Differences between Liberals and Conservatives

• See also: Differences between socialism and capitalism

• The conservatives always viewed independence with a bad eye, and in many cases joined the opposing ranks to the liberating army, or they only granted their support when the fight against Spain was practically won. The liberals, on the other hand, considered independence as the first step in the construction of a liberal, democratic, republican society.
• The conservatives advocated the reconstruction of a monarchical government, more or less autonomous and independent of Europe. In Mexico, for example, conservative parties supported the creation of two Mexican empires, the second governed directly by a European nobleman, Maximilian of Habsburg. On the contrary, the liberals fought for a liberal democracy that was inspired by the postulates of the French Enlightenment and the American revolution.
• The liberals proposed models of national organization inspired by the idea of ​​popular sovereignty, that is, that the people had the right to express an opinion and participate in the political destiny of their countries, which often meant supporting systems federative. Conservatives, on the other hand, preferred centralist models that guaranteed order and saw liberal proposals as a path to anarchy or disorder.

Differences in economics

• The liberals, devoted to economic liberalism, sought the opening of local and international markets with more flexible tariff systems, in the style of nascent capitalism. The Conservatives, on the other hand, wanted a centralist government that would heavily intervene in the economy with protectionist measures.
• The Liberals supported redistributive measures such as agrarian reform and the modernization of agriculture. In Mexico, for example, they proposed systems of community ownership of arable land. Instead, the conservatives aspired to a government that defended the interests of large landowners.
• The conservatives aspired to preserve economic measures inherited from the colony, such as debt peonage and tithes and ecclesiastical property. Instead, the Liberals proposed to abolish such measures.

differences in social

• The society proposed by the conservatives kept colonial social values ​​alive, for example, in racial matters. That is, they preferred to preserve the racially stratified society of the colony, which guaranteed privilege to white Creoles. The liberals, on the other hand, sought to build more egalitarian nations, with more or less representative democracies, in which race was not such a determining social factor. This was due in part to the fact that the liberal ranks (and the patriotic armies during independence) were largely made up of mestizos, blacks, and indigenous people.
• The conservatives respected and valued the Latin American Catholic tradition much more than the liberals. coming from Spain, and for this reason they defended a predominant role of the Catholic Church in the new societies americans The liberals, on the other hand, wanted a secular society in which that role would be that of the state, especially in matters such as public education, civil registration, and ecclesiastical property.
• The liberal proposal aspired to abolish slavery as soon as possible, granting full citizenship to black people and their descendants. The conservatives saw in it an attack against their plantations and against the wealth they had held since the colony.

• democratic leaders
• autocratic leaders
• Differences between unitary and federal