Most Spanish South American countries had very liberal constitutions on independence, guaranteeing property, liberal freedoms like speech and contract, and abolishing the fueros and legal caste/race distinctions, often inspired by but going further than the United States. 
Many people claim the US was founded as a [classical] liberal state without racial or ethnic content. This is mostly not true; the US was founded by Whigs (the word liberal was coined around 1800) and had explicit race laws. But it *is* true of most of Latin America.
Spanish-American liberals were within the Spanish liberal tradition, much like the Founding Fathers were Whigs. 19th Hispanic century liberalism, politically very successful, is overlooked vs Britain or France. Liberalism won but failed in both Spain and America.
I suspect liberalism's failure in Spain and Spanish America is overlooked by many because most interested in 19th century liberalism are sympathetic towards it (if leftist, as a precursor of socialism and derivatives, otherwise, in and of itself); the failure is embarrassing.
Couple more differences between Spanish America and the US: most of Spanish America abolished slavery without much fuss on independence, and just about every major independence leader from Iturbide to Bolivar to San Martin died in exile, like if Washington had fled to Russia.
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