Costituzionalismo come forza di lealtà popolare: Württemberg costituzionale e incostituzionale nel primo diciannovesimo secolo

Abstract

Like many European countries, Spain experienced a constitutional awakening in the early nineteenth century, resulting in the Cádiz Constitution of 1812. The Spanish constitution-making process, however, was unique, as it occurred within the context of the Napoleonic French invasion and occupation, the abdication of the Bourbon monarchy, and the establishment of a Spanish Bonaparte dynasty. As a result, the Cortes of Cádiz, convened in 1810 with the intention of providing a legitimate Spanish alternative “government in exile” to the installed Napoleonic regime, faced numerous challenges, ranging from the immediate – a state of war and besiegement by the French – to the technical, such as questions regarding the definition of sovereignty, and where that sovereignty could be vested. This article examines the workings of the constitutional committee of the Cortes, leading up to the constitutional debates of 1812 and the subsequent drafting of the constitution. It demonstrates that the constitution sought to mitigate not only the imposed foreign dominion of the French, but also the danger of the reimposition of Bourbon absolutism. Guided and influenced by the theories of Francisco Martínez Marina, the constitutional committee combined liberalism with traditional Spanish conservatism in its attempts to find unique solutions to the Spanish political crisis. Ultimately, while the 1812 constitution could not avoid the restoration of Bourbon absolutism in 1814, its legacy provided the basis for Spanish constitutions to come, as well as a “laboratory” for testing ideas of sovereignty and legitimacy that would prove central to the subsequent struggles for independence in Spanish America.