The first constitutional project for independent Mexico and its proposal of a Hispanic American Commonwealth: the Congreso Nacional of Talamantes

Abstract

Abstract:
This article provides, as discussed in his Presentation, an approach to the National Congress of Fray Melchor de Talamantes, as the first draft constitution for the Independent Mexico, which proposes the articulation of a kind of Commonwealth of the Hispanic Kingdoms.  For such purpose, under the section The Man (Melchor de Talamantes) and his circumstance (New Spain, 1808) a brief biography of Talamantes is included, since its formation in Lima, through his stay in New Spain, as well as the political situation in which he lived.
Thereafter, in the section Intellectual radiography of the ideologue the main features and influences of the political and legal thought of Talamantes is presented, highlighting the ascendancy of rationalist natural law, the Enlightenment and the second Spanish scholastic and in particular of Francisco Suarez. Finally, in the section called The National Congress of the Kingdom of New Spain a summary of said document is offered, also exposing his main contributions to the Mexican and Ibero-American constitutionalism. This article
is the result of an extensive research, which took into account the existing literature around Talamantes and his work, but specially the direct sources consisting on his manuscripts and papers of the process instructed against him for infidelity to the King, which were consulted both in its current edition and directly in the General Archive of the Nation of Mexico. The main conclusion of this article is that Talamantes’ National Congress is the first constitutional project for the Independent Mexico, despite being barely known and despite its limited influence among his contemporaries, given the untimely and decisive way in which the movement of 1808 was conjured.

Notwithstanding, the document is of particular interest to students of the history of law and specifically to students of the History of Mexican and Ibero-American Constitutional Law. It also concludes that Melchor de Talamantes was undoubtedly the most learned and erudite ideologue of the emancipation of New Spain, with and special interest for understanding the cultural milieu of the time, since the intellectual biography that can be offered of his person, thanks to the fortune conservation of the list of the books that were in his personal
library, as well as other documented information on his interests and
readings.