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The “American Question” at the Cortes of Madrid
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
It is well known that the American question is one of the most important, not only for those countries, but for all of Europe as well, and it is one that will perhaps contribute most to her future prosperity. All of us, the overseas deputies as well as the Europeans, have regarded this question as very serious from its inception; but our esteemed American deputies know full well that the excessive zeal of some of their colleagues has done more to prejudice than to favor their cause; and if we choose to anticipate this question before the time is ripe, I believe that it will only preoccupy and irritate minds, and the result may be less favorable for America and for Europe.
Conde de Toreno, October 26, 1821.The Riego Revolt of January 1, 1820 awakened hopes in much of the Spanish-speaking world that constitutionalism might again speed up the process of modernization. A few days later, King Ferdinand VII reinstated the Constitution of 1812, the “Niña Bonita” of the Cádiz years. Asking his overseas subjects to take the oath to the Constitution, he likewise urged them to participate in the impending parliamentary elections. He announced an amnesty for the insurgents in the Americas and assured everyone that all would be forgotten. The Spanish government was less disposed to welcome back the hated afrancesados, who had collaborated with the French invaders. Such vindictiveness, of course, incited political anarchy throughout Spain. The economic weakness of the Peninsula, plus the financial drain of war overseas, further heightened national chaos. These were indeed troublesome years for Spain and her second constitutional experiment. Prospects for reconciliation with American dissidents were not at all promising. If peace could not be restored in America, what action was Spain prepared to take? Would she accept the inevitable—the Independence of the Americas? These were some of the questions that tormented Spanish leaders in Madrid. Other Europeans, keenly interested in the developments taking place in Spain and America, appreciated their economic and international significance. The fate of European liberalism was also at stake.
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References
1 Diario de las sesiones de cortes (Madrid), October 26, 1821 (hereinafter Diario). These sessions occurred during the Legislatura Extraordinaria of 1821.
2 “Canción patriótica: La Niña Bonita,” Madrid, 1820 (two-page broadside), Collection. Mexico. Constitution, Vol. 1, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 51314. Although usually associated with the Spanish Republic of the 1870s, this term was first used in the Cádiz period.
3 Memoria, Secretario de Ultramar, Madrid, July 11, 1820, Diario (Madrid), July 12,1820. Also see: minutes for September 8, 17, and 18, 1820, on the amnesty issue.
4 Diario (Madrid), September 20, 1820.
5 Correo del Orinoco (Angostura), October 14, 1820, January 27, February 3, and May 19, 1821. The latter quoted Dr. Gregorio Funes of Córdoba in the Río de la Plata.
6 Vicente Sancho from Valencia was especially sensitive; see. Diario (Madrid), September 23, 1821.
7 Ibid, Sancho used the strongest, provocative language against Americans; also see the remarks Of Palarea, Diario (Madrid), October 26, 1821.
8 Rodríguez, Mario, The Cádiz Experiment in Central America. 18 to 1826 (Berkeley, 1978).Google Scholar The first four chapters deal with the Bourbon background and the elaboration of the liberal program at Cádiz.
9 King, James Ferguson, “The Colored Castes and American Representation in the Cortes of Cádiz,” Hispanic American Historical Review. 33, No. 1 (February, 1953), 33–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 See Rodríguez, , Cádiz, pp. 54–55.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., pp. 89–91.
12 Ibid., pp. 92–94.
13 Ibid., pp. 58–59.
14 lbid., p. 144, and footnote 68, p. 260, for the archival citation.
15 The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and the Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. are the two major depositories of Mexican pamphlets and documents dealing with this period. At the Huntington, I found a 59-page booklet published in Mexico (1822) by a friend of Father Ramos Arizpe entitled: Idea general sobre la conducta política de D. Miguel Ramos Arizpe … de 1810 hasta el de 1821. It reviews the various memorials and petitions that were sent to the Spanish government in reaction to the suplentes' issue, stressing, of course, the aggressive leadership of the Coahuilan cleric.
16 de Vidaurre, Manuel, Manfiesto sobre la nulidad de las elecciones que a nombre de los países ultramarinos se practicaron en Madrid por algunos americanos el día 28 y 29 de mayo del año de 1820 (Madrid, later republished in Mexico City, 1820).Google Scholar Rare Book Room, Library of Congress, Pamphlets 144:29. Vidaurre was Peruvian.
17 Correo del Istmo (Angostura), August 19, and September 16, 1820.
18 Idea general (M. Ramos Arizpe.) (see fn. 15), pp. 6–12.
19 Diario (Madrid), August 15, 1820.
20 Ibid., and also session of September 23, 1821, when the deputy from Madrid (Francisco Fernández Gaseo) stressed the point.
21 Diario (Madrid), August IS, 1820, and my discussion of the incident’s impact upon Central America, Cádiz, p. 143.
22 “Memoria… Ultramar (Antonio Porcel),” Madrid, July 11,1820, in Diario (Madrid), July 12, 1820, referring to the decree of April 16, 1820.
23 There are many debates on the tariff but the following sessions in the Diario (Madrid) reveal both the Spanish and American views: September 19,1820, November 18,1821 (a Spaniard Alvaro Flores Estrada also attacked the protectionist element), and January 8, 1821.
24 See the sessions of May 28,1821, ibid., and especially July 1,1821, for Urruela's fiery defense of a free tobacco industry.
25 Diario (Madrid), April 24, 1821.
26 Idea general (M. Ramos Arizpe, see fn. IS), pp. 11–14; Alamán, Lucas, Historia de Méjico (5 vols., Mexico City, 1852), 5. 512,Google Scholar fn. 22.
27 Diario (Madrid), April 30, 1821.
28 Diario (Madrid), May 4, and June 4, 1821 on mining reforms; and session of November 11, 1821, on his financial expertise.
29 Diario (Madrid), October 26, 1821, and especially the convenient review in the session of December IS, 1821, by the Mexican Gómez Navarrete.
30 See sessions of June 3 and 4, 1821, ibid.
31 Gómez Navarrete’s speech is in the June 3rd session; also see complaints of other Mexicans in the sessions: March 11 and 30, and April 4, 1821, ibid.
32 June 3rd session (Gómez Navarrete’s speech).
33 Same session, ibid.
34 Alamán, , Historia. 5, 87–88.Google Scholar
35 Diario (Madrid), February 13, 1822.
36 Session of June 3, 1821, ibid.
37 Because of his role, Lucas Alamán is a good reference on the actions of the Special Committee: Historia. V, 547–556.
38 Diario (Madrid), June 25, 1821 : The “Exposición.” Madrid, June 24, 1821, appears here under the name of the Mexican deputy who made the presentation, José Miguel Ramírez; it also appears in Alamán, , Historia, 5, Appendix, pp. 49–65.Google Scholar Also see: “Nada hay que esperar de España, o esposición que leyó el Sr. D. José Miguel Ramírez en la sesión del 25 de junio de 1821,” Rare Book Room, Library of Congress: Pamphlets 144–37 (15 pp. Mexico City, 1821).
39 Loc. cil.
40 Historia. V, 547–556.
41 Diario (Madrid), June 24, 1821.
42 Ibid., June 26, 1821.
43 “Exposición del P. D. Fernando Antonio Dávila, Diputado por la Provincia de Chiapa en apoyo de la que presentó a las Cortes la diputación americana en la sesión del dia 25 de junio del corriente año,” (Madrid, 1821).
44 Ibid., p. 5.
45 Diario (Madrid), June 25, 1821.
46 “Exposición” Dávila, , pp. 7 Google Scholar 10.
47 Ibid., pp. 11–13.
48 Ibid., pp. 13–14.
49 Ibid., p. 15.
50 Ibid., p. 16.
51 Ibid. p. 17.
52 Rodríguez, , Cádiz, pp. 38–47.Google Scholar
53 “Exposición,” Dávila, , pp. 21–22.Google Scholar
54 Rodríguez, , Cádiz, pp. 101–123.Google Scholar
55 “Exposición,” Dávila, , p. 23.Google Scholar
56 Ibid., p. 24.
57 Ibid., p. 25.
58 Ibid., p. 26.
59 Ibid., p. 27–28. To identify the selection by Burke, , I used Burke. Select Works, edited by Payne, E.J. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2 vols., 1874). On pages 161–234,Google Scholar we have the “Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq. on moving his resolutions for conciliation with the colonies,” March 22, 1775 (2nd ed. Dodsley, 1775). The first sentence is Father Dávila’s own forceful introduction. Sentence two comes from page 192: “I do now know the method of drawing an indictment against a whole people.” Then, from page 193: “Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more completely imprudent, than for the Head of the Empire to insist, that, if privilege is pleaded against his will, or his acts, his whole authority is denied; instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will it not teach them that the Government against which a claim of Liberty is tantamount to high-treason, is a Government to which submission is equivalent to slavery?”
For the second paragraph see page 195: “If then the removal of the causes of this Spirit of American Liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, unpracticable … what way yet remains?” Then on the same page: “No way is open,.. but to submit to it as a necessary evil.” Then, page 197 for the final excerpts
“Of what avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me, that the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit; and that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own weapons?” And finally: page 197: “the general character and situation of a people must determine what sort of government is fitted for them.”
60 Diario (Madrid), September 23, 1821.
61 Ibid., December 15, 1821.
62 Ibid.
63 For the text of the Treaty of Córdoba, August 24, 1821, see the Appendix of Alamán’s, Lucas Historia. 5, Document 9, 24–25.Google Scholar
64 Diario (Madrid), sessions: January 27, 28, and especially February 12, 1822.
65 Ibid., February 13, 1821.