Federalism in Chile? Some Sketches about their Legislative Debate and its Promoter in the 19th Century

Abstract

Does federalism in Chile was a utopia of a man ahead of his time or was it a legal reality that needed the nascent Chilean nation? Article forth below reviews the parliamentary discussion of political and legislative ideas pushed by José Miguel Infante on the federal state model, in Congress July and August 1826, in the Draft Federal Constitution and in some editions of El Valdiviano Federal of Santiago, Chile, between 1827 and 1830. The objective pursued is to show the relationship between a number of concepts and ideas covered under the idea of federalism and proposed Infante in shaping the draft Constitution of 1826 from the same year legislative debate and the impending adoption of the federal organization of the territory (which never see the light in Chile), perceiving whether it was open to challenge much broader conceptualizations as transit of peoples to nation, representation, the idea of citizen or similar.