The Defenders of the Constitution (Serbian: Уставобранитељи, Ustavobranitelji) was a political regime that achieved power in Serbia in 1842 by overthrowing young Prince Mihailo Obrenović.
Led by Toma Vučić Perišić and later Ilija Garašanin, Serbian Ministers, calling themselves the Defenders of the Constitution, were concerned about the welfare of the Serbian people, but were also obsessed with the increasing power of the state.
The acts of the Defenders of the Constitution also foreshadowed the 1848 revolution in the region, when the Hungarians demanded national rights in the Austrian Empire.
As a matter of government reform, the Defenders wanted better order in their administration.
Many of the politics and its bureaucratic foundations were derived from Garašanin and Vučić's childhood idol, the autocrat Francis I, emperor of Austria And Hungary from 1792 to 1806.