NATION AND EMANCIPATION

Abstract

Th is article discusses the relationship between emancipation and constitution at the time of the crisis of the Spanish monarchy. It begins with a consideration of the particular nature of the crisis, in the context of Atlantic crises that have occurred since 1776. Th e article suggests that it is pertinent that two types of crises happened in the Hispanic arena: imperial and monarchical. Th e response to the new development arising between North America and France, regarding the possibility of independence and the need for the constitution, became linked to a transfer of civil law to political law, via the law of nations, which determined how emancipation was understood. Th is text explains how notions of emancipation that had been generated in civil law regarding families were transposed to nations, understood as sovereign arenas emancipated from the tutelage of the monarchy.