The Spanish Constitution of 1812 was established on 19 March 1812 by the Cádiz Cortes, Spain's first national sovereign assembly, the Cortes Generales ("General Courts"), in refuge in Cádiz during the Peninsular War. It established the principles of universal male suffrage, national sovereignty, constitutional monarchy and freedom of the press, and supported land reform and free enterprise. This constitution, one of the most liberal of its time, was effectively Spain's first (see Constitutions of Spain), given that the Bayonne Statute issued in 1808 under Joseph Bonaparte never entered into effect.