First Spanish Republic - The Government of Pi I Margall

The Government of Pi I Margall

"The federal republic for Pi i Margall The procedure — there's no reason to hide it — was openly the reverse of the past: the result could be the same. The provinces had to be represented in the new Cortes, and if they had any concrete idea on the limits over the powers of the future states, they could take it to the Cortes and defend it there. As the delimitation of the powers of the provinces would have also determined that of the state, the delimitation of the central power would determine that of the provinces. One way or another could have, without any doubt, produced the same constitution and it would not have been, in my opinion, neither patriotic nor political, to ensnare the proclamation of the Republic due to intransigence over this point. Even though the "bottom to top" procedure was more logical and proper of a Federation, the other, "top to bottom" was more likely for an already-formed nation like ours, and less dangerous in its implementation. There would be no cessation of continuity in power; the life of the nation would not be suspended for a single moment; there would be no fear of deep conflicts arising between the provinces; it would be the easiest, fastest, safest way and the less exposed to contrariety... "

—Francisco Pi i Margall

After Figueras' flight to France, the power vacuum created was tempting general Manuel Sodas into starting a pronunciamiento when a Civil Guard colonel, José de la Iglesia, showed up at Congress and declared that nobody would leave until a new President was elected. Figueras' fellow federalist and government minister Francisco Pi y Margall was elected on June 11, but on his speech to the Assembly he declared he was at a complete loss and without a program. The main efforts of the new government focused on the drafting of the new Constitution and some social character-related bills:

• Apportionment of disamortized lands among lessees, settlers and aparceros.
• Reestablishment of the regular Army, with mandatory conscription.
• Separation of Church and State, which had been deeply intertwined under Ferdinand VII and only slightly separated by Isabella II.
• Abolition of slavery throughout the nation. Though the 1812 Cádiz Constitution had already took some steps on the issue, the colonies remained opposed to the move from mainland Spain. Also, plans were made to limit child labor.
• Establishment of a system ensuring free and compulsory education.
• Legalization of the right of syndication, creation of mixed workers-managers juries and establishment of the 8 hours work day.

On 16 June a 25-member Committee was set up by the Cortes to study the draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Spain, the redaction of which is mainly attributed to Emilio Castelar, with debate starting the following day. On 28 June Pi i Margall renewed the composition of his government, but due to the slow pace of the constitutional debates in the Cortes, events came crashing down on the government at a stunning pace. On 30 June the City Council of Seville passed a motion declaring the town a Social Republic, and the next day many federalist deputies left the Cortes in protest. About a week later, on 9 July Alcoy followed suit, in the midst of a wave of murders sparked by a revolutionary strike directed by local leaders of the First International. It was just the beginning: shortly after, the cantonal revolution swept across Spain with strikes, murders of officers by soldiers, lynching of city mayors and over a hundred casualties.

The federalist sentiment did not give rise to autonomous States, bursting into a constellation of independent cantons instead. Uprisings were daily news in the South-Eastern area of Levante and Andalusia. Some cantons were provincial in nature, like Valencia or Málaga, but most comprised just a city and its surroundings, like the more localised cantons of Alcoy, Cartagena, Seville, Cádiz, Almansa, Torrevieja, Castellón, Granada, Salamanca, Bailén, Andújar, Tarifa and Algeciras. Even smaller were the village-based cantons of Camuñas (in Albacete) and Jumilla (in Murcia). The latter is said to have issued a manifesto stating:

La nación jumillana desea vivir en paz con todas las naciones vecinas y, sobre todo, con la nación murciana, su vecina; pero si la nación murciana, su vecina, se atreve a desconocer su autonomía y a traspasar sus fronteras, Jumilla se defenderá, como los héroes del Dos de Mayo, y triunfará en la demanda, resuelta completamente a llegar, en sus justísimos desquites, hasta Murcia, y a no dejar en Murcia piedra sobre piedra.

The Jumillan nation wishes to live in peace with all nearby nations, and particularly with the nation of Murcia, her neighbor; but should the nation of Murcia dare not to recognize its autonomy and violate its borders, Jumilla will fight back like the heroes of May 2, and shall be victorious in her demands, ready to arrive at Murcia itself and leave no wall higher than the next.

There is, however, no record of such a manifesto, nor of any similar declaration, in the municipal archives; and the proceedings of the time seemed to be within normality. This has motivated several historians to deny the authenticity of the manifesto and even the very existence of the Jumilla canton, stating that its invention was merely a form of anti-republican propaganda.

The most active – and known – of the cantons was that of Cartagena, born on 12 July at the city naval base under the inspiration of the federalist congressman Antonio Gálvez Arce, known as Antonete. The Cartagena would live six months of constant wars, and even minted its own currency, the duro cantonal.

The first deed of the Cartagenan cantonalists was the capture of the Saint Julian castle, which motivated a strange telegram sent by the city's captain-general to the Minister of the Navy: "Saint Julian castle shows Turkish flag". Such "Turkish flag" was in fact the cantonal flag, the first red flag in Spanish history. Gálvez's passionate speeches allowed him to gain control of the Navy ships docked in the city, which at that time were among the best in the Spanish Navy. Under his command, the fleet wreaked havoc on the nearby Mediterranean shore, causing the Madrid government to declare him a pirate and set a bounty on his head. Back on land, he led an expedition towards Madrid that was defeated at Chinchilla.

Two cantonal frigates, the Almansa and the Vitoria, set sail towards a foreign power (the Spanish city of Almería) for fund-raising. As the city would not pay, it was bombarded and taken by the cantonalists. General Contreras, commanding officer of the cantonal fleet, ordered the Marcha Real to be played as he unboarded. Afterwards, the deed would be repeated in Alicante, but on the trip back to Cartagena they were captured as pirates by the armored frigates HMS Swiftsure and SMS Friedrich Karl, under the UK and German flags respectively.

There were days in that summer in which we thought our Spain was completely disbanded. The idea of legality was lost to a point any employee of War would assume full powers and notify the Cortes, and those charged with handing and fulfilling the law would disregard it, raising or booming against legality. It was not about, as in other instances, replacing an existent Ministry or a form of Government in the accepted way; it was about dividing our homeland in a thousand parts, similar to the successors to the Cordoba Caliphate. The strangest ideas and the most dishevelled principles came from the provinces. Some said to be about to restore the old Crown of Aragon, as if the ways of modern Law were spells from the Middle Ages. Others wanted to form an independent Galicia under an English protectorate. Jaén was preparing to wage war against Granada. Salamanca was afraid of the closing of its glorious university and the demise of its scientific prowess The uprising came against the most federalist of all possible governments, and at the very moment the Assembly was preparing a draft Constitution, the worst defects of which came from the lack of time in the Committee and the surplus of impatience in the Government.

—Emilio Castelar

An even worse problem was the Third Carlist War, in which the rebels controlled most of the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia without opposition, and sent raid parties throughout the Peninsula. The Carlist pretender, Charles VII, had formed a rival government in Estella with his own ministers and was already minting currency, while the French connivance allowed him to receive external aid and fortify his defences. Between the Carlists and the cantonal revolution, the actual territory in which the short-lived Republic exerted undisputed authority did not extend much further than the province of Madrid itself and North-Western Spain, as cantonal uprisings took place as far North as Ávila.

Due to the rapid pace of the events, and without time for the new Constitution to be passed by the Cortes, Pi i Margall found himself between a rock and the proverbial hard place of the cantonal revolution. However, the effective Commander in Chief of the Republic rejected all calls, from both military and political instances, to exert repression on the cantonal uprisings, as he argued they were just following his very own doctrine. Thus, he was forced to resign on 18 July after just 37 days in office. He would later sorely describe his experience as premier:

So many have my upsets with power been that I can no longer covet it. While in the Government I have lost my calm, my illusions, my trust in fellow men which was the base of my character. For each grateful man, a hundred ungratefuls; for each disinterested and patriotic one, hundreds that wanted from politics nothing more than the satisfaction of their whims. I have received bad for good.