2 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



tradition which helps to make nationality and pride of race. 

 Then, too, Spain is a poor country. It has been devastated 

 by the English and the French, and has had civil wars of its 

 own. All this tends to make the Spaniards, somewhat like our 

 proud Southern famihes after the Civil War, sensitively self- 

 centered and averse from dealing with those who inflicted so 

 much injury upon their native country. 



Spain is a constitutional monarchy with a written Constitu- 

 tion, adopted in 1876, very similar to our own Constitution in 

 its general provisions, and quite the equal of any of the Con- 

 stitutions of modern states. It embodies all the best principles 

 of the previous Spanish Constitutions, together with matters 

 considered fundamental in a modern state, such as a bill of 

 rights. To Americans, in comparison with our own Consti- 

 tution, it seems to be defective chiefly in its insufficient checks 

 to protect the invasion of individual and property rights, as 

 we understand them. The Constitution is interpreted naturally 

 according to the habits, usages, and predilections of old Spain, 

 and its shortcomings must be attributed to those ingrained 

 ideas rather than to the instrument itself. But it is a strong, 

 liberal, and far-sighted document, ranking with the funda- 

 mental law of any modern state. 



The executive power under the Constitution rests in the 

 King, while the law-making power is vested in the Cortes, or 

 Parliament, and the King. The Cortes is composed of two 

 houses, the Senate and the Congress, equal in authority and 

 law-making initiative. The ministry or cabinet may be chosen 

 from either house, and the ministers may speak in debate in 

 either house, but may vote only in the house to which they 

 belong. The Constitution provides that the King is inviolable, 

 but his ministers are responsible, and all his decrees must be 

 countersigned by one of them. The Senate is composed of 

 360 Senators divided into three classes : Senators in their own 

 right, that is, sons of the King, other than the Prince of As- 

 turias, sons of the successor to the throne, certain grandees 

 of Spain, Captains-General, Presidents of the Supreme Coun- 

 cils, and all the Archbishops; Senators for life (vitalicios) , 

 nominated by the Crown, who, together with the preceding 

 class, cannot exceed 180 in number; the remainder are Sen- 

 ators elected for ten years by the corporations of the State, 

 that is, the Universities, Communal and Provincial Assemblies, 



