La nación-república en el Discurso de Angostura de Simón Bolívar

This paper argues that, in the process of imaginingand making possible the modern nation in SpanishAmerica, the Liberator Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) resorted to the civic and revolutionary origin 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 na-tionalities. This paper draws upon Discurso de Angostura, deliv-ered by the Liberator in 1819, to show that, at the time of build-ing that great nation that should be called Colombia, Bolivar appealed to political and territorial premises, rather than to na-tionalist 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.