Cortes of Cádiz

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The Cortes of Cádiz, officially the General and Extraordinary Cortes of the Kingdom, were the result of the Spanish liberal revolution that transformed the Bourbon Kingdom of Spain and the Indies from an absolutist state into a national state, through the formation of a national parliament, cortes (Spanish parliament). It met as a single body, rather than divided into estates as with traditional cortes. The General and Extraordinary Cortes that met in the port of Cádiz starting 24 September 1810 "claimed legitimacy as the sole representative of Spanish sovereignty", following the French invasion and occupation of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars and the abdication of the monarch Ferdinand VII and his father Charles IV. It met as one body, and its members represented the entire Spanish Empire, that is, not only Spain but also Spanish America and the Philippines. The Cortes of Cádiz was seen then, and by historians today, as a major step towards liberalism and democracy in the history of...

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