Spanish Constitutions of 1837 and 1845
Constitutional 37: Characteristics
The aim of the Cortes was progressive reform of the 1812 Constitution, but the result was a new Constitution: the Constitution of 1837. Liberals made a series of concessions:
- Maintaining national sovereignty, although only in the Preamble.
- The declaration of rights was more extensive and systematic.
- It was a short and flexible constitution, a “typical” progressive one, but was born weak due to the low turnout of moderates and the persistence of the Carlist War.
Liberals wanted to create a modern and effective parliamentary system but they did not succeed. The importance of this Constitution is that it definitively strengthened the constitutional regime in Spain. Political forces set different schemes but always within the constitutional system: the first would set the party system on the moderate and progressive parties who “switched” in power. Political power was strongly conditioned by the interference of the military. This military intervention was due to the impossibility of establishing a stable two-party system.
Content
- 2nd Spanish Constitution, progressive ideology
- Validity: from 1837 to 1845
- Principles of political organization: National Sovereignty and constitutional and hereditary monarchy
- Head of State: King is the chief executive and acts in the legislative through initiative, sanctions, laws, and enactment of absolute veto, recognizing the Crown’s decisive intervention in the political system
- List of powers: not recognizing the separation of powers but cooperation between King & Parliament
- Accepts a “shared sovereignty”: the power to make laws resided in the Parliament with the King. The Crown became the able moderator: symbol of unity and permanence of the state and guarantor of the Constitution
- Legislative Branch: Bicameral Parliament: Congress, elected by censatary suffrage, and Senate appointed by the King from a list. The King may summon, suspend, and dissolve the Cortes. The main function of Parliament is to legislate and approve taxes. Use of “censure” of the government or parliamentary control
- Government: Referenda acts are responsible to the King and the Parliament
- Suffrage: censatary
- Fundamental Rights: The 1st Spanish Constitution with a full title (Title I), which lists them: freedom of expression without prior censorship, inviolability of the address, protection of private property, etc.
- Religious Question: There is no state confessionality. A certain tolerance begins
- Other: National Militia and Provincial Councils elected by popular censatary vote
Setting a Moderate Regime
The elections of 1844 favored the control of warlords and the government that developed amid great difficulties for progressives, so they practically abstained. A new Cortes had a majority of moderates, where Narváez was the head of government. The regime was based on the prevailing social, economic, and political development of the landed bourgeoisie, born from the merger of the old masters and new rural landowners. For these groups, a new social order had to be built that would protect the achievements of the liberal revolution against Carlist reaction. It was not about returning to absolutism, but consolidating conservative liberalism that reformed the state in the interest of the new ruling classes and restricted political participation to the respectable classes. Moderates and the Crown were prepared to create a new constitutional text.
The Constitution of 1845
This constitution is typical of moderate ideology that laid the foundations of “doctrinaire liberalism” and consolidated the hegemony of the oligarchy on society. We present a simple reform of the previous Constitution, but it was totally new and different, not based on national sovereignty but on shared sovereignty and gave more powers to the Crown. The goal of shaping the Constitution of 1845 was a political regime in an exclusive moderate sense to ensure the exercise of power in this party and the socio-political domain of the oligarchy. The very conservative Spanish Liberal Party would move away from the people and marginalize the majority of citizens in political life.
Content
- 3rd Spanish Constitution, its ideology is moderate
- Term: 1845 to 1854 and from 1856 to 1868
- Principles of political organization: “shared sovereignty” and constitutional and hereditary monarchy
- Head of State: the King has strong executive power due to the increase of royal power. The King intervenes in the legislature through initiative, sanction, and promulgation veto. Freely appoints and dismisses ministers
- List of authorities: no separation of powers but cooperation. The Senate is tied and dominated by the Crown. The King & Courts pairing dominated the royal authority. The judiciary loses political power and the range of its independence is limited
- Legislative Branch: bicameral system. Congress elected by censatary suffrage and Senate appointed by the king among the aristocracy. The Cortes with the King legislate and control the government. The King may summon, suspend, and dissolve the Cortes
- Government: Referenda acts are responsible to the King and the Parliament
- Suffrage: censatary only for Congress
- Fundamental rights: apparently similar to the 1837 Constitution with some modifications and limitations. Therefore, the declaration of rights is fictional
- Religious Question: state confessionality
- Other: Local and Provincial administration centralized. National Militia disappears
Moderate Reforms (Cont. 45)
The consolidation of the regime would be moderated by the continuing precarious repression needed and the extremely limited representation of the regime. The same division of the political system produces a moderate clique.
The most important work was the construction of moderate political and administrative structures of the liberal state with a conservative, uniformizing, and centralist nature, forming a hierarchical and oligarchic system.
Highlights
- Printing Act 1845: increased government control of the press
- Councils Act or Local Government Act 1845: centralizing character; provides that mayors would be appointed by the Crown. Thus, a hierarchical and pyramidal structure was created, with each province depending on the central power in Madrid. Only the Basque Country and Navarre kept their jurisdictions, though curtailed
- Tax Reform 1845: it was a priority. Fiscal privileges were abolished, and a new system based on two types of taxes was introduced: direct and indirect. The direct contribution was a record yield of rural properties, industrial activity, commercial real estate, and urban properties. Among the unpopular were indirect taxes on consumption. The poor paid more than the rich. The State did not have the means to prevent fraud, nor did it have the necessary personnel
- Educational reform: establishing a system of mixed education, public and private, centralized and controlled by the state. Increased intervention of the Church in controlling moral and ideological education. Only the University was imposed secularization, standardization, and centralization. It was a university dedicated to the children of the bourgeoisie. The figure was over 60% illiterate, showing the evident failure of liberal education policy
- Creation of the Civil Guard in 1844: replacing the National Militia. It was an armed civilian force under civil authority but with a military structure. Responsible for maintaining public order and suppressing insurrectionary movements. Ended endemic banditry
- New Penal Code in 1848 and the Civil Code in 1849: to end the spread of laws pertaining to the Ancien Régime, uniting them. Then there would be the first Mortgage Law in 1861
- Supreme Court Building
- Configuration of Ministerial Management
- Reorganization of the administration: reinforcing the centralized structure by strengthening civil and military governors in each province, as well as the provincial councils
- Consolidation of the civil service: access to public service based on principles of hierarchy, rationalization, and selection
- 1851 Concordat with the Holy See: provided for the suspension of the sale of ecclesiastical goods that had been disentailed, the return of unsold items, and public funding of religious orders and clergy. The Church distanced itself from Carlism and recovered its influence on society, which would be organized according to Catholic morality
- Unique system of weights and measures: metric, etc., following centralizing guidelines