a heated debate, Congress rejected the proposal to move the capital from Mexico City. Thereafter, the discussion centred on whether or not a federal district should be created. The ayuntamiento and the provincial deputation of Mexico were vehemently against such action. Indeed, the provincial legislature threatened secession and civil war if Mexico City were federalised. Nevertheless, on 30 October Congress voted fifty-two to thirty-one to make Mexico City the nation's capital and to create a federal district. Constitution of 1824 After months of debate, Congress ratified the constitution, on 4 October 1824. The new charter affirmed that: Article 3: The religion of the Mexican nation is and will permanently be the Roman, Catholic, Apostolic [religion]. The nation protects her with wise and just laws and prohibits the exercise of any other [religion]. Article 4. The Mexican nation adopts for its government a representative, popular, federal republic. Article 5. The parts of this federation are the following states and territories: the states of Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Texas, Durango, Guanajuato, México, Michoacán, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla de los Ángeles, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sonora and Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Xalisco, Yucatán and Zacatecas; and the territories of: Alta California, Baja California, Colima Territory and Santa Fe de Nuevo México Territory. A constitutional law will determine the status of Tlaxcala. Article 74. The supreme executive power of the federation is deposited in only one individual who shall be called President of the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos). Article 75. There will also be a vice president who, in case of the physical or moral incapacity of the president, will receive all his authority and prerogatives. Like the Acta Constitutiva, the Constitution of 1824 was modelled on the Hispanic Constitution of 1812, not, as is often asserted, on the US Constitution of 1787. Although superficially similar to the latter although it adopted a few practical applications from the U.S. Constitution, such as the executive, the Mexican document was based primarily on Hispanic constitutional and legal precedents. For example, although the Constitution of 1824 created a president, in Mexico the office was subordinate to the legislature. Since Mexico was essentially confederalist, rather than federalist, the Mexican Charter was closer in spirit to the first US Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, than to the U.S. Constitution of 1787. Entire sections of the Cádiz Charter were repeated verbatim in the Mexican document because Mexicans