The nation-republic in Discurso de Angostura by Simón Bolívar

Abstract

This paper argues that, in the process of imagining and making possible the modern nation in Spanish America, the Liberator Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) resorted to the civic and revolutionary rigin of the nascent States, rather than to ethnocultural uniformity. In this regard, his position was radically modern and antigenealogical, in that he asserted that the character unity entailed by the nation as a political community does not need to match the limits of nationalities. This paper draws upon Discurso de Angostura, delivered by the Liberator in 1819, to show that, at the time of building that great nation that should be called Colombia, Bolivar appealed to political and territorial premises, rather than to nationalist premises of linguistic, ethnic or cultural equality. In this
regard, his constitutional proposal is in line with the tradition of republican patriotism and the ideal of the nation of citizens.