Emilio Castelar y Ripoll

Preceded By

**Emilio Castelar y Ripoll** (September 7, 1832 – May 25, 1899) was a Spanish politician and writer who served as the fourth president of Spain from September 7, 1883 to June 11, 1890, and as leader of the Democratic Republican Party from 1883 to 1895.

Born in late 1832, Castela was the child of political activists and attended a grammar school in the United Kingdom whilst his parents were in exile. In 1848 he began to study law in Madrid, but soon elected to compete for admission to the School of Philosophy and Letters, where he earned a doctorate in 1853. As a doctor of philosophy, Castelar became a prominent activist within the Spanish republican movement, and was arrested in 1866 for his role in a failed uprising, before escaping to Dunsteen to seek asylum. The success of the Glorious Revolution of 1868 allowed him to return and take a seat in the Cortes for the first time as deputy for Zaragoza as a member of the Democratic Republican Party. Castelar soon became famous for his speeches in the Constituent Cortes, where he led the republican minority in advocating a federal republic as the logical outcome of the revolution, and continued to attack the reign of King Amadeo I until his abdication in 1873.

With the election of Estanislao Figueras as interim president of Spain, Castelar joined the government as justice minister and remained in government after the election of President Francesc Pi i Margall in 1875; during the government of President Pi, Castelar joined with interior secretary Nicolás Salmerón y Alonso to form a liberal faction within the governing Democratic Republican Party, before ultimately usurping control of the party from Pi in March 1879. Following the election of Nicolás Salmerón y Alonso as president, Castelar took over the powerful interior ministry as a member of cabinet, and presided over the implementation of several major reforms being pushed by President Salmerón, most notably the rolling back of worker's rights. In 1883, following the outbreak of typhus in Madrid and the severe illness of President Salmerón, Castelar oversaw the amending of the constitution to allow the leader of the presidential party to assume the presidency in the instance of a vacancy, before taking up the leadership of the Democratic Republican Party.

On September 7, 1883, Emilio Castelar y Ripoll ascended to the presidency following the death of his predecessor, Nicolás Salmerón y Alonso, becoming the first Spanish president to assume office through a non-election constitutional succession of power. As president, Castelar sought to continue the classical liberal economic and social policies of his predecessor, and indeed supported Salmerón's initiative for the creation of a new constitution to codify the liberal notions of their governments; a new constitution was implemented in August 1884 and changed the line of succession to the presidency to make the interior minister first in line for the presidency. Though domestically liberal, President Castelar favoured authoritarian measures to keep order in Spanish colonial possessions, and implemented several paternalistic reforms in colonies to force assimilation into Spanish ways of life.

In 1885, Castelar was re-elected as president, and became the first president to serve for more than a single term. Having been elected to a full term in office, Castelar sought to consolidate the popularity of the Democratic Republican Party by cutting taxes drastically, but saw his party lose its legislative majority in 1888 due to the rise of the Nationalist Party, and ultimately failed to win re-election in 1890. Castelar would attempt re-election again in 1895 and was recorded as the winner of the election, but incumbent president Francisco Serrano conducted a self coup d'état to overrule the results. Castelar was subsequently forced into retirement, and died on May 25, 1899 of old age.