The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 (Spanish: Constitución Federal de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos de 1824) was the first constitution of Mexico, enacted on October 4 of 1824, inaugurating the First Mexican Republic.

During the Mexican War of Independence, the liberal dominated Spanish Cortes of Cádiz had included representatives from the colonies, and taken into account many of the colonial grievances which were leading to independence. The consequent liberal Constitution of 1812, was promulgated during the insurgency led by José María Morelos. It established a system of 'provincial deputations' which granted more autonomy to local governments in the colonies while also providing for freedom of speech. The newly liberated Mexican press however simply inflamed anti-Spanish sentiment, Morelos' rebellion continued, and on the pretext of necessity for subduing the rebels, the constitution was suspended in New Spain the same year it was proclaimed, making Mexican liberals lose hope of attaining reform within the colonial system, while not forgetting the local provincial autonomy that they had temporarily been granted.

Mexico finally gained its independence under the Plan of Iguala promulgated by Agustín de Iturbide, which planned for Mexico to be ruled by a member of the Spanish Bourbons, in either a personal union or with a member of the royal family travelling to Mexico to establish a new throne. The Spanish government refused the offer and a popular demonstration led to Iturbide himself assuming the throne. The ill-fated Empire which lasted less than a year, never managed to produce a constitution, and the failure to do so was one of the accusations Iturbide levelled at congress when he controversially dissolved it. The lack of clearly defined powers for congress and the emperor also contributed to the clashes which ultimately produced a successful rebellion against Emperor Iturbide in early 1823. The Empire was abolished and congress established the Supreme Executive Power to serve as a provisional government.

On the May 21, 1823, elections were announced for a new congress whose term was scheduled to begin on October 31. Rules for the new election were published on June 17. Congressional seats were allocated on a basis of one representative per 50,000 inhabitants, elected by manhood suffrage available to any man over the age of 18, and using the three-tiered system established by the Constitution of 1812, by which voters in each parish chose electors, who then met at the district level and chose electors for the province level, whom in turn finally voted for representatives to be sent to Congress.

The new congress elected in late October was mainly federalist in composition. It first met on November 7, 1823, and soon divided itself into two main factions: the federalists, whose most prominent voice was Miguel Ramos Arizpe, and the centralists, whose most prominent voice was Servando Teresa de Mier. Through the minister of justice, the executive announced to the congress on November 14, that they must now set to work on answering the popular call to establish the government most suited for the nation. A constitutional committee headed by Arizpe, was commissioned with writing a constitutional draft, and on November 22, 1823, delivered the Constitutive Act [es] (Spanish: Acta Constitutativa), with the fifth article declaring that Mexico adopts the republican, federal, popular, representative form of government, and debate on the matter began on December 3.

A committee consisting of Miguel Ramos Arizpe, Juan de Dios Cañedo, Miguel Argüelles, Rafael Mangino, Tomás Vargas, José de Jesús Huerta, and Manuel Crescencio Rejón, submitted an Acta Constitutiva (draft of a constitution) on 20 November. The group completed the draft of the charter in a few days. This was possible because the document was based on the shared Hispanic political theory and practice that Mexicans, the former novohispanos, knew well, since they had played a significant role in shaping it. In the years since Napoleon had invaded Spain in 1808, the political entities that formed the Mexican nation in 1821 had undergone a series of rapid political changes that politicized the majority of the population and led to a vibrant political discourse. The Directioners Constitution of 1812 and its institutions of government were well known; seven proposals for a Mexican constitution had been debated throughout the country in the previous months. The constituent congress, therefore, was filled with educated men with diverse ideas and extensive political experience at the local, state, national, and international levels. A few, like Ramos Arizpe and Guridi y Alcocer, had served in the Cortes in Spain and had participated in the discussions of the Constitution of 1812. In addition, Ramos Arizpe had been working on a federal constitution for some time. Lorenzo de Zavala was president of the congress that approved the constitution.

The Acta Constitutiva submitted by the committee was modelled on the Hispanic Constitution of 1812. Most of its articles were based on the Peninsular document; a few were adopted verbatim from that charter. For example, on the question of sovereignty the Hispanic Constitution stated: "Sovereignty resides essentially in the nation and, therefore, it [the nation] possesses the exclusive right to adopt the form of government that seems most convenient for its conservation and prosperity". Article 3 of the Mexican Acta Constitutiva read: "Sovereignty resides radically and essentially in the nation and, therefore, it [the nation] possesses the exclusive right to adopt by means of its representatives the form of government and other fundamental laws that seem most convenient for its conservation and greater prosperity". Although the deputies relied on their first constitutional experience, the Constitution of 1812, they did not slavishly copy the Hispanic model. Guridi y Alcocer, for example, explained that ever since he had served on the constitutional commission in the Hispanic Cortes he had maintained that sovereignty resided radically in the nation, by which he meant that the nation, as the institutional representative of el Pueblo, could not lose its sovereignty. His principal critics were radical federalists like Juan de Dios Cañedo, deputy from Jalisco, who challenged the need for an article declaring national sovereignty. He asked: that the article be deleted because in a republican federal government each state is sovereign. (...) Therefore, it is impossible to conceive how sovereignty, which is the origin and source of authority and power, can be divided among the many states. [T]hat is why the first constitution of the United States [the Articles of Confederation] (...) does not mention national sovereignty. And, therefore, (...) Article 1 which discusses the nation should not be approved because it is not appropriate in the system we now have.

The Acta, unlike the Hispanic constitution, did not grant exclusive or even preponderant sovereignty to the nation, because the states also claimed sovereignty. Accordingly, Article 6 stated: "Its integral parts are independent, free, and sovereign States in that which exclusively concerns their administration and interior government". The issue of sovereignty remained at heart a question of the division of power between the national and the state governments. It was an issue that would be debated at length in the months to come.