The 1824 Constitution of Mexico: Roots Both Foreign & Domestic

It is easy to examine the Mexican Constitution of 1824 and conclude that it was simply the U. S. Constitution of 1787, translated into Spanish, with a few concessions to the special status of the military and the Catholic Church. Indeed, one of the members of the committee charged with drafting the 1857 Mexican Constitution, Ponciano Arriaga, acknowledged that two principal sources were the inspiration for the 1824 Constitution: the French Revolution of 1789, "and for the political organization of the Republic... the Constitution of the United States."1 Yet a careful reading of these two constitutions shows that in spite of very strong similarities, there are some very specifically Mexican components contained within the 1824 Constitution. The structural similarities between the United States Constitution of 1787 and the Mexican Constitution of 1824 are immediately apparent on even the most casual reading of the two documents. Title III of the Mexican Constitution and Article I of the U. S. Constitution both define Congress ' powers; Title IV and Article II of the respective documents both define the powers of the President; and Title V and Article III define the powers and structure of the federal judiciary of the two nations. Especially in the description of the respective Congresses, the sequence of clauses that enumerate the terms of office,2 set the population ratios for members of the two houses of th