Since declaring independence in 1821,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
has adopted a number of
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these pr ...
s or other documents of basic law with constitutional effects. Not all these can be considered constitutions, and not all of them enjoyed universal application. Those enacted in 1824, 1857, and 1917 are generally considered full-fledged, operational constitutions. The Constitution of 1824 established the framework of a federated republic, following the
short-lived monarchy of
Agustín de Iturbide
Agustín de Iturbide (; 27 September 178319 July 1824), full name Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu and also known as Agustín of Mexico, was a Mexican army general and politician. During the Mexican War of Independence, he built ...
(in 1821–22). The Constitution of 1857 was the framework set by Mexican liberals that incorporated particular laws into the constitution. The Constitution of 1917 was drafted by the faction that won the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...
, known as the
Constitutionalists for their adherence to the Constitution of 1857. It strengthened the
anticlerical framework of the 1857 constitution, empowered the state to expropriate private property, and set protections for organized labor. The 1917 Constitution was significantly revised in 1992 under
Carlos Salinas de Gortari
Carlos Salinas de Gortari CYC DMN (; born 3 April 1948) is a Mexican economist and politician who served as 60th president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earlier in his career he wor ...
,
eliminating anticlerical restrictions and strengthening
private property rights
Property rights are constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned, which have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Re ...
against the State.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Las constituciones de México– Links to on-line versions of the current and historical constitutions of Mexico (in Spanish)
– A brief history of the Mexican constitution from the U.S. Library of Congress
Law of Mexico
*
Constitutional history