Romantic Spain: A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. I)

by John Augustus O'Shea

I pass over small squabbles, which were of daily occurrence at the Palace of the Congress, to come to the sitting of the 21st March, 1873, which deserves to be handed down to history. On that day the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery in Porto Rico was introduced by Castelar, in a speech over which all Madrid went into raptures. The "inimitable tribune," as his admirers call him, surpassed himself. He led off in the usual oratorical style by pretending that he was not going to be oratorical—"the bench on which he sat was one for actions, not words"—and then, in the usual oratorical style, he contrived to say so many words that the official paper next morning was full of them.

His first speech, made when he was but twenty-one, in the year 1854, was on the very same subject, as he reminded his hearers. The Christian religion, he said in the course of his remarks, was the religion of the slave, and the Apocalypse the poem of the slave. Christ was the descendant of enslaved kings, a bondsman of Roman conquerors. But I must give up the attempt to follow the "inimitable tribune;" his lengthened and dazzling chain of eloquence was too elaborate to be picked up link by link. He was historical, passionate, and poetical by turns, but always intensely rhetorical, keeping a close watchfulness for effect, for Señor Castelar does not argue so much as declaim. He had the good taste to defend the Radical Ministry from the charge of having acted in favour of emancipation because the influence of the United States was brought to bear upon it. Such a course, he asserted, would be unworthy of the dignity and independence of the country.

I must tell you that the way to make Spain recoil from doing an act she admits to be good and needful is to counsel her to do it—she will not be advised by others. It would not be Spanish. If a Spaniard has a notion of getting himself re-vaccinated, take care, if you are a friend of his, how you talk to him on the subject. If you recommend him to have the operation performed, he will change his mind at once. He will not be bidden, he will risk small-pox in preference. It may happen that he will die, but at all events he will have the satisfaction of having had his own way.

Señor Castelar flattered the self-love of his countrymen by assuring them that they were magnanimous of their own free will, and not because foreigners had advised them to be magnanimous. He next delivered himself of some tuneful periods about humanity, and then wandered off into a spoken essay on the behaviour of the great European Powers on this question of serfdom. He alluded to England as "the least democratic, but most liberal of nations," and praised Russia for having set Spain the example of unriveting the shackles of the slave. He apostrophized the opponents of abolition, telling them that on their heads would fall the responsibility if the law were not passed, but that he and his colleagues would be answerable for the consequences if the law were passed. Then the speaker waxed patriotic, and spoke the stereotyped sentences on the glory and grandeur of Spain. Why should there be rivalries between Creoles and Peninsulars—those who were born in the colonies and those who were born in the mother-country? It was deplorable. Were they not all of the same race? Was not the blood of the Cid and of Pelayo careering in all their noble veins, and the spirit of Spain living in all their generous souls? His peroration was grandiloquent; he appealed to them to cease their bickerings, to close up their ranks, and to labour unitedly for the maintenance of order, authority, and the integrity of the territory, and they would earn the benediction of history and of conscience, which was much more, for it was the benediction of God.

At the close of his discourse, which was incontrovertibly a masterpiece, Señor Castelar was surrounded by numerous colleagues, and warmly congratulated. His speech established among other welcome things that the orator-minister was no atheist. His remarks breathed the truest Christianity. Next it was manifest that Spain, Republican as Monarchical, would not, without a bitter struggle, cede one inch of territory over which the national flag floated. Those who were interested in the retention of slavery in the colonies were the holders of slave property, and the deputies who had lived there and shaken the pagoda-tree to some purpose, and who, now that they were back in Spain, had a grateful recollection of what they owed to slavery. Those gentlemen predicted that the immediate emancipation of the negro would be the ruin of the colonies, and would inevitably lead to their loss by the mother-country. The Ministry of King Amadeus originally brought in the measure for the abolition of slavery in Porto Rico, preliminary to the introduction of another to get rid of the system in Cuba. The chief argument against the measure was that it was due to intriguing on the part of American politicians, whose object was to smooth the way to the ultimate incorporation of the Antilles with the United States. The sincerity of American friendship is suspected by Spaniards. They know that Uncle Sam has a longing eye on the islands in the Caribbean Sea; and has already tried to negotiate Spain out of her American possessions. Spain, recollecting this keenly, mistrusts him. And Señor Castelar, whilst acquitting his predecessors in office of having acted at the suggestion of the United States, let it be very plainly understood that this Republic would fight that other and greater and aggrandizing Republic to her last man and last dollar, before she would consent to the abandonment of one square foot of soil. The vested rights of slave-owners would not suffer completely, for the bill embraced a proposition to pay them an indemnity equivalent to eighty per cent. of the value of their live chattels. Forty per cent. of this was to be guaranteed by the mother-country, and forty by the enfranchised colony, so that twenty per cent. was the comparatively small pecuniary sacrifice the inheritors of an odious system would have to make to conscience.

Whether the manumission of the bondsman in Cuba, which was bound to come, would hasten the independence of that island—or, what was more likely, its annexation to the United States—I am not competent to pronounce. Ultimately, it is the conviction of the wise and experienced that the Queen of the Antilles must achieve her independence; but it will be less on account of abolition than for reasons geographical, climatic, and military. The ocean rolls between Spain and the sunny cluster of isles, the climate is deadly to the Spanish soldier, and the Spanish army cannot afford a perpetual depletion.

Nobody in Spain dares to defend slavery as moral, or protest against its abolition on grounds higher than those of political expediency. The adversaries of the bill affirmed that gradual abolition would be safer than immediate abolition, and that the matter could well afford to wait. The newly-proclaimed Republic had interests of far greater present importance to attend to, they said; but the philo-negrists retorted that it was a shame not to free the negro under the Republic, which was based on the broad principle of freedom to all, without distinction of colour, and that a beneficent and noble act could not be done too soon. If the Monarchy had lasted, there could be no denying it, this project of abolition would have been enacted without fail.

Late in the night, after Castelar had delivered his oration, Señor Figueras returned from his trip to the provinces. He was met at the railway-station by groups of friends, personal and political, and escorted to his residence, where he was serenaded by the band of a regiment of foot artillery. The night was dark and rainy, which was an ingratitude to the patriotism of the musicians. If it did not savour of ill-nature one might be permitted to remark that speeches, however splendid as specimens of composition from a bench, which the speaker admits should be one for acts, not words, and midnight clangours of a brass band under the dripping window-sills of a tired Minister, were hardly what was needed most and first in the country. But Spain is not like any place else.

On the 22nd the Assembly sat until seven, when there was a break-up of two hours for refreshments; after which was held a night sitting (a most unusual thing), prolonged until half-past one the next morning. This was the last of that Assembly. The powers of the Cortes, save and excepting such as were purely legislative, were delegated to a Permanent Committee of twenty, which was to aid Ministers in their task, until the meeting of the Constituent Cortes. In the interval between the two sittings this committee was chosen by the nominating sections of the Radical and Republican parties respectively, all shades of opinion being represented upon it. The President of the Assembly, the four Vice-Presidents, and the four Secretaries, held ex-officio seats on the board. An analysis of the names of the twenty-nine shows that there were fourteen Radicals, eight Federals, four Conciliadores (who may be counted with the Federals), two Conservatives, and an Alfonsist.

This moribund sitting was unique in its unanimity and enthusiasm. The Bill for the Abolition of Slavery in Porto Rico was passed without a dissentient voice. There was kissing and clasping of hands, and friendly hugging all round. Señor Padial and General Sanz, who were anxious to fight a duel to the death a few days before, met in the Salon de Conferencias and made up their quarrel. They cemented their reconciliation with an embrace, and one sentimental Deputy who was looking on, cried, "May this be an auspicious omen of the union between Spain and the Antilles!" Señor Figueras promised that the Executive Power would faithfully see to the maintenance of order during the elections. Another señor proposed that the act they had accomplished on the date of the 23rd should be recorded on a marble tablet, to be erected in the chamber. The proposition was received with cheers; and truly the act which knocked the chains off the limbs of 35,000 slaves merited record. The Marquis of Sardoal, who occupied the presidential throne, prayed God to enlighten the minds of the Government and the Permanent Committee, and then declared the Assembly dissolved. There were loud shouts for the "Federal Republic," and just one weak voice for the "Spanish Republic."