New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-03-23
REVOLUTIONARY SPAIN.
Ninth Article. !


French Revolution performed on the Madhd
stage, and in CsstiIan costumes. He forgets
that the struggles Of different peoples emerging
from the feudal state of society, aud moving
toward middle class civilization, cannot be sup
posed to differ in any thing but the peculiar color
ing derived from race. nationality, language,
stage customs and costumes. HIS censure re.
minds us Of the fool,h old woman who strongly
suspected all enamored girls Of mimicking her
own better days.
whole library has been written pro aud con
upon the Constitution of 1912, the proclamation Of
which, 10 1920, gave rise TO three PEARS strug
gle between the prejudces aud interests Of the
old society and the wants and aspirations Of the
new one. The Constitution of 1912 b I'D strongly
impressed upon 1t that saue stamp Of impractica-
bility which eharacterzes ali charters originally
drawn up by modern nations at the epoch of
their regeneration. At the revolutionary epoch.
to which they owe their origin, they are i'm
practicable, not in consequence of this or that
paragraph, but simply because Of their constitu-
tioI al nature. At the Constitutional epoch they
are out of place, because Of their being impreg-
mated with the generous delusions, inseparable
from the dawn Of social regeneration. The
French Constitution Of 1871, for instance, at its
own time Justly considered to be reactionary,
would have been found guilty of Jacobinism in
1890. Why CO., In 1871 the royal power and
the ruling forces Of the ancient society il repre-
sented, had not yet undergone those transforms
tons which were to enable them to enter into COM
hnatien with, ard to take place within the ele-
ments of the new society. Whist was then want
ed was revolutionary action to break do wn the
resistance of the old society, and not Con.
stitutlOn ssDctioning fn impossible compro-
mise with it. In 1880, on the contrary, when
limited monarchy had become possible, it was gen.
orally understood that it meant the rule of the
bourgeOsie instead of the emancipation Of the
people. The Constitution of 1871 must then have
appeared an incendiary aoachrOnism. The samear-
gument holds good for the Spanish Constitution
of 1872, but there is still that distraction to be
drawn between France in 1871, aod Spain in
1870; that the Constitution of 1871 only pre-.
tended to make halt, in two years revolution
AIRY march, while the Constitution of 1912 was TO
superseGe revolution altogether. Spain, the day
before an Oriental despotism, was to be a day
later-a democracy with a monarch at it's head.
Such sudden changes belong exclusively to Span.
sh history. Ferdinand VII, when restored to
absolute power, in 1928, as we'll as in lSl4, ex-
plunged, by one stroke of the pen, all that had
been done in the revolutionary interregnum. The
RevOIutiODists, on their part, acted in the same
manner. In lc54, the Spanish people began with
EspaItero, with whom they ended in 1913. 10
1914 the revolution was terminated by Ferdi-
dand's refusing to swear to the Cadiz Constitu
tiop. In 1920, it began with forcing upon him
the oath to that same Constitution. He reassem
bled the same Cortes he had dissolved two years
before, and made the very men Ministers he had
banshed OF imprisoned in 1874. All parties in
Spain, with equal Obstinacy, tear out all those
leaves from the book of their national history
which they haze not written themselves. Hence
these sudden changes, these monstrous exactiOns,
this endless, uninterrupted series Of contests.
Hence also, that indebe perseverance which
may be defeated, but can never be disheartened or
discouraged.
The first Constitutional Ministry, as the chief
of which Don Augustin Arguelles may be cOusid-
cred, was, as we have seen, formed of the martyrs
ofIS4. Martyrs are, on the whole, very dangerous
political characters, defowered as it were, by
the consciousness of their past failures; inflated
by exaggerated notions of their past merits; in
clined to attribute to themselves the greater c.
padties because vi their danped courage; prone
to declare the Of revolution closed with their
arrival in the government; from the very fac. of
their restoration likely to assume the character
Of revolutionary legitimists Of Legitimate revo-
lutionists; over jealous of the new men whom
they are astonished to find their rivals; con-
stantly vacillstDg between the fear of counter
revolution and the apprehension of anarchy; by
the very force OF circumstance induced to com
promise with the former, in order not to be swept
away by the latter, or to see overthrown what
they used to call the true boundaries OF progress
Such was the Ministry of Argueles. During
the four monshs which elapsed from its forma'
ton till the meeting Of the COrtes, all pubic
authority was, in fact, suspended Juntas IN the
provinces and in the capital. public clubs bscked
BY tecret societies, for the first time a popular
and unbridled press, stormy petitions, patriotic
sopps, the erection Of constitutional monuments,
demonstrations of efiervescence natural with
nation on the recovery of its liberty, but yet no
acts of vengeance, no crimes committed, and o
msgnanimity dispaye ed which was not to be ex'
pected from southern natures wont to abandon
themselves to the impetuosity OF their passions.
The Cortes at last opened their first session on
IL h..y IA hon EaDipA. AYfu.