Constitution of Venezuela (1864)
Old constitution of Venezuela
The Constitution of Venezuela of 1864 (Official name: Constitution of the United States of Venezuela. Spanish: Constitución de los Estados Unidos de Venezuela) was approved on March 28, 1864 in the city of Caracas by the Constituent Assembly of the Federation, promulgated in Coro by the then president Juan Crisóstomo Falcón on April 13, 1864 and endorsed by the ministers on April 22 of the same year.
The National Constituent Assembly was constituted of 100 deputies elected in the provinces, per the 1863 decree of the Federal Executive. This decree summoned the people to carry out the corresponding elections. The National Constituent Assembly of the Federation was installed only in Caracas, on December 24, 1863, with the attendance of 69 deputies.
Although it was in force for only 10 years, historically it is considered one of the most important Venezuelan constitutions due to its content, especially for establishing a federal system for Venezuela at that time. It accentuates the decentralization aspects of the previous constitution of 1858 and the term "federal" is added more explicitly.
Characteristics
It is declared that the former provinces constitute, subsequently, 20 independent states, which together form a free nation.
The name "Republic of Venezuela" is changed to "United States of Venezuela", which persists until 1953.
The states enjoy political equality among themselves, and establish their own internal regime, in accordance with the principles of popular, elective, federal, representative, alternative and responsible government.
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This entry incorporates text from “Constitution of Venezuela (1864)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.