INTRODUCTION

In Spain, the nineteenth century really began in 1808, with the War of Independence against Napoleon. Spaniards of every persuasion – enlightened, conservative, or traditionalist – came together in the fight against the Napoleonic invasion. Conservatives fought against the ideals of secularization and the democratic principles of the French Revolution of 1789. Enlightenment liberals, on the other hand, fought for the possibility of developing their own liberal and democratic state without foreign interference. Resistance reached a critical point in 1812 with the promulgation of Spain's first democratic Constitution. This constitution was an important moment in the history of political liberalism. Indeed, the current political sense of the term “liberal,” originated in Spain during this time period. From there it spread to become a commonly used word in other languages (Abellán 1984, 56). The Constitution of 1812 also had an important impact on both the subsequent history of Spanish liberalism and constitutionalism in several other countries, including Italy, Portugal, and many Latin American countries.

Spanish liberalism was destined to have a tempestuous history because of the determined opposition of the aristocracy and the Church, which tried to retain traditional privileges, recalling with nostalgia the past national glories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Roman Catholic clergy also rejected liberalism as an anti-Christian ideology. The consequence of all of this was a series of civil wars in 1833–1839, 1845–1849, 1872–1876, and 1936–1939.