The Restoration in Spain: A Political History (1874-1898)
A New Political System
Spanish Conservatives were satisfied with the Restoration of the Bourbon dynasty because they expected the new monarchy to restore political stability and end any attempt at democratic and social revolution. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was not seeking a return to the era of Isabel II, but a new political model that would overcome some of the endemic problems of liberalism: the partisan character and exclusion of moderates during the Elizabethan reign, military intervention in politics, and the proliferation of civilian clashes.
To achieve these purposes, Cánovas planned two objectives: to develop a constitution underpinning a political system based on bipartisanship, and to pacify the country by putting an end to the Carlist and Cuban conflicts.
The first policy measure was the call for a constituent assembly. The Constitution of 1869 had been terminated after the proclamation of the Republic. Cánovas was not in favor of universal suffrage, but he accepted it for the first elections under the new regime, even though he intended to revert to census suffrage later.
The Constitution of 1876
The 1876 Constitution is clearly doctrinaire liberal, characterized by census suffrage and sovereignty shared between the king and the courts. It is identifiably inspired by conservative thought, emphasizing monarchy, religion, and property.
It regarded the monarchy as a permanent and superior institution, outside of any political decision. The king constituted a moderating power and served as arbiter. Shared sovereignty was established, and the king had the following powers: the right to vote, the appointment of ministers, and the authority to convene, suspend, or dissolve the courts without the government’s consent.
The court was bicameral, consisting of the Senate and Congress. The constitution did not establish the type of vote, but a law of 1878 established census voting. The Constitution also proclaimed Catholicism as the state religion, while tolerating other beliefs that did not make public demonstrations.
The new text also included a constitutional declaration of rights.
Bipartidismo and Peaceful Transition
Cánovas introduced a system of government based on bipartisanship and the alternation in power of the two major parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties. These parties, known as dynastic parties, aimed to encompass all political forces that accepted the Alfonsine monarchy. It was accepted that there would be a time for parties that guaranteed peaceful institutional stability.
The army’s mission was exclusively to defend the security and independence of the country. In return, the military had a certain autonomy for their internal affairs and enjoyed high esteem.
The End of Wars
The stability of the system was favored by the end of the Carlist and Cuban wars. At first, Carlist forces, under the command of Ramón Cabrera and Francisco Savalls, won some victories, such as at Alpens (1873) and Castellfollit (1874). Throughout 1875, the Liberal army offensive drove the Carlists from their strongholds and managed to defeat them in Catalonia, as well as in Valencia and Aragon.
The conflict continued for a few months in the Basque Country and Navarre, where the greater part of the government’s army was transferred. The military campaign at the end of 1875 weakened the Navarrese and Basque resistance, leading to their total surrender in 1876. In February of that same year, the Carlist pretender, Charles VII, crossed the French border into exile, and the war was considered finished in all peninsular territory.
The immediate consequence of the Carlist defeat was the final abolition of the fueros. In 1878, a system of economic agreements was stipulated that gave some fiscal autonomy to the Basque provinces.
The end of the Carlist War made it easier to end the Cuban insurrection (Ten Years’ War, 1868–1878). In 1878, the Peace of Zanjón was signed. The agreement included a broad amnesty, the abolition of slavery (adopted in 1888), and the promise of political and administrative reforms, which would have given Cuba representation in the Spanish Courts. The failure to implement these reforms in 1879 led to a new conflict (Little War) and a renewed insurrection in 1895.
The Evolution of Republicanism
After the failure of the First Republic, republicanism had to face disappointment and government repression. In addition, Republicans were sharply divided into different tendencies, hindering the reorganization of their forces and decreasing the efficiency of their political agenda. The fastest adaptation to the new conditions was led by the old republican leader, Emilio Castelar, who evolved into increasingly moderate positions and created the Possibilist Republican Party, which accepted the restored political game.
Castelar was elected deputy (1876) and simultaneously sought minority party participation in municipalities and governing councils. The opposite case was that of the progressive politician Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, who turned to radical republicans who advocated violent action against the monarchy. He founded the Progressive Republican Party, which came to have some influence in the military and led failed insurrection attempts (the most important being that of General Villacampa). Its failure, however, finally ended the republican insurrectionary cycle, and a part of the republican party opted for Nicolás Salmerón’s Centralist Republican Party.
The main republican force in Catalonia, the Federal Republican Party, continued under Pi i Maragall, which in the early years of the Restoration practiced electoral abstention and suffered internal divisions and splits. At the party congress in 1883, and with the rise of Josep M. Vallès i Ribot to the party leadership, federalism was renewed, and a new program was adopted. Liberal reforms, especially universal suffrage, stimulated the formation of coalitions such as the Republican Union, which brought together various tendencies. It achieved good results in the 1883 elections. The union was repeated in 1896, but did not achieve the same success, although alliances allowed it to increase its parliamentary seats.
The Carlists After the War
After the Carlist defeat in 1876, the Carlist pretender, Carlos de Bourbon, was explicitly prohibited from entering Spain, and some leading members of Carlism, such as the old military hero Ramón Cabrera, recognized Alfonso XII as the legitimate king. This plunged Carlism into a serious crisis, and the party took time to adapt its activities to the new circumstances. Cándido Nocedal, the Carlist leader, managed to unite Carlist circles across the country, although its fundamental strength continued to be in Navarre, the Basque Country, and Catalonia.
The renewal of the party was led by Juan Vázquez de Mella, who in 1886 proposed a program adapted to the new political situation called the Act of Loredan. The proposal maintained the validity of early Carlism, such as Catholic unity, traditionalism, authority, and the Carlist pretender’s opposition to democracy, but it no longer advocated for the restoration of the Ancien Régime and accepted the new liberal-capitalist order. Ramón Nocedal formed the Catholic National Party, which ceased to recognize the Carlist pretender as king and became simply a Catholic fundamentalist party.
On the other hand, the Catalan church hierarchy, led by Bishop Josep Morgades, lobbied for the clergy to abandon Carlism and participate in promoting the values of Catholic tradition within the new liberal society. All this helped to undo the identification between the Church and the Carlist cause.
Cuba and the Spanish-American War
The Pearl of the Antilles
The Spanish administration in Cuba implemented a series of reforms that granted the island the same rights of political representation in the Spanish courts as the peninsula, participation in the island’s government, freedom of trade, and the abolition of slavery, which was still practiced with black people who worked in sugar factories or mills.
Following the model of peninsular bipartisanship, two major parties were created in Cuba: the Cuban Autonomist Party, which advocated for autonomy, freedom of trade, and the abolition of slavery; and the Constitutional Union Party, a Spanish party with strong ties to peninsular Spaniards installed in Cuba. The Autonomist Party called for a program of political and economic reform and had achieved broad representation in the Spanish parliament. Sagasta’s Liberal Party was in favor of reforms, but only came to implement the formal abolition of slavery in 1888.
The ineffectiveness of the reforms spurred desires for emancipation, and independence began to gain ground over autonomism. In 1893, an intellectual, José Martí, founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party with the goal of achieving independence. The new party gained recognition abroad, especially in the United States, increased its social base, and quickly received the support of revolutionary leaders such as Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo, and Calixto García, who had distinguished themselves fighting Spanish troops in the Ten Years’ War and had refused to accept the Zanjón agreements.
In 1891, the Spanish government raised tariffs on products imported into the island that did not come from the peninsula. Spain’s economic law stated that all products arriving in Cuba had to be Spanish (protectionist tariff). U.S. President William McKinley protested this situation and threatened to close the U.S. market to Spanish products if the Cuban government did not modify its tariff policy on the island. The fear was that this would produce a new separatist insurgency, and that if it did, it could have U.S. support.
The Great Insurrection
In 1895, there was a new insurrection attempt that resulted in the Little War. It began with the Grito de Baire on February 24, 1895. The rebellion began in the east of the island, in Santiago de Cuba, but quickly spread westward, towards Havana. The head of the Spanish government, Cánovas del Castillo, sent an army commanded by General Martínez Campos, who was convinced that a military pacification of the island required strong military action accompanied by an effort of political reconciliation with the insurgents. Martínez Campos failed to militarily control the rebellion and was replaced by General Valeriano Weyler, who proposed a change in the methods of struggle and launched a strong repression. To prevent the insurrections from spreading in the rural world, he organized concentrations of peasants, which forced farmers to abandon their settlements and be confined in closed and isolated populations to prevent them from supporting the combatants.
In the military field, the war was not favorable to the Spanish soldiers, because they were not trained for this type of battle and the army lacked the appropriate means. Poor supply, lack of equipment, and tropical diseases took a heavy toll among the troops and made final victory increasingly difficult to achieve.
In 1897, after the assassination of Cánovas del Castillo and aware of the failure of Weyler’s repressive approach, the new Liberal government dismissed him and entrusted command to General Ramón Blanco. He began a strategy of conciliation in the hope of persuading the separatists to accept a formula that maintained Spanish sovereignty over the island and avoided conflict with the U.S. He decreed autonomy for Cuba, universal male suffrage, equal rights for islanders and peninsulars, and tariff autonomy. But the reforms came too late: the independentistas, who had the support of the U.S., refused to accept them, and the Spanish government unilaterally declared the end of hostilities.
Parallel to the conflict in Cuba, in 1896 there was a rebellion in the Philippines. The Pacific colony had received little Spanish immigration, had a weak military presence, and there was a large contingent of missionaries from the major religious orders. Spanish financial interests were much lower than in Cuba. Independence was strengthened with the formation of the Philippine League, founded in 1892 by José Rizal, and the Katipunan, a clandestine organization that spread the uprising through the province of Manila. General Camilo García de Polavieja led a political repression and Rizal was sentenced to death at the end of 1896. The new Liberal government in 1897 encouraged indirect negotiations with the leaders of the Philippine insurrection, which led to a momentary peace in the archipelago.
U.S. Intervention
The United States had established its preferred area of expansion in the Caribbean region and also in the Pacific, where its influence was felt in Hawaii and Japan. Interest in Cuba had existed for a long time, and American commitment to the cause of Cuban separatism had been evident since 1895.
President McKinley sent the battleship Maine to the port of Havana. In April 1898, after an explosion that resulted in the loss of most of the ship’s crew, this became a pretext to start the conflict: the United States launched a strong campaign against Spain, blaming Spanish agents for the incident. The U.S. government then sent Spain an ultimatum demanding its withdrawal from Cuba. Spain denied any involvement, rejected the U.S. proposal, and threatened to declare war if the island was invaded. Thus began the Spanish-American War.
Faced with the new belligerent situation, a Spanish squadron commanded by Admiral Cervera sailed for Cuba, but was quickly defeated in the Battle of Santiago. The United States also defeated another Spanish squadron sent to the Philippines in the Battle of Manila Bay. In December 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed, by which Spain agreed to abandon Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, which became a U.S. protectorate. The Spanish army returned defeated in pitiful conditions, while many Spaniards had to evacuate the island and repatriate their interests.
The Disaster of ’98 and its Aftermath
A Political and Moral Crisis
After the defeat in the Spanish-American War and the loss of colonies in Asia and Latin America (Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines), ceded to the United States, Spain entered a period of crisis known as the “Disaster of ’98.” The crisis of the political system, and in part of Spanish society and culture, had already been announced before the disaster and became the first major crisis of the Restoration political system.
There was a relative economic crisis due to large military spending by the Spanish government, resulting in tax increases and a demand for loans from entrepreneurs. However, those returning from Cuba were wealthy, having incurred no expenses due to the use of slave labor, which helped cover the deficit and the country’s economic crisis.
As a result of the war’s end, the military man Polavieja rose as Spanish finance minister, proposing a regenerationist policy that intended to make certain reforms in public administration and decentralize the administration. These proposals were well received by sections of the Catalan bourgeoisie, who created the Regional Board of Adherents to General Polavieja’s Program. Because the Spanish people had believed themselves to be part of a great empire, the defeat caused a great moral and ideological crisis that had a huge psychological impact on the population, as Spain lost its importance in international politics.
Regenerationism
The intellectuals of the time realized that it was necessary to promote the country’s wealth (culture, science, and education), as the Church had too much influence within the country. They proposed a solution for the country: regenerationism. This was summarized in two concepts: schools, to combat illiteracy, and improved agriculture, to provide food for all. The main proponent of these concepts was Joaquín Costa, who defended the need to “close the tomb of El Cid,” improve the situation of the Spanish countryside, and raise educational and cultural life.
In addition, the Generation of ’98 (Machado, Pío Baroja, among others), with their pessimism, further spurred the regenerationist movement.
In Catalonia, the disaster had immediate political consequences, such as the closure of banks because Barcelona’s merchants refused to pay the new tax burdens imposed by Minister Villaverde; and the medium-term consolidation of Catalanism. Important sectors of the industrial bourgeoisie began to realize the inability of the dynastic parties to develop a policy for Catalonia and shifted their support to Catalan nationalist formations that demanded autonomy and promised a policy of modernizing the state.
End of an Era
The disaster of 1989 meant the end of the system as the Restoration ‘was designed
Cánovas and the emergence of a new generation of politicians, intellectuals, men of science
social activists and entrepreneurs, who started acting in the new reign of Alfonso XIII.
The policy regenerationist who tried to apply the new government after the crisis of 98
did not achieve the deep reforms announced, but he simply let the system
continue working with some minimal changes.
In front of a growing anti-militarism in certain social sectors, some soldiers were
tilt toward more authoritarian and intransigent positions, convinced that the defeat had been
because of inefficiency and corruption of politicians.