Constitutional Elements (Mexico)

The Constitutional Elements were a set of guidelines in the form of a draft constitution for Mexico (then still Viceroyalty of New Spain), written in April 1812, during the Mexican War of Independence by general Ignacio López Rayón, and circulated on September 4, 1812, in Zinacantepec, State of Mexico, with the purpose of constituting a nation independent from Spain. They are considered the direct antecedent and source of creation of the Sentimientos de la Nación of José María Morelos and, therefore, of the subsequent Constitution of 1824. Therefore, it is the oldest antecedent of Mexican constitutionalism.