Argentine Constitution of 1826
The Argentine Constitution of 1826 was a short-lived Constitution of Argentina drafted during the Argentine Civil Wars. Bernardino Rivadavia was appointed President of Argentina under this constitution. It was rejected by most Argentine provinces, and then abolished.
Context
The
The
Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Corrientes signed the Quadrilateral Treaty, to call a new Constituent Assembly, this time in Buenos Aires. Again, it did not specify the political system. The new assembly was convened in Buenos Aires on February 27. As the number of representatives was proportional to the population, Buenos Aires had the highest number. Twelve of the thirteen provinces accepted to hold the Congress in Buenos Aires; San Luis proposed Tucumán.[3]
Deliberations
The Assembly began the deliberations on December 1824.
The Assembly approved a treaty of friendship with Britain in 1825, with the British recognition to the 1816 Argentine declaration of independence. It also allowed British subjects to keep their religion, and to build their own churches and cemeteries. The treaty also ended the commerce of slaves. The Congress accepted as well the declaration of independence of the provinces of the Upper Peru, which became a new country, named Bolivia after the liberator Simón Bolívar.[5]
The Luso-Brazilian invasion was resisted by the local population of the Banda Oriental, and the
As a result of the war, the Assembly took several related resolutions, aiming to strength the military and centralize the power. It began with the legal organization of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, the national wealth and a national bank. The assembly changed as well the number of people represented by the representatives, from 15,000 to 7,500. This allowed each province to duplicate their number of representatives. However, several representatives were not from the provinces that they represented: Manuel Dorrego and Manuel Moreno, both from Buenos Aires, represented Santiago del Estero and the Banda Oriental, thanks to the increased numbers.[7]
Rivadavia proposed a bill to declare Buenos Aires the capital city of the country. This proposal was widely rejected, both by the other provinces and by the representatives of Buenos Aires. With this proposal, the Buenos Aires Province would cease to exist. The city, all things inside it (such as the port) and a territory around it would belong to the national government. The institutions of the Buenos Aires province would be abolished, and the remaining territory would be divided into two provinces. The law was approved, despite of the high resistance to it. Las heras resigned as governor, and the Buenos Aires legislature was closed.[11]
The Assembly asked the provinces to select the type of government. The support to republicanism was absolute, nobody desired a monarchy; but the dispute of centralism or federalism was still divisive. Some provinces selected the federal organization and others the centralist organization; most members of the Assembly were centralists.[12]
References
Bibliography
- Furundarena, Julio César (2008). Historia Constitucional Argentina (in Spanish). Argentina: Ediciones Suárez. ISBN 978-987-98402-5-2.
- Lorenzo, Celso Ramón (2000). Manual de Historia Constitucional Argentina 2. Argentina: Editorial Juris. ISBN 950-817-064-6. Retrieved 10 June 2013.