Mexican Constitution of 1917
The Mexican Constitution of 1917, promulgated on 5 February 1917, was the world's first national constitution to enshrine social and economic rights alongside political rights — preceding the Weimar Constitution (1919) and the Soviet constitution by a decade. Carranza convened the Constitutional Convention at Querétaro in December 1916 with the intention of producing a moderate liberal document. Instead, a radical faction of delegates led by General Francisco Múgica — representing soldiers, teachers, and workers — pushed through provisions that went far beyond anything Carranza proposed. **Article 27** — the revolutionary core — declared that all subsoil resources (oil, minerals, water) were inalienable property of the Mexican nation. This directly challenged the property rights of British and American oil companies that had invested hundreds of millions in Veracruz oilfields. It also established the ejido system of communal land tenure, enabling future redistribution of hacienda lands to peasant communities. It prohibited foreign ownership of land in border zones and coastlines. **Article 123** guaranteed the 8-hour workday, the 6-day work week, equal pay for equal work regardless of gender or nationality, the right to strike, minimum wages, profit sharing, and employer liability for workplace injuries. This was decades ahead of equivalent legislation in the United States or Europe. **Article 3** established free, compulsory, secular public education — removing the Catholic Church from Mexico's educational system. **Article 130** severely restricted the Catholic Church's political rights: priests could not vote, hold office, or comment on politics; church property belonged to the nation; foreign priests were prohibited. These provisions led directly to the Cristero War (1926-1929). The constitution's radicalism exceeded what was immediately implemented — Carranza himself resisted enacting Article 27's land reform provisions — but it established the legal framework that Lázaro Cárdenas would use in 1938 to nationalize the oil industry, creating PEMEX and making Mexico's oil sovereignty a national symbol.
- Year: 1917 CE
- Category: Political
