A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

On January 1, 1810, it issued a convocation for the assembling of Córtes, and on the 31st it dissolved, after appointing a Regency and imposing on it the duty of convoking the Córtes by March 1st. The Regency delayed until, forced by the pressure of public opinion, on June 18th it published a decree ordering elections where they had not been held, and summoning the deputies to meet in August in Isla de Leon, now San Fernando, near Cádiz. Suffrage was virtually universal and, in the letters of convocation, the nation was called upon to assemble in general Córtes “to establish and improve the fundamental constitution of the monarchy,” while the commissions of the delegates empowered them to decide all points contained in the letters and all others, without exception or limitation.[885] The Córtes accordingly assumed the title of Majesty, as embodying the will of the people and occupying the throne of the absent sovereign. When they were opened, September 24th, about a hundred deputies were present, two-thirds of whom were elected by the provinces not occupied by the French armies, and the rest selected in Cádiz from among natives of the unrepresented districts, including the colonies, then more or less in open revolt, while, as the vicissitudes of the war permitted, deputies came straggling in from districts unrepresented at first. As a whole, the body fairly reflected existing public opinion. The Liberals numbered forty-five, and the majority consisted of ecclesiastics, men of the privileged classes and government employees.[886] It was an unavoidably hazardous experiment, this sudden wrenching of Spain from the old moorings and launching it on the tempestuous waters of modern ideas, under the conduct of men without training or experience in self-government. Grave mistakes were inevitable and their constructive work was idealistic and doomed to failure—a failure bound to result in blood and misery. At the moment, however, there were no misgivings and the Córtes were regarded as the salvation of the nation.[887]

The oath administered to the members bound them to maintain Catholicism as the exclusive religion of Spain and to preserve for their beloved monarch Fernando VII all his dominions. Their first act was to adopt a series of five resolutions, offered by an ecclesiastic, Diego Muñoz Torrero, rector of the University of Salamanca, of which one provided that the Regency should be continued as the executive power, on taking an oath recognizing the sovereignty of the nation as embodied in the Córtes and promising obedience to their enactments. Rather than do this, the Regency proposed to break up the Córtes, but the threatening aspect of the people and the army caused a change of heart, and that same night they took the oath, except the implacable conservative Quevedo Bishop of Orense, who resigned both from the Regency and the Córtes. His resignations were accepted but he was forced to take the oath required of all prelates and officials before he was allowed to retire to his diocese. It was evident that the Córtes and the Regency could not pull together; on October 28th, the latter was dismissed, its membership was reduced from five to three and a new Regency was installed with which the Córtes could work in harmony.[888]

THE INQUISITION ASSAILED

After settling relations with the other departments of the State, the first attention of the Córtes was given to the freedom of the press. Two days after the opening session the subject was introduced and referred to a committee; no time was lost, a decree was reported October 8th, and on the 18th, in spite of the reclamations of the opposition, it was passed by a vote of 68 to 32. This was regarded as a preliminary attack on the Inquisition, which was thus deprived by implication of the function of censorship. Some members desired this to be explicitly stated, giving rise to a hot debate in which Inquisitor Riesco, a member of the Córtes, pleaded in vain for some honorable mention of the Holy Office. There was also indignation excited by the provision subjecting prohibition by the bishops to revision by the secular power, which was subversive of the imprescriptible rights of the Church, whose judgements are final.[889] If this was really the first move in a campaign against the Inquisition, it was not unskilful, for it set at liberty the pens which had hitherto been restrained. At once there arose a crowd of pamphleteers and journalists, not only in Cádiz but throughout Spain, who attacked the institution unsparingly, raising a clamor which showed how severe had been the repression. Sturdy defenders were not lacking and the wordy war was vigorously waged. The two most prominent champions on either side were Antonio Puigblanch, who, under the pseudonym of Natanael Jomtob, issued a series of pamphlets, collected under the title of “La Inquisicion sin Máscara” or “The Inquisition unmasked,” and Padre Maestro Fray Francisco Alvarado, a Dominican of high repute for learning and eloquence, whose letters under the name of El Filósofo Rancio or Antiquated Philosopher, continued for two years to keep up the struggle against all the innovations of the Liberals.[890]

Puigblanch was no exception to the general rule that those who attacked the Inquisition were careful to profess the highest veneration for the faith and in no way to advocate toleration. His work commences with an eloquent description of religion as the foundation of all civil constitutions and Catholicism as the noblest adornment of enlightenment and liberty, the only question being whether the Inquisition is the fitting institution for its protection. He is careful to maintain to the last his abhorrence of heresy and his desire for its suppression, which he proposes to effect by reviving episcopal jurisdiction under certain limitations.[891] With all this his denunciation of the Inquisition was unsparing, and he had ample store of atrocities with which to justify his attacks, although there was unfairness in attributing to it, in the nineteenth century, the cruelties which had stained its previous career.

Alvarado was a man of extensive learning, but of little claim to the title of philosopher, whether antiquated or modern. Though his methods were not such as to make converts, they were well adapted to stimulate those of his own side, for he was an effective partizan writer, fluent, sarcastic, often coarse, vulgar and vituperative, using assertion for argument and indifferent as to truth. The chief value of his letters is the flood of light which they shed on the conservative attitude of the time, which explains much in the subsequent vicissitudes of Spain. Philosophers, he says, are wolves, robbers and devils, monsters who cannot be regarded without horror, enlighteners who are nothing but ignoramuses and cheats and emissaries sent by hell. To seek to undermine popular confidence in the priesthood he holds to be a crime greater than the crucifixion of Christ. The ferocity of his intolerance shows how little Spanish churchmen had changed since the days of Torquemada. As to the relations of religion and the State, he assumes that the only function of the civil power is to punish him who offends the faith; the Catholic religion is as intolerant as light is of darkness, or as truth is of falsehood, and this intolerance distinguishes it from all religions invented by man. Repeatedly and savagely he proclaims that burning is the proper remedy for unbelief, and he tells his adversaries that, if they wish free thought, they may go to England or to the United States, but in Spain what they had to expect was the quemadero.[892] Such advocacy could only render the Liberals more eager to accomplish their work.

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1812

While this controversy was contributing to the greater enlightenment or obscuration of public opinion, the Córtes were engaged in framing a Constitution. The committee entrusted with this task had a majority of conservatives, including several ecclesiastics, but these were quite willing to circumscribe the royal power, while seeking to extend the privileges of the Church, and all the members signed the project as presented.[893] It commenced by asserting the sovereignty of the nation, which had the exclusive right to establish its fundamental laws, and could never be the patrimony of any person or family, and it affirmed that the religion of the nation was, and always forever would be the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, the only true one, which the nation protects by wise and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other.[894] This apparent concession to intolerance was denounced, when too late, as a trap, for it placed in the hands of the representatives of the nation the power of deciding what the wise and just laws should be for the protection of religion. Be this as it may, the Córtes were resolved that there should be no refusal to accept the new framework of government. In secret session of March 16, 1812, it was decreed that whosoever should refuse to swear to it should be declared an unworthy Spaniard and be driven from Spain, and measures were taken to have it read in every parish church, where the assembled people should swear to obey it and to be faithful to the king. As the French armies were driven back, the Spanish commanders made it their first duty to see this ceremony performed, and where there was opposition, chiefly arising from the priests, force was employed. A priest of the Cádiz cathedral who alluded to it slightingly as a libelo, or little book, was prosecuted, and the irreconcileable Bishop of Orense, who refused to take the oath, was exiled and declared to be an unworthy Spaniard. As a whole, however, it was enthusiastically accepted as the dawn of a new era, though we may well question how many of those who took the oath comprehended the purport of its three hundred and eighty-four articles, covering all the complicated minutiæ of institutions based on an entirely new conception of the relations between the Government and the governed.[895]

It was inevitable that, in the effort to create a new Spain, the fate of the Inquisition should be involved, especially as its disabled condition invited attack. That a struggle was impending had long been evident to all parties, and that this was felt to be decisive as to the character of the future institutions of Spain is seen in the tenacity with which it was fought. The Inquisition was the conservative stronghold, to be defended to the last, after all the outer defences had been abandoned, and the deep roots which it had established are manifested by the tactics required for its overthrow, and by the fact that the contest was the bitterest and the most prolonged in the career of the Córtes, which had so unceremoniously converted Spain from absolutism to liberal constitutionalism.