The constitution also places it as the head of the state's foreign policy and grants it the power to appoint diplomatic representatives on the recommendation and approval of the Senate of the Dominican Republic.

The constitution of the Dominican Republic was published in 1801 The president is elected by universal suffrage for a term of four years.

[citation needed] The main activities, at such a convulsive moment, were to lead the war against the invasion of the Haitians, since it depended on the survival of the newly born state and the application of emergency measures of a provisional nature in order to put the governmental machinery, the collection of taxes, inform foreign powers of the existence of the new state and extend its dominion over the newly liberated territory.

He had to keep Haitian laws in force for a while, since otherwise the courts, the collection of taxes, municipalities, customs and other indispensable organisms for the normal course of the institutional life of every society would not have worked.

[citation needed] In July 1844, General Pedro Santana, after a streak of successive victories in the southern part of the country, appeared with his army in Santo Domingo and was proclaimed President of the Junta Central Government.

[4] The change of command takes place every four years, on 16 August, which is the day of the Restoration of the Republic, a national holiday.

Under Trujillo, however, the legislature was simply a rubber stamp; the courts were not independent; and basic rights all but ceased to exist.

[5] After Trujillo's death in 1961, the constitution was amended to provide for new elections and to allow the transfer of power to an interim Council of State.

These provisions frightened the more conservative elements in Dominican society, which banded together to oust Bosch and his constitution in September 1963.

[5] Largely as a result of the United States military intervention of April 1965, the civil war had died down by 1966.