This is the Spanish Congress, which some persons have affected to call the Cortes of Cadiz, a term which, although true and general in Spain, where also that of the Cortes of Valladolid, of Burgos, &c., is used, has elsewhere been taken up in an equivocal sense, as it is very easy to judge, from the manner in which it has been recently applied. For this reason, and before we proceed to speak of the decrees and measures recurred to, it will be advisable to say something on the formation and legitimacy of this body of national representatives;-the two principal points on which the enemies of reform have exercised their malice, and, at the same time, shown their ignorance and bad faith.

The General and Extraordinary Cortes of Spain and the Indies, assembled in La Isla de Leon, and afterwards transferred to Cadiz, in February, 1811, were, in the first place, composed of the deputies of the provinces, named by all the citizens, in conformity. to the mode of election previously determined by the government, and of those from America, chosen by all the municipalities; 2dly, of the deputies from the superior Juntas of the provinces; 3dly, of those from the cities and towns entitled to vote in the Cortes ; and 4thly, of the substitutes intended to represent that portion of the country at the time occupied by the enemy, or those districts. which hitherto had not been able to send on their representatives, as was the case with some of the sections in America.

Justice, the acquirements of the age, and the will of the inhabitants of the country, expressed through the organ of public opinion, required that Spain should now be represented in a true and efficient manner; such a one as the nation had never before enjoyed. The question was not to assemble the Cortes of Arragon, of Navarre, or of Castile; the main object was to call together the Cortes of the nation, including America. Even when it could be supposed, in the 19th century, that the happiness of the people might be consigned to musty archives, or that more attention was to be paid to ancient precedents, than what the exigence of the times prescribed; even granting that antiquated erudition ought thus to have prevailed over sound philosophy; still would it have been found impossible to conciliate so many diversified laws, so many anomalies, as well as usages and customs, so varied in themselves. But, in order to clear up this point, we trust a short digression will be deemed pardonable.

After the destruction of the first dynasty of the Goths, the new kingdoms progressively founded in Spain, as fast as the country was reconquered from the Moors, adopted different usages; and their charters and constitutions, although generally representative, were not all alike; in essential points, differences were observable; and even those of the same kingdom were, at distinct periods,

séen to change. What remarkable differences do we not see between the Constitutions of Arragon andCastile, the two principal kingdoms of Spain-not to mention Navarre, the Biscayan provinces, besides the peculiar and local rights and privileges of certain districts and cities? In Arragon, the Cortes consisted of four branches or estates; whereas, in Castile, at many of the Cortes there were no separate classes; or, when there were any, these never exceeded three. At what time, in Castile, was such an authority as that of the Justicia de Arragon ever acknowledged? When did such a privilege as that denominated La Union exist there? A privilege which consisted in the positive right of the cities to unite against the king, if he acted contrary to law; or what we should now in reality call the right of insurrection.'

2

How great must not have been the changes experienced in the rights and immunities of the said kingdom of Arragon, when so boasted a privilege was destroyed by Peter IV., called "the daggerking" from that very event? What analogy could be observed, between the Cortes held anterior to the 14th century, and those subsequently assembled? In the first, the clergy were not seen; but in the latter, this body formed one of the estates. Finally, what affinity can we trace between the Constitution of Arragon, as it stood in the 16th and 17th, and what it was previous to those periods; or, as it afterwards appeared in the time of Philip II., who overturned it altogether, by beheading the Justicia of the kingdom, in the person of the illustrious but unfortunate Juan de Lanuza? And to revert to Castile, what similarity can we find in the first Cortes held at Coyanza, in 1020, and those afterwards called together in Valladolid, Burgos, and other cities? Or, how can the latter be compared with those convened at Toledo, in 1539, under Charles V.; from which time the nobles and clergy no longer met to take their seats? What resemblance, might it still be asked, can we find between the Cortes held subsequently to the above period, in which only a very small number of deputies sent up by the cities took their seats, and those which sat in the 14th and 15th centuries; when numbers of towns and cities had representatives which were not heard of in subsequent meetings?

If, therefore, the Constitutions of Spain were so varied; if, in their operation, circumstances or whim had exercised so much influence; if, at no time, a general and fixed basis of representation for all the monarchy had been adopted-for, from the very moment the several kingdoms were united under one head, despotism began

1 O magnum vinculum ac libertatis fundamentum! exclaims Geronimo de Blancas, speaking of this privilege.

2 Respecting the destruction of this privilege, vide Blancas in his Commentaries, and the Reports of Antonio Perez.

to weigh heavy on the inhabitants of each-what other remedy could be found, unless in the adoption of a new method, more conformable to the national interests as well as the acquirements of the age?

The clergy and nobles were not, in the new arrangements, separately convened; because such a measure was deeined vicious, and contrary to the true principles of national usage.' The provinces, Juntas, and cities, were indistinctly represented by individuals of all classes and ranks, except the regular clergy, considered as persons who had given up all participation in temporal matters. Whoever, therefore, is aware of what our Cortes formerly were-confined only to the representatives named by the municipalities of some cities and towns, whose aldermen did not hold their offices by popular election, but by purchase or grant of the king, in the character of perpetual and hereditary magistrates-will readily be convinced that no Cortes ever existed in Spain having a representation so ample, natural, and proper, as the Cortes of Cadiz.

The government might have been satisfied with the assembling of the deputies only of the provinces and Juntas at that time free from the oppression of the enemy. Even in this case, united as all the provinces of Spain were in sentiments, the national interests would have been better represented by the true and exé press will of the people, free from the presence of an enemy, than they had formerly been by the imaginary and fictitious return of the mere representatives of some cities and towns entitled to vote in the Cortes, in whose election, as was previously remarked, the people had no share; but a wish to give a direct and uniform representation to all the provinces, by deviating from the ancient and absurd system, induced the government to make up in the best manner possible, for the want of a true representation, of which such districts were deprived as were in possession of the enemy. The latter being of themselves unable to elect their own representatives, these were named, by orders of the government, on their behalf; thus providing for their wants and inability; well assured, as it afterwards happened, that the inhabitants so situated would one day or another be grateful for this attention to their interests. This was the origin of those deputies, called substitutes, who were elected in conformity to the laws, by a plurality of such persons belonging to each province, as in no small numbers were at that time collected together in Cadiz, and who thus represented, if not in so correct a way as all could have wished, at least in the

'No allusion is here made to an Upper House; this may or may not be deemed advisable, such a measure not being vicious or contrary to principle; all that is meant, is the representation of the clergy and nobles, as general orders of the State, and without their forming a separate chamber, which is what occasionally happened in Castile and Arragon, where these classes deliberated jointly with the representatives of the cities.

most feasible manner possible, their fellow-countrymen at that moment prevented from manifesting their own wishes by the presence of an overawing enemy, and most assuredly under a form more regular and efficient than they had been represented in the ancient Cortes, by mere members returned only by the cities. This means adopted was so conformable to the wishes of the provinces, that the greatest part of them formally elected for their representatives, as soon as they were enabled, the very substitutes who had previously sat for them; and in this manner the number of the latter, which was never very large, was insensibly decreased.

After what has already been said, it would be a waste of time to dwell on the legitimacy of this Congress, if it were not that certain foreigners, badly informed, and some few Spaniards also, by no means better masters of the subject, had not endeavoured to mislead public opinion by false and chimerical assertions.

When the legitimacy of a government is generally discussed, it suffices to examine whether this has been acknowledged by the nation, freely and spontaneously, and without any kind of force restraining the manifestation of public dislike. In the latter case, no consent however explicit, and no oath however solemn, will prove any thing more than that dread has been the chief agent. If the ob ject in view is a national representation, possibly it may be deemed proper to examine into the manner in which this has been construct> ed, and whether really it has been formed by the majority of the votes constituting the same, or by that of others at least interested in its true preservation and prosperity. Both of these requisites will be found united in the form and essence of the body of Spanish repre sentatives in question. The Cortes were acknowledged by all the provinces of Spain, and by the whole of those of America and Asia, with the exception of Venezuela and Buenos Ayres, freely and without any force having compelled the inhabitants to accede to this act of submission. On the contrary, the state of agitation in which the various sections of America at that time were, and the manner in which the armies of the enemy also occupied several of the most important provinces of Spain, would have rendered opposition or dislike to the measures pursued easy, if such sentiments had in fact existed among them. So far from this, the provinces overawed by hostile arms, hastened, by every means in their power, to acknowledge the Cortes; and no sooner was any point of them evacuated than the Congress received proofs of their submission and adherence. The journals of the Cortes and the acts of the government at that time, exhibit repeated testimonies of this fact. If any district had hitherto been unable to name its deputies, owing to the control of foreigners, it did not delay a single moment in doing this as soon as ever it was

free, without waiting for special orders from the government. These facts are recorded in the history of the day; and, at the same time that they prove the legitimacy of the Cortes, honor the Spanish character, and of it convey the most elevated idea. Where then shall we find a government that can boast of greater or more remarkable proofs of its free and spontaneous acknowledgment than those which distinguished the Cortes of Spain?

If we now proceed to consider the majority of persons who concurred in their nomination, we shall find that the deputies chosen by the mass of the Spanish people in Europe, and by the municipalities in America, composed a body in whose formation a larger number of votes entered than had before constituted most representative bodies, whether we allude to Spain or many other nations. From the first months the Cortes assembled, its sittings were marked by a considerable majority of members, directly named by the provinces to which they belonged; and when the approval and signing of the Constitution took place-certainly one of the most solemn of the acts that distinguished the national representationthere were very few provinces of Spain, in both hemispheres, that had not deputies present named by themselves; since the deputies from Peru were at that time seen seated by the side of those from Estramadura, and near those from Catalonia were seen the representatives of the Philippine Islands. Magnificent spectacle, on the part of a nation, which, embracing both hemispheres, beholds, within the bosom of its Cortes, deputies born in the two extremities of the earth! In their faces were distinguished the European, American, and Asiatic; and perhaps this is the first Congress ever known, in which were assembled persons who, speaking the same language, having the same customs, and belonging to the same nation, were born in climes so distant, and whose ancestors were men of such varied origin,

If the nation, therefore, left to itself, on the principle of both reason and right, was placed in an attitude that required extraordinary exertions for its own preservation and the defence of its independences; if, through the necessary effects of the very manner in which it had been abandoned, this nation entered into the enjoyment of its primitive and imprescriptible rights, and adopted a form of government acknowledged and submitted to by all Spaniards, of both hemispheres; if the whole of the measures of this government have been unanimously applauded and confirmed by the general obedience and consent of all the provinces of the monarchy-since even those occupied by the enemy successively named their deputies to the Cortes without any reserve or objection whatever, thus, by this very act giving their assent and approbation to all that had been previously done; if, in short,