ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that the Bolivian Constitution can be usefully understood within the paradigm of enlightened reform, even if this does result in stretching the chronological boundaries of the subject beyond what is considered acceptable by most of its leading practitioners. Iturbide's widely publicised fall from grace provided the immediate context for criticisms of Bolvar's own alleged intention to crown himself King or Emperor in Colombia. Daniel Florence O'Leary was an Irish Catholic, born in Cork in 1800, who travelled to Venezuela in 1818, serving as Bolvar's aide-de-camp and later as a general, a historian and a diplomat. The author argues that the Bolivian Constitution of 1826 is best seen as Bolvar's attempt to participate in what Jordana Dym has called the creative adaptation and evolution of existing structures' after Independence. Bolvar's final pitch to convince the Bolivian legislators of the merits of his Life Presidency was to answer his own rhetorical question.
