Government of Spain

“ But in Spain, as in Portugal, the question was between arbitrary rule and constitutional and parliamentary government, and in relation to Spain, as well as to Portugal, we thought that the interests of England in every point of view, commercial and political, would be benefited by the establishment of constitutional government.
If England has any interest more than another with reference to Spain, it is that Spain should be independent, that Spain should be Spanish. Spain for the Spaniards, is the maxim upon which we proceed in our policy with regard to Spain. ”

“ In Spain, the advocates of continual change, in most cases in which personal interest is not their moving spring, hope to arrive ultimately at a republic. Now, no one more than myself admires the theories of Constitutional governments, of universal political power and of republicanism: the last system would be the best of all, were it only for the equality it is to establish. But how are men to be equalised by the manufacturers of a government? How are the ignorant and uneducated to be furnished with legislative capacity, or the poor or unprincipled armed against the seductions of bribery? ”

“ England becomes therefore responsible for a particular direction given to the internal Government of Spain, which to control she has no sufficient means. All England can do, and will have to do, is: to keep up a particular party in Spain to support her views.
France, knowing that this is directed against her, must take up the opposite party and follow the opposite policy in Spanish affairs. ”

“ My country has been rent for years by the devotion of our people whose sympathies have been divided between Don Carlos and myself. Please God I may be able to unite them for the future welfare of Spain. My first act as King of Spain will be to offer a complete amnesty to all and one who cease their enmity to myself and my Government and are willing to assist me in establishing law and order and ensuring the happiness and prosperity of my countrymen, of our glorious Spain. ”

“ For every line we cross, and every city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples.
And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in instant contact with the people of France, is a race that is Spanish only in name, and hardly that; a race that has, through all the mutations of government in this unstable country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights and privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, that they may be said to be in Spain, but not of Spain. ”

“ Colonial governments are of necessity adaptations of familiar domestic institutions to new functions. The government of Spain in the sixteenth century was not that of a modern centralized monarchy but rather of a group of kingdoms only partially welded together by the possession of the same sovereign, the same language, and the same religion. The King of Spain was also the ruler of other kingdoms outside of the peninsula. ”

“ And yet Alfonso XII., who was overborne by what he considered the experience of the two leaders, had the welfare of his country at heart, for he said to Ernest Daudet: “I am Sovereign, and as long as I am King of Spain I will never allow a Ministry to be overthrown by an intrigue in the palace, as it has frequently happened hitherto. If the country wants a Liberal Government, it shall have it; but, before talking of liberty, Spain herself must have both liberty and stability. ”

“ Indeed, every village hidden in the folds of the great barren hills, or shadowed by its massive church in the middle of one of the upland plains, every fertile huerta of the seacoast, is a Spain. Iberia exists, and the strong Iberian characteristics; but Spain as a modern centralized nation is an illusion, a very unfortunate one; for the present atrophy, the desolating resultlessness of a century of revolution, may very well be due in large measure to the artificial imposition of centralized government on a land essentially centrifugal. ”

“ The country to which we should sacrifice our lives in heroic arms, and which we ought to esteem superior to all our private interests, and as the creditor of all our possible obsequies and services, is that body of state, under which we are united in one civil government, and protected by, and bound to the observance of the same laws. Thus Spain is the proper object of the love of a Spaniard, France of a Frenchman, and Poland of a Polander. ”

“ It has been tragically wounded by rulers to whom, an heroic trait, it has ever been loyal. If a country after centuries of misrule had the same power to govern herself as a nation that had had enlightened government for the same length of time, would not one of the best arguments for good government be lost? It may be a long time before Spain learns the restraint of self-rule. But go among the vigorous mountaineers of the north, talk with the patient, sober Castilian labrador, watch the Catalan men of industry and you will see the possibility of her future. ”

“ Those who wish for a liberal government and the regeneration of Spain will find them in my plan; those who fear the return of the queen and the Prince de la Paix may be reassured, since those individuals will have no influence and no credit. The nobles who wish for consideration and honors which they did not have in the past administration, will find them. Good Spaniards who wish for tranquillity and a wise administration, will find these advantages in a system which will maintain the integrity and independence of the Spanish monarchy. ”

“ Section 1 Spain is hereby established as a social and democratic State, subject to the rule of law, which advocates freedom, justice, equality and political pluralism as highest values of its legal system. National sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people, from whom all state powers emanate. The political form of the Spanish State is the Parliamentary Monarchy. Section 2 The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards ”

“ But as the possession of these provinces is still in Spain, and the course of events may retard or prevent the cession to France being carried into effect, to secure our object it will be expedient to address equal powers to the Government of Spain also, to be used only in the event of its being necessary. ”

“ The government was consistent only in its instability, having now a Queen Regent, now an Espartero, banishments, executions, riots, barricades, revolts,—it seemed indeed as if Spain were sown with Cadmus teeth.
Still through the darkness one can follow a light. The Constitution of 1837 asserted boldly the sovereignty of the people. Though the Constitution of the forties was lenient to absolute power, the Cortes was now included in the government, a marked advance since Ferdinand VII's day. ”

“ Our relations with Spain are now of a more complicated, though less dangerous, character than they have been for many years. Our citizens have long held and continue to hold numerous claims against the Spanish Government. These had been ably urged for a series of years by our successive diplomatic representatives at Madrid, but without obtaining redress. The Spanish Government finally agreed to institute a joint commission for the adjustment of these claims, and on the 5th day of March, 1860, concluded a convention for this purpose with our present minister at Madrid. ”

“ You will tell the magistrates and the inhabitants of the towns and the enlightened classes, that the machine of the government needs reconstructing, that Spain wants a system of laws calculated for the protection of the people against the tyranny and usurpations of feudality, and of establishments which may revive industry, agriculture, and the arts. ”

“ With a queen regent whose court will compare favourably for purity of morals with any other in Europe, and a titular king yet [263] an innocent child; with public men like Castelar and Sagasta devoted to reform; with valorous soldiers and sailors blindly obedient, and a common people adherent to the monarchy: yet Spain’s system of government is one of the most hideous relics of ancient despotism.
And what can be expected or predicted of a nation which, in its total population of eighteen millions, contains at least twelve million illiterate persons ”

“ But there is danger in delay; and if we are unwilling to believe that Spain is, in the words of one who knows her well, "irremediably insolvent,"7 there is no doubt she must speedily become so, unless some radical change takes place in the views and system of her rulers. What she needs is an honest government, composed of men who will make their own advantage subservient to their country's weal. ”

“ The Queen of Spain would act wisely, in the present critical state of affairs, if she were to strengthen her executive Government, by widening the basis on which the administration reposes, and in calling to her councils some of the men in whom the Liberal party places confidence. ”

“ It would be unjust, however, to the Spanish Government, to say that it is only among the members of that government that an unconquerable hatred of liberal institutions exists in Spain. However incredible the phenomena may appear in this country, I am persuaded that a vast majority of the Spanish nation entertain a decided attachment to arbitrary power, and a predilection for absolute government.41 The more liberal institutions of countries in the neighborhood have not yet extended their influence into Spain, nor awakened any sympathy in the mass of the Spanish people. ”

“ It is to our advantage that so long as we have given no offence to Spain, and she none to us, differences with other Powers should not involve us in war with her:199 and we considered that the independence of Spain was more likely to be secured by a Government controlled by a representative and national Assembly, than by a Government purely arbitrary, and consisting merely of the members who might form the Administration. ”

“ Government, it seems, is exploited purely for the private interest of the office-holding class and the strength of the nation has been wasted, its development has been neglected, until the unexpected feebleness revealed in the war of 1898 led earnest patriots to declare that, if the existing maladministration were to continue, it would be better to seek shelter under England or France, and to put an end to the history of Spain as an independent nation. ”

“ Constitution and Government.—Spain is an hereditary monarchy the constitution of which was voted by the Cortes and became the fundamental law of the 30th of June 1876. This law fixes the order of succession as follows: should no legitimate descendant of Alphonso XII. survive, the succession devolves first upon his sisters, next upon his aunt and her legitimate descendants, and finally upon the legitimate descendants of the brothers of Ferdinand VII. “unless they have been excluded.” Should all lines become extinct, the nation may elect its monarch. ”

“ Territories, once possessing an equivocal and turbulent independence, feel new power and happiness in peaceful association. Spain, composed of races dissimilar in origin, religion, and government, slowly ascended by progressive combinations among principalities and provinces, till at last, in the fifteenth century, by the crowning union of Castile and Aragon, the whole country, with its various sovereignties, was united under one common rule. Germany once consisted of more than three hundred different principalities, each with the right of war. ”

“ Whether the public authorities of Spain did or did not partake of the national sentiment, there would almost necessarily grow up between Portugal and Spain, under present circumstances, an opposition of feelings which it would not require the authority or the suggestions of the government to excite and stimulate into action. ”

“ They who believe that a government can civilize a nation, and that legislators are the cause of social progress, will naturally expect that Spain reaped permanent benefit from those liberal maxims, which now, for the first time, were put into execution. ”

“ The Spaniards are the grandees of the country; too proud to work, they leave all business to the foreigners and all labor to the Indians, retaining in connection with the half-breeds all political power. When the regents appointed by Spain were expelled in the early part of the present century, republics were established, but they were republics only in name; the people were neither educated nor fitted for self-government. ”

“ General Francisco Franco and his army defeated the forces which wanted a republic, and also those who wanted to set up Communism. He is now the head of the Spanish government. Because he is considered a dictator, there are many Spanish people who disagree with the way he runs the government and are hoping to change it. In 1947 a new constitution was written in which General Franco agreed that Spain would one day have a king again, but the person who becomes king must be at least twenty-five years old. The old king is dead and there is nobody for the job right now. ”

“ The hopes{258} of the Royalists and of men of all parties who believe that only monarchical government is possible for Spain have been centred in him, and his every look and action has been watched with a most intense anxiety, rising from the conviction that only the life of this one-time delicate lad stood between Spain and the chaos of revolution. ”