals and constitutionalists with fury. After Ferdinand's death in 1833, the Constitution was in force again briefly in 1836 and 1837, while the Constitution of 1837 was being drafted. Since 1812, Spain has had a total of seven constitutions; thecurrent one has been in force since 1978.[citation needed]
The Cortes of Cádiz produced the first written Spanish constitution, promulgated in Cádiz on 19 March 1812, and is regarded as the founding document of liberalism in Spain. It is one of the first examples ofclassical liberalism orconservative liberalism worldwide. It came to be called the "sacred code" of the branch of liberalism that rejected a part of theFrench Revolution. During the early nineteenth century it served as a model for liberal constitutions of several Mediterranean and Latin American nations. It served as the model for theNorwegian Constitution of 1814, thePortuguese Constitution of 1822 and theMexican one of 1824, and was implemented with minor modifications in various Italian states by theCarbonari during their revolt of 1820 and 1821.[27] The Plan de Iguala in Mexico in 1821 was a reaction to the Cadiz Constitution. Agustín de Iturbide did not like how the Spanish government was becoming more liberal; instead he wanted things to go back to the way they were. The Plan de Iguala increases the power of the Roman Catholic Church instead of decreasing it, and also called on the prince of Spain to come and rule over them.[28]
The Spanish pattern of conspiracy and revolt by liberal army officers ... was emulated in both Portugal and Italy. In the wake of Riego's successful rebellion, the first and only pronunciamiento in Italian history was carried out by liberal officers in theKingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Spanish-style military conspiracy also helped to inspire the beginning of the Russian revolutionary movement with the revolt of theDecembrist army officers in 1825. Italian liberalism in 1820–1821 relied on junior officers and the provincial middle classes, essentially the same social base as in Spain. It even used a Hispanized political vocabulary, for it was led bygiunte (juntas), appointed localcapi politici (jefes políticos), used the terms ofliberali andservili (emulating the Spanish word serviles applied to supporters of absolutism), and in the end talked of resisting by means of aguerrilla. For both Portuguese and Italian liberals of these years, the Spanish constitution of 1812 remained the standard document of reference.
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