The Canovas System & the 1876 Constitution: Spain’s Restoration Era
The Canovas System and the 1876 Constitution
The Restoration and Cánovas del Castillo
The Restoration’s political system is inextricably linked to Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. This former Minister of the Liberal Union held reactionary, undemocratic views and opposed universal suffrage. Yet, his pragmatism and realism fostered consensus among liberal forces, solidifying the Restoration regime. After orchestrating the Bourbons’ return to the throne and becoming a key political figure, he was assassinated in 1897 by the anarchist Angiolillo.
Cánovas advocated for the Bourbons and the old, undemocratic liberal system of census voting. He championed shared sovereignty between the King and the Cortes, a compromise between the Old Regime and the 1869 revolution. Recognizing the need to modernize the Moderates’ outdated program, he proposed these changes:
- Replacing the unpopular Isabella II with Alfonso XII (achieved when Isabella relinquished her claim in 1870).
- Ending ongoing military operations, a source of political instability.
- Creating a bipartisan system with two bourgeois parties peacefully alternating in power: the Conservative Party (replacing the Moderates) and the Liberal Party, led by former Progressive Práxedes Mateo Sagasta (inheriting the adapted ideals of 1869).
The Constitution of 1876
The Restoration adopted a new constitution essentially derived from the Moderate Constitution of 1845. Cánovas’s constituent Cortes, under Alonso Martinez’s draft but with Cánovas’s influence, approved it. Key features included:
- Shared Sovereignty: King and Cortes shared power, negating national sovereignty.
- Bicameral Cortes: An elected Congress and a Senate representing powerful classes (grandees, clergy, military, royal appointees, and elected high taxpayers).
- Strengthened Crown: The King held executive power (ministerial appointments, army command), shared legislative power, absolute veto over laws, power to summon/suspend/dissolve Cortes.
- Theoretical Rights and Freedoms: Recognized but limited in practice, especially under Cánovas.
- Unspecified Suffrage: The 1878 Electoral Act under Cánovas later established census voting, limited to major taxpayers.
- Limited Religious Freedom: Catholicism became the official state religion.
The Reign of Alfonso XII (1875-1885): The Turno System
Cánovas designed the turno system, with the Conservatives (led by himself) and Liberals (led by Sagasta) alternating in power. Sagasta, despite radical rhetoric, governed pragmatically and moderately. The system ensured peaceful transitions, ending military interventionism. However, it excluded forces outside Cánovas’s framework: the Left, labor movement, regionalists, and nationalists.
The turno wasn’t based on voter will but on prearranged agreements between party leaders. Caciquismo facilitated electoral fraud in this agrarian society. Caciques (influential figures like landlords and lenders) manipulated elections according to instructions from provincial governors, who followed the Ministry of Interior’s dictated results. Methods included threats, vote-buying, and outright rigging (“pucherazo”).
Caciquismo and Electoral Manipulation
Caciquismo thrived in rural areas, where caciques held sway over the population. This allowed discriminatory practices. The system relied on electoral manipulation, including vote-buying and coercion. Alfonso XII’s death in 1885 ushered in Maria Christina of Austria’s regency (1885-1902). Cánovas and Sagasta reaffirmed the turno in the Pact of El Pardo (1885). Sagasta’s “long government” (1885-1890) saw reforms like academic, association, and press freedoms (1887) and universal male suffrage (1890). However, systematic electoral falsification continued, limiting the impact of universal suffrage, though Republicans gained some urban seats where caciquismo was less effective.