The Guaimaro Constitution, the first one of the Republic up in Arms, which expresses the will of the Cuban independence movement, and of the political organization of the liberators from 1868.

It was approved by the Guaimaro Assembly on April 10th, 1869. It is structured in 29 sections.

This Constitution gives the Representative’s Chamber the legislative power. It establishes the norms for the integration of the Chamber and the procedure to fill the vacants, as well as the requirements to be elected as Representative. As a constitutional mandate, this Representative’s Chamber would be constituted in permanent session until the end of the war.

The Representative’s Chamber has the faculties of appointing the President of the Republic, the General in Chief, the Secretaries, the President of the sessions and the rest of the employees. It also has the faculty to remove from office the government employees it appoints.

It also has the faculty to meet the accusations against the President of the Republic, the General in Chief and the rest of the employees, and submit it to the Court if it is appropriate. The constitutional text can be amended by unanimous agreement of the Representative’s Chamber.

The executive power of the Republic up in Arms fell on the President. The Constitution established the requirement to be appointed President, and also the faculties of him with respect to the General in Chief and to the legislative decisions of the Chamber. Other faculty that was given to the Executive Power, was that of celebrating treaties and appointing ambassadors, plenipotentiaries and consuls of Cuba in other countries, as well as the one of receiving ambassadors.
This Constitution recognizes the independence of the Power of Law and entrusts its organization to the approval of a posterior law.

By an Assembly decision, the Island was divided in four States: Orient, Center, Las Villas, and Occident; with faculties to send equal representation to the Chamber.

The Guaimaro Constitution established which regulations should be set by law, leaving them to the unique competence of the Representative’s Chamber.

I also established norms through which the legislative process should be governed. Concerning the citizens, the Constitution established the right to elect and be elected, it recognized that all the inhabitants of the Republic were free, and the right and duty of being a soldier of the Liberating Army, together with other civil rights.

This Constitution was modified on February 24th, 1870, in the issue of setting he Vice-presidency, getting to an agreement in March, 1872, that in absence of the President and the Vice-President, the President of the Chamber would hold the Executive Power of the Republic.