El primer liberalismo en España (1808-1833)

Abstract

The origins of Spanish liberalism can be found in the radical political thought that grew in the last half of the eighteenth Century against both the Enlighten Absolutism and the Traditional Monarchy. But liberalism found a great development during the war of Independence, when it could freely express its ideology due to the weakness of legitimate institutions and the freedom of press. This liberalism was close to the French revolutionary political thought, even when this influence was no very explicit in the Corts of Cadiz, where historical arguments were used. Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that liberalism was always a heterogeneous: besides the «French-type» liberalism, there is another closer to the English constitutionalism of the balanced constitution, and other closer to the neoescolastic Spanish thought. But it was in 1821 when liberalism really was divided into two great groups that people began to call «parties»: the «exaltados» (who had a radical thought) and the «moderados» (who had a more conservative thought). From then to 1833, these two kinds of liberalism would increase their differences.