Source: Wikipedia
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy popularly known as the Pepa, 3 note 1 was promulgated by the Spanish Cortes General met extraordinarily in Cadiz on March 19, 1812. It has been granted great historical importance because it is the first Constitution promulgated in Spain, note 2 besides being one of the most liberal of its time.
The Constitution established sovereignty in the Nation -not in the king-, the constitutional monarchy, the separation of powers, 6 7 the limitation of the king’s powers, the indirect universal male suffrage, the freedom of the press, the freedom of industry, the right of property or the fundamental abolition of the manors, among other issues, for which «it did not incorporate a table of rights and freedoms, but it did pick up some rights scattered in its articles». In addition, it confirmed the Spanish citizenship for all those born in any territory of the Spanish crown, practically founding a single country along with the American, African and Asian provinces.8
On the contrary, the text consecrated Spain as a Catholic confessional state, expressly prohibiting in its twelfth article any other confession, 9 and the king continued to be «by the grace of God and the Constitution.» 10 Similarly, this The constitutional text did not contemplate the recognition of any rights for women, not even citizenship11 (the word «woman» itself is written only once, in an ancillary quotation within article twenty-two), although with this they were in full harmony with most of the Spanish and European society of the moment. However, it is recognized, in great esteem, its liberal character, its eagerness in the defense of individual rights, its position in wanting to modify obsolete institutions of the Old Regime, and in general, to collect regenerative measures focused, with an idealistic spirit , in improving society.12
The Cortes opened its doors on September 24, 1810 in the theater of comedies of the town of the Island of León, now San Fernando, to later move to the oratory of San Felipe Neri, in the city of Cádiz. There the elected deputies met by the decree of February 1810, which had called for elections both in the Peninsula and in the American and Asian territories. These were joined by alternates elected in the same Cadiz to cover the representation of those provinces of the monarchy occupied by French troops or by American insurgent movements. The courts, therefore, were composed of just over three hundred deputies, of which about sixty were Americans. Their principles were national sovereignty, equality before the law and the defense of private property.
The same state for both hemispheres in the 19th century
In the early days, there were American proposals aimed at abolishing the colonial fabric and laying the foundations of a national market with Hispanic dimensions that also covered the territories of America, with lower tariffs on American products, opening of more colonial ports for the trade, etcetera. A previous project in a century to the Commonwealth of Great Britain. The gaditanos decrees had a wide repercussion and transcendence during the later decades, as much in the peninsula as in America.
The Constitution was sworn in America, and its legacy is notorious in most of the republics that became independent between 1820 and 1830. And not only because it served them as a constitutional model, but also because this Constitution was thought, devised and drafted by American representatives as a global Hispanic and revolutionary project. Parliamentarians such as the Mexican Miguel Ramos Arizpe, the Chilean Fernández de Leiva, the Peruvian Vicente Morales Duárez, the Ecuadorian José Mejía Lequerica, among others, in later years became influential forgers of the national constitutions of their respective republics.
Undoubtedly, the fluid communication between America and the peninsula contributed to this, and vice versa: private letters, decrees, newspapers, newspapers, the Daily Court Sessions, pamphlets, flyers, business correspondence, literature, plays, songs patriotic, etcetera, that aboard Spanish, English or neutral ships reported on the events that occurred in one and another continent. There were ideas, but there was also action, given that municipal, provincial and Cortes electoral processes were called, and the elections were verified, which provoked an intense politicization in both spaces.
Also, the sending of numerary by consulates of commerce, owners of mines, landowners, patriotic collections, etc., to the peninsular Government was constant, and essential to pay for the intervention of the English, as well as the armament of the guerrilla partielleras after the defeat of the Spanish army in the battle of Ocaña, on November 19, 1809.
It is important to insist that these measures had the support of most of the Creole American bourgeoisie, in favor of the autonomist changes and not necessarily of an independence that would imply a complete break with the Monarchy.
Hispanic code
The product of this attempt at revolution was a constitution with clearly Hispanic characters. The constitutional debates began on August 25, 1811 and ended at the end of January 1812. The discussion took place in full siege of Cadiz by the French troops, a bombed city, overpopulated with refugees from all over Spain and with an epidemic of yellow fever . The heroism of its inhabitants remains for history.
The wording of article 1 is a clear example of the importance that America had for Spanish progress. It was the first, and therefore, the most important. This is his famous text:
The Spanish nation is the meeting of the Spaniards of both hemispheres.
The construction is defined from Hispanic parameters. The revolution begun in 1808 acquired, in 1812, other special characters than the purely peninsular ones. He referred to geographical dimensions that would make up Spain, the American, the Asian and the peninsular. The Spanish Nation was constitutionally defined.
Rights and colonies
The American question was raised, therefore, from the first article. The liberal state had ultra-oceanic parameters. The problem of its realization was evidenced in the discussion of the drafting of articles 10 and 11. For the first was established between Americans and peninsulares a first agreement to organize in the new state provinces. It is notorious that this first draft had the rejection of the Americans, dissatisfied with the manifest numerical difference in favor of the peninsular provinces against the Americans (which were equivalent to each Virreinato General Captaincy, while the peninsular provinces were identified with the kingdoms historical of Spain).
This would become a political issue, since the Americans claimed a greater number of provinces and a state organization that approached federalism. Article 11 temporarily solved the problem: after an intense debate, it was decided to delay the definitive structure of the State for a later law, when the «circumstances of the nation» -the urgency in the metropolis to combat the French invasion, the American urgency of fight with the insurgency – guarantee a peaceful discussion. The Chamber recognized in practice its inability to define the territories of its State. And this problem surged, we insist, by the incorporation of America as a set of provinces in equal rights and representation in the Spanish national state.
Other articles were especially significant, such as the 18th and the 29th. In the first it was said that «Those Spaniards are citizens who, by both lines, bring their origin from the Spanish dominions of both hemispheres, and are settled in any town of the same domains» , and in the second, by making explicit the art. 28 («The basis for national representation is the same in both hemispheres»), it is said that «This base is the population composed of the natives who, from both lines, originate from the Spanish domains, and from those who have obtained from the Citizen letter cuts, as well as those included in art. twenty-one».
Spanish nation in both hemispheres according to the Constitution of 1812.
Of special importance were the constitutional articles referring to town councils and provincial councils, in whose wording the commission adopted the Report presented by Miguel Ramos de Arizpe, deputy for Coahuila, for the organization and political government of the Internal Provinces of the East of New Spain. It was of vital importance to unravel an important aspect of the revolutionary process of the peninsula and America, as was, from constitutional sanction, the creation of town halls in all populations that had at least 1000 inhabitants. The proposal came from Miguel Ramos de Arizpe himself. This provoked an explosion of city councils in the peninsula and, especially, in America, when proceeding, after the approval of the Constitution, to call municipal elections through universal and indirect male suffrage. This would be a key aspect for the consolidation of local Creole power and a direct attack on the privileged jurisdictional rights of the aristocracy, a fundamental aspect to end the manorial regime in the peninsula and with the colonial in America. That American support for the Constitution was articulated through its promulgation by local authorities and neighbors in open town councils, in whose commemoration proliferated places and monuments
s to the Constitution throughout the American continent. However, after the absolutist overturn of Ferdinand VII in 1814, most of them were destroyed, and with the independence processes in Ibero-America there have only been a few places left Montevideo and the Zocalo of Mexico City and a couple of monuments documented: the City of San Agustín of Eastern Florida, and Comayagua in Honduras.14
The Constitution of Cádiz in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Constitution of Cadiz, translated into Italian and with some minor modifications, was put into effect as the first Constitution of the Kingdom of Sicily on July 12, 1812 by decision of the Sicilian parliament and, later, with the Constitution of the [Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ] by decision of the parliament of that country on December 9, 1820 and sanctioned by King Ferdinand I, with the following preamble:
«In consequence of the acts of July 7 and 22, 1820, with which the Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy was adopted with the modifications … that the national constitutionally convoked representation judged to propose to adapt it to the particular circumstances of the kingdom of the two Sicilies, the national parliament having dealt with it with the most mature and scrupulous examination; and having inquired into all that is necessary to satisfy the great object of promoting the glory, prosperity and good of the whole nation; modified decree, as follows, the Political Constitution for good government and the right administration of the state