Spain and America
Conclusion
After independence, Spanish American political leaders faced two fundamental questions: determining the territory of the nation and selecting the best form of government. Although, most Americans considered the viceroyalties synonymous with the nation, the new nations were formed on the basis of audiencias. The two exceptions were Mexico, which remained united even though it had two audiencias, and the former Audiencia of Guatemala, which fragmented into five countries. After independence the Spanish American nations formed republics even though most Spanish Americans, including the large indigenous peasantry in the former república indios, favored constitutional monarchies. Mexico initially established a monarchy but replaced it with a republic when its first emperor failed as a political leader. In Spanish South America some countries considered establishing a monarchy but failed to convince a European prince to become their king. In north and central Spanish South America, Bolívar opposed monarchy but favored a lifetime president with the ability to select his successor. Most civilians whether monarchists or republicans preferred legislative dominance as established by the Constitution of Cádiz and many of the American charters. In contrast, in parts of South America where military men, such as Bolívar, triumphed the executive dominated the civilian legislatures.
América Septentrional and América Meridional lived through profoundly different experiences during the years 1810-1825. While the Americans in the north participated fully in the political transformation of the Hispanic world, many in the south did not. The South American areas under royalist control during the two Hispanic constitutional periods (1810-1814 y 1820-1823) – Quito, Peru, and Charcas and parts of Venezuela and New Granada – were not only the most populous regions they also held constitutional elections for the Cortes and established provincial deputations and constitutional ayuntamientos. The other regions of South America, those controlled by the autonomists – Río de la Plata and Chile as well as large parts of Venezuela and New Granada – did not share that constitutional experience. Unlike Mexico's 1824 constitution, which was based on the Hispanic Constitution of 1812 that defined all men, regardless of race or class as Spaniards and granted the franchise without property or literacy qualifications to all free men who were not of African ancestry, most South American governments imposed literacy and property qualifications and divided their people into active and passive citizens 37 .
The two halves of America also followed different paths to emancipation. While the elites of América Septentrional gained independence through a political compromise in which civil and military officials changed sides and supported the decision to separate from the Spanish Monarchy, the republicans of northern and central América Meridional fought prolonged and bloody wars to defeat the royal authorities. It is often said that Simón Bolívar was the «liberator» of five nations. It is more correct to say that he was the «conqueror» of those countries. The majority of the population in those nations, including his native Venezuela, preferred the Hispanic political system to those offered by the republicans. There independence was the product of military force, not debate or elections.
By 1826 the overseas possessions of the Spanish Monarchy, one of the world's most imposing political structures at the end of the eighteenth century, consisted only of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Filipines, and a few other Pacific islands. Having achieved independence, the countries of the American continent would henceforth chart their own futures. Most, however, entered a prolonged period of economic decline and political instability. The break up of the Monarchy destroyed a vast and responsive social, political, and economic system that functioned relatively well, despite its many imperfections. For nearly three hundred years the world wide Spanish Monarchy had proven to be flexible and capable of accommodating social tensions and conflicting political and economic interests. After independence, the former Spanish Monarchy's separate parts functioned at a competitive disadvantage. In that regard, nineteenth-century Spain, like the American kingdoms, was just one more newly independent nation struggling to survive in an uncertain and difficult world. During the first half of the nineteenth century, military strongmen – caudillos but not institutional militarists – dominated many nations. The stable, more developed, and stronger countries of the North Atlantic, such as Britain, France, and the United States, flooded Spanish America with their exports, dominated their credit, and sometimes imposed their will upon the new American nations by force of arms.
As a result of the great political revolution that led to the dissolution of the Spanish Monarchy, Spain and the new nations of Spanish America developed a unique political culture based not on foreign models but on their own traditions and experience. After independence in America and after Fernando VII's death in the Peninsula, the old absolute monarchy disappeared. The people of the Spanish-speaking world ceased to be subjects of the Crown and became citizens of their nations. During the nineteenth century, the new political systems of Spain and Spanish America were consolidated on the basis of the liberal traditions that had emerged in the Cortes of Cádiz and its rival regimes in America. Despite power struggles, such as those between monarchists and republicans, centralists and federalists, and parliamentarians and caudillos, a liberal representative, constitutional government remained the political ideal of the Spanish-speaking nations. Indeed, even caudillos and dictators were forced to acknowledge, at least in principle, the supremacy of the rule of law and the ultimate desirability of civilian, representative, constitutional government. That tradition, together with the achievement of nationhood, remains the most significant heritage of Spanish American independence.