The Spanish Republic (Spanish: República española), historiographically referred to as the First Spanish Republic (Spanish: Primera República española), was the political regime that existed in Spain from 11 February 1873 to 29 December 1874.
The Republic was founded after the abdication of King Amadeo on 10 February 1873. On the next day a republic was proclaimed by a parliamentary majority made up of radicals, republicans and democrats. The period was beset by tensions between federal republicans and unitary republicans. The period also saw the end of compulsory conscription, the regulation of child labor and the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico. The government inherited a state of war, the so-called Third Carlist War, ongoing since 1872, and the Ten Years' War in Cuba, ongoing since 1868, to which was added the Cantonal Rebellion in 1873.
The January 1874 coup by General Manuel Pavía ousted the government, giving way to a military dictatorship under General Francisco Serrano. In December 1874, General Arsenio Martínez Campos proclaimed Alfonso XII king of Spain in Sagunto, bringing an end to the Republic and initiating the period of Spanish history known as the Bourbon Restoration.
Proclamation of the Republic
King Amadeo I abdicated from the Spanish throne on 11 February 1873. His decision was mainly due to the constant difficulties he had to face during his short tenure, such as the Ten Years' War, the outbreak of the Third Carlist War, the opposition from alfonsino monarchists, who hoped for the Bourbon Restoration in the person of Alfonso, son of Isabella II, the many republican insurrections, and the division among his own supporters.
The Cortes Generales, which was assembled in a joint and permanent session of both the Congress of Deputies and the Senate, declared themselves the National Assembly while waiting for any final notice from the King. The overwhelming majority was with the monarchists from the two dynastic parties that had exercised the government until then: the Radical Democratic Party of Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla and the Constitutional Party of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta. There also was a small republican minority in the National Assembly, ideologically divided between federalism and centralism. Federal Democratic Republican Party member Francisco Pi y Margall moved the following proposition: "The National Assembly assumes powers and declares the Republic as the form of government, leaving its organization to the Constituent Cortes" (which was to be convened).
In his speech for the proposition (to which he was a signatory, along with Estanislao Figueras, Salmerón, and other opposition deputies), Pi y Margall—himself a federalist—renounced for the moment establishing a federal republic, hoping the Constituent Corte would decide the issue, and announced his acceptance of any other democratic decision. Then another republican, Emilio Castelar, took the floor and said:
Sirs, traditional monarchy died with Ferdinand VII; parliamentary monarchy with the flight of Isabella II; democratic monarchy with the abdication of don Amadeo of Savoy. Nobody has done away with it, it has died on its own. Nobody brings the Republic, save all circumstances, a cabal of society, nature, and history. Sirs, let us greet it like the sun rising with its own strength on the sky of our nation.
After Castelar's powerful speech, amidst passionate applause, the proposition was carried by 258 votes in favour and only 32 against,
with the monarchists submitting. Thus the Republic was declared, with this sentence added: "An Executive Power shall be elected directly by the Cortes, and it shall be responsible to the same."
In the same session, the initial government of the Republic was elected. Figueras, a Federal republican was elected the first "President of the Executive Power", an office incorporating the heads of State and Government. No "President of the Republic" was ever elected, as the Constitution creating such office was never enacted. In his speech, Figueras said that the Republic "was like a rainbow of peace and harmony of all Spaniards of good will."
The passage of these resolutions surprised and stunned most Spaniards, as the recently elected Cortes (now National Assembly) had a wide majority of monarchists. Ruiz Zorrilla spoke in these terms: "I protest and will keep doing so, even if I'm left on my own, against those representatives that having come to the Cortes as constitutional monarchists feel themselves authorized to make the decision to turn the nation from monarchist to republican overnight."
For most monarchists, though, the impossibility of restoring Isabella II as Queen, and the youth of the future Alfonso XII made the Republic the only, though transitory, viable course of action, particularly given the inevitable failure that awaited it.
Figueras government
The first government of the Republic was composed of federalists and progressives who had been ministers during the monarchy. Four ministers in particular had served with King Amadeo: Echegaray (Finance), Becerra (Development), Fernández de Córdoba (War) and Beránger (Navy).
At the beginning, the government was plagued by a terrible economic situation, with a 546M peseta budgetary deficit, 153M in debts requiring immediate payment, and only 32M available to fulfill these obligations. The Artillery Corps had been dissolved in the most virulent moment of the Carlist and Cuban wars, for which there were not enough soldiers or armament, nor money to provide them. Besides, Spain was going through a deep economic crisis matching the Panic of 1873 and which was exacerbated by the political instability. In previous years, unemployment had risen steeply amongst field and industrial workers, and proletarian organizations responded with strikes, demonstrations, protest rallies and the occupation of abandoned lands.
On 23 February the newly elected Speaker of the National Assembly, radical Cristino Marcos, plotted a failed coup d'etat in which the Civil Guard occupied the Ministry of Governance and the National Militia surrounded the Congress of Deputies, in order to establish a unitary republic. This prompted the first remodeling of the government in which the progressives were ousted and replaced with federalists. Twelve days after the establishment of the Republic, compulsory military service was removed and voluntary service set up with a daily salary of 1 peseta and one crust (loaf?) of bread. A Republican volunteers corps was also established with an enlistment salary of 50 pesetas and a daily salary of 2 pesetas and 1 crust of bread.
The second Figueras government had to contend with the proclamation of a Catalan state within the Spanish republic on 9 March. The proclamation was rescinded two days later on 11 March in exchange for the dissolution of the Spanish army in Catalonia. On 23 April a new coup attempt was set in motion; this time by a collusion of alfonsino monarchists, members of the old Liberal Union and monarchic sectors of the Army; but failed when several units refrained from supporting it at the last hour.
Francisco Pi y Margall is usually considered the heart of this government, which had to face several problems already endemic to the Republic, such as the Third Carlist War, separatist insurrections (this time from Catalonia), military indiscipline, monarchic plots, etc. His government dissolved the National Assembly and summoned Constituent Cortes for 1 May. On 23 April Cristino Martos, Speaker of the old National Assembly, attempted a new coup, now supported by the Civil Governor of Madrid: a battalion of militiamen took positions along the Paseo del Prado, and four thousand more perfectly armed volunteers gathered near Independence Square under the pretext of passing review. Having heard from the plot, Pi i Margall mobilized the Civil Guard. For his part, after the Minister of War appointed Baltasar Hidalgo as the new Captain General for Madrid, he ordered Brigadier Carmona and a battalion of infantry and various artillery and cavalry units, to march on the militiamen. The coup d'état failed as soon as it started, and the government dissolved the military units participating and the Permanent Committee of the Assembly.
The writs were issued for Constituent Cortes elections on 10 May which resulted 343 seats for federal republicans and 31 for the rest of the political forces. The elections themselves developed in a quite unorthodox environment, and the resulting representation was ridiculous, as most factions in Spain did not participate: the Carlists were still waging war against the Republic, while the alfonsino monarchists of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the unitary republicans and even the incipient workers' organization close to the First International all called for abstention. The result was clearly favourable to the federal republicans, which captured 343 of the 371 seats, but turnout was probably the lowest in Spanish history, with about 28% in Catalonia and 25% in Madrid.
The Federal Republic
On 1 June 1873 the first session of the Constituent Cortes was opened and the presentation of resolutions began. The first one was debated on 7 June, written by seven representatives: "First Article. The form of government of the Spanish Nation is the Democratic Federal Republic".
The president, having carried out the Cortes' regulations for the definite approval of proposal of law, arranged to hold a nominal vote the next day. The resolution was passed 8 June by a favorable vote of 219 representatives and only two against, and the Federal Republic was thus declared. Most of the federalists in parliament supported a Swiss-like confederative model, with regions directly forming independent cantons. Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, aged 21 at the time, wrote about the parliamentary atmosphere of the First Republic:
The sessions of the Constituent (Cortes) attracted me, and most afternoons I spent in the press box, enjoying the spectacle of indescribable confusion cast by the fathers of the country. An endless individualism, the coming and going of opinions, from the most thought-out to the most extravagant, and the deadly spontaneity of most speakers, drove the spectator crazy and rendered the historic functions impossible. Days and nights went by without the Cortes deciding how the ministers should be appointed: if they would individually elected by a vote of each representative, or if it would be better to authorize Figueras or Pi to come up with a list of the new government. Each and every system was agreed on and later scrapped. It was a puerile game, which would have caused laughter if it had not been deeply sad.
The situation reached such levels of surrealism that, while presiding over a Cabinet session, Estanislao Figueras yelled: "Gentlemen, I can't stand this any more. I am going to be frank with you: I'm fed up with all of us!" So fed up that on 10 June he left his resignation letter in his office, went for a walk through the Parque del Buen Retiro and, without telling anyone, boarded the first train departing from the Atocha Station. He would only step down upon arriving in Paris.
The government of Pi i Margall
"The federal republic for Pi y 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 y 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 11 June, but in 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 drafting the new Constitution and some social character-related bills: