Proposition to amend the Constitution so as to permit prohibitions, March 28, 1868

Proposition to amend the Constitution so as to permit prohibitions.

Congressional report–Session of March 27, 1868.

Messrs. Montes and Gudiño y Gomez, the majority of the deputation from Queretaro, presented the following project of law:

“Since there has been permitted in the republic the free introduction of all foreign effects without any limitation whatever, our industry commenced to decay, and to-day it is found in such prostration that our people lack employment and our merchants are now nothing more than faithful resellers of foreign manufactures, with the cheapness of which our own cannot compete.”

“The remedy is efficacious, but a little late. It consists in a constitutional amendment, which we initiate in the following proposition, which we respectfully beg the chamber will be pleased to admit, and refer to the corresponding committee, viz: the clause in article 28 of the federal constitution which says, ‘Nor prohibitions in the character of so-called protections to industry’ shall be suppressed.”

Referred to the committee on constitutional points.

Article 28 of the federal constitution.

“Monopolies shall not be established, nor places for the sale of privileged goods, nor prohibitions in the character of so-called protections to industry, excepting solely those relative to the coining of money, to the mails, and to those privileges which, for a limited time, are conceded by the law to the inventors or perfectors of any improvement.”