Castelar, Emilio

Emilio (1832-1899), a Spanish statesman. A native of Cadiz. He studied at the University of Madrid and became a professor of history in that institution. He was a frequent contributor to various periodicals. At the age of thirty-two he established La Democracia, a popular journal devoted, as may be inferred from the name, to the advance of democratic ideas. The period was one of military uprisings, of "government by revolt." Ferdinand VII, a suspicious, treacherous, absolute monarch, died in 1833. The Absolute party desired to crown Carlos, a brother of the dead king. The Carlists, as this party was called, were opposed by those in favor of a constitution. The crown was settled on Isabella, a young daughter of Ferdinand, under the regency of her mother, Christina, who proclaimed a paper constitution. Carlos and the Carlist leaders were driven out in 1840; but meanwhile the Constitutionists divided into Moderates and Progressionists and fell to blows. Christina sided with the Moderate party and was forced to abdicate. One military uprising followed another. Any officer who had the troops and a grievance might issue a proclamation and find himself in flight or in charge of the young queen's government, as the event might turn out. These revolutions were little more than armed changes of ministry. There was noise and bluster, but little bloodshed. The common people went on planting and harvesting, reaping their little patches of grain, pulling the flax and hemp, gathering oranges and hazelnuts, pressing wine, and shearing sheep, quite indifferent to the cockade that rode foremost, provided they could pay their taxes and keep bread in the mouths of their children. Forty years of this kind of government went on. Isabella grew up worthless; elections were a farce. As a journalist and public speaker, Castelar strove manfully to bring order out of chaos. His is the one patriotic voice to be heard above the din of selfish strife.

In 1866 Castelar was concerned in an uprising, not against the ministry, but against monarchy, and was compelled to flee to England under sentence of death. Two years later Isabella fled, and Castelar returned. Castelar labored to proclaim a republic, but the supporters of monarchy won in the Cortes and finally the crown was accepted in 1871 by Amadeo, a younger son of Victor Emmanuel of Italy. Two years later the young king gave up in despair, and Castelar became the president of a new republic. The constitution was much like that in vogue elsewhere. Castile, Aragon, and the other ancient provinces were constituted states; but the people proved unfit for self government. It had been the dream of Castelar, the student, and Castelar, the writer, and Castelar, the speaker, and Castelar, the revolutionist, and Castelar, the legislator, to give Spain an enlightened democratic government; but Castelar, the president, could not convert the ignorance of centuries into intelligence, nor the official selfishness and dishonesty of misrule for generations into a progressive and upright administration. He encountered an empty treasury, a demoralized army, officers in mutiny, seaboard cities refusing to comply with national legislation, Carlist uprisings in the north and municipal uprisings in the south, hordes of ruffians in the cities, and bands of bandits in the mountains.

Castelar was forced to abandon theory for practical measures. He saw that "the choice lay between bayonet rule in the hands of disciplined troops controlled by good men, and pike rule in the hands of a vicious rabble led by escaped galley-slaves." During a recess of the Cortes, Castelar made himself dictator. He drove out the Carlists, subdued the cities, and sent criminals to the gallows by the short route of drumhead courts-martial. When the Cortes reassembled, a resolution of censure was passed. Castelar might have turned the legislators out at the point of the bayonet, but he had no personal desire for authority. He resigned promptly. He became a member of the Cortes, rising often from his seat to speak with all his old time eloquence. Castelar is admittedly the Spaniard of his century. His chief writings are History of the Republican Movement in Europe, Civilization, and Questions, Political and Social.

Castelar was well aware that he had not seen all his hopes bear fruit but he was well content. Toward the close of his life he wrote: "When we turn the eyes of our memory to the sad realities of the past, and compare them with the realities of the present, we see what may be accomplished without the fulfillment of Utopian dreams and unrealizable ideals. Those who have seen an almost absolute monarchy may today see a democratic monarchy. Those who once scarcely dared to express their thoughts, today may write whatever they think proper. Those who once were excluded from the universities for proclaiming free thought and the proper standards of science, today have a right to teach what they think and believe. Those who once felt their hearts stirred with indignation against slavery and the markets where human beings were bought and sold, as in Nineveh and Babylon, now know that today there is not one slave under the Spanish flag. We may well feel content with the work of the past forty years."