Oratorio de San Felipe Neri
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Transcript
During the Peninsular War, French forces occupied much of Spain, but Cádiz remained a major centre of resistance protected by geography and naval power. Representatives met here in the Cortes and debated what political authority should look like while the old order was in crisis.
On 19 March 1812 they promulgated Spain’s first constitution, popularly known as La Pepa. It asserted national sovereignty, established representative institutions and limited monarchical power in ways that were revolutionary for Spain.
Do not upgrade it into twenty-first-century liberal democracy. Political participation was structured through the assumptions of its time; women were excluded from citizenship politics, colonial representation was contested, and Catholicism remained the state religion.
The constitution was also short-lived in force. Ferdinand VII restored absolutism in 1814, and the text returned only during later liberal episodes.
That does not make 1812 a failure. Constitutional ideas are often most influential when rulers keep having to abolish them.