M.C. Mirow, Latin American Constitutions

The Cortes of Cádiz embarked on an unusual constitutional project from 1810-1812. With Napoleon’s troops occupying most of Spain and King Ferdinand VII a French prisoner, the resistance forces needed to strike a bargain to keep both Spanish America and liberals in the resistance camp while at the same time satisfying conservative monarchists. The Cortes functioned as both a constitutional assembly and a legislature in Cádiz, one of the areas that Napoleon’s troops failed to occupy, and included an important American presence. The Constitution that the Cortes produced has received almost no attention from U.S. scholars. Its direct impact was limited, since it only functioned during two short periods, from March 19, 1812 until May 4, 1814, when Ferdinand VII renounced it upon returning to power, and from March 9, 1820 to June 1823, when liberal military forces initially obligated Ferdinand VII to swear by it but then were thwarted by a French Bourbon invasion that restored him as an absolute monarch. Further, even in 1812, the Cádiz Constitution did not apply in some portions of Spanish America, like the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, which had already effectively rejected Spanish control, and by its second period of application, independence movements had already routed Spanish forces in much of Spanish America. However, that does not eliminate the Cádiz Constitution’s significance as a transitional document. As Mirow emphasizes in his book, the Constitution represents an interesting set of compromises among liberal, conservative and American forces. He also makes a convincing argument that the Cádiz Constitution shows important continuity in Spanish American constitutionalism, offering what might be thought of as a missing link, so that we need not view post-Independence constitutionalism as a stark liberal change from earlier absolute monarchy. Mirow’s focus on this unique document is a welcome academic contribution

Constitution · Independence (probability theory) · Latin Americans · Legislature · Political science · Power (physics) · Resistance (ecology) · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Law