The Restoration and the Fall of the Spanish Empire: 1874-1898
**The Restoration and the Canovista System: Oligarchy and Caciquismo in Andalusia**
The Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy of Alfonso XII was produced by one of the military uprisings, given by General Martinez Campos at Sagunto. The architect of the political system was Antonio Canovas del Castillo, who was aligned with Prince Alfonso’s Sandhurst manifesto. The Restoration period is usually considered to end with the arrival of Alfonso XIII of age (1902). Cánovas attracted political and social elites contrary to absolutism, who rejected the excesses of democracy and disorder of the Republic. He gave the monarchy a liberal and authoritarian system that allowed both the peaceful alternation between right and left, both liberal and conservative. The anti-monarchist, anti-liberal parties were initially excluded, as were the masses, and the electoral results of the ruling parties were obtained through manipulation and fraud.
The key elements of the system were: the pacification of the country, the design of a new constitution, and the creation of parties adapted to the political game.
*Pacification of the Country***
This also implied the exclusion of the military in politics. Their duties were relegated to the end of the Third Carlist War and the Cuban War. The Carlists were neutralized; their defeat was the abolition of charters and the Basque institutions, which fueled nationalism, although they maintained their fiscal autonomy. Cuba’s war ended but rebounded in 1895 and led to the independence of the island and the war with the U.S.
*The Constitution of the Restoration***
It was inspired by the moderate constitution of 1845, was pivotal, and remained until 1931.
Constitution of 1876
- Fundamental Principles: Core model of the state, sovereignty shared between the King and the Cortes.
- Catholicism as the state religion.
- Tolerance of other religions.
- Declaration of rights of the 1869 constitution.
- Power-sharing: The King had hegemonic power over parliament: executive power (elected to the government, was the supreme command of the army, and had the authority to dissolve the Cortes) and legislative (power to veto, legislative initiative). The government needed the double confidence of the King and the Cortes.
- The Cortes: Bicameral system. The Congress was elected by census suffrage (and since 1890 by universal male suffrage).
*The Creation of Political Parties***
There were two political forces that accepted the rules of the game and could alternate. The Conservative Party, led by Francisco Canovas, brought together moderate liberals, members of the liberal union, progressives, and traditionalist Catholics. They were placed on the moderate right.
The Merger Party, later the Liberal Party, led by Sagasta, represented the liberal left, attracting disenchanted conservatives and former democrats and progressives of the Democratic Sexenio. Even historical Republicans like Castelar cooperated with the monarchy, enabling the reconciliation of the generation of 1868 with the Bourbons.
*Alternation in the Government***
The candidate for president of the government should be appointed by the King and also have a solid majority in Parliament to govern. He promoted the call for elections, and a majority vote could allow him to continue governing. The process was an authentic reverse democracy.
The Ministry of the Interior was responsible for monitoring the electoral process through civilian and local personalities, generally dealing with preparing the ballot box. Politicians who did this used fraudulent votes for the chiefs, who came to have powers parallel to the State. A major sector of the masses did not vote in elections and considered them a useless farce. In many rural districts, an alternative candidate to the chief was not even proposed, since after the 1907 law, candidates were appointed automatically without a vote. The chief was most effective in rural areas.
After the death of Alfonso XII in 1885, his wife, Maria Christina of Austria, who was pregnant with Alfonso XIII, assumed the regency. The death of the two leaders, Canovas and Sagasta, did not affect the operation of the system.
Restoration governments adopted a series of measures, including:
- The adoption of liberalization, promoted by the party of Sagasta, during the period known as the Long Parliament (1885-1890), which controlled the government. He tried to include all the individual rights of the Constitution of 1869, freedom of the press, academic freedom, and association, which allowed the emergence of unions such as the UGT. It also approved the Jury Act, the Civil Code, and universal male suffrage.
- In 1883, at the initiative of Sigismund Moret, the Liberals created the Social Reform Commission to examine all the issues concerning the welfare of the working classes, consulting labor leaders, including the Socialists. This committee was the forerunner of the Institute of Social Reforms (1903), later the Ministry of Labor.
- Adopting protectionist measures to protect the interests of the Catalan and Basque industry, mining, Asturian and Castilian grain producers.
**The Fall of the Colonial Empire and the Crisis of ’98**
*Background: The Cuban Question***
Outbreaks of unrest caused by occasionally reproduced Cuban independence, the Little War of 1879, the insurrections of 1883 and 1885, attached to a long war (1868-1878), fueled popular nationalism in Cuba, joined by slaves and wealthy Creoles.
The bureaucrats, businessmen, and sugar producers, Spanish residents on the island, refused to admit any kind of autonomy. The peninsula also had many interests because trade with Cuba was a monopoly market and gave Spain a positive balance. The abolition of slavery on the island was late, and the project to give it autonomy was not carried out. It was attempted to become a province of Spain by sending some 700,000 emigrants, mostly Galicians.
Cuba obtained much of its income from the United States, a country that exported more than 90% of the production of sugar and snuff. U.S. diplomatic pressure on the island increased. In 1892, the country obtained a favorable tariff for their products and then financed the independence movement with the intention to adjudicate when conflict arose between Cuba and the mainland.
*The Cuban War and Conflict with the U.S.***
The war began in 1895, proclaimed by the Manifesto of Montecristi (Dominican Republic). This revolt was joined by the Philippines in 1896, led by General Polavieja, who acted with extreme hardness and executed the main intellectual of the archipelago’s independence movement, José Rizal. The rebellion was suppressed in 1897.
In 1898 an incident took place: the explosion of the *Maine*, an American battleship that was in Havana harbor, killing more than 250 American sailors. Although it probably broke because of some accident, the press and the U.S. government blamed Spain for the explosion and offered to buy the island.
Politicians of the Restoration preferred an honorable defeat rather than a bought peace. Public opinion and the Spanish press were very militaristic and nationalistic. The United States declared war on Spain in April 1898.
The war was decided at sea: the U.S. squad defeated the Spanish first in Cavite, near Manila, and later off Santiago de Cuba. On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed, by which Spain recognized the independence of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. In 1899, Spain sold to the German Empire the remnants of its empire in the Pacific: the Caroline Islands, the Marianas, and Palau.
*The Impact of ’98***
The loss of the last Spanish colonies was known as the *Disaster of ’98* and had major impacts:
- The resentment of the military towards the politicians, who had used them, causing them to lose the war. The political opposition, however, paid off politically for the defeat.
- The growth of popular anti-militarism. Recruitment for the war in Cuba affected those without resources. This circumstance, coupled with the spectacle of the repatriation of wounded and maimed soldiers, increased the rejection of the army among the popular classes. The labor movement campaigned against unfair recruitment, prompting the military’s animosity toward the people and workers’ organizations.
- The appearance of an important intellectual and critical movement, Regenerationism, which rejected the political and social system of the Restoration, considering it a scourge to the progress of Spain.