Francisco Pi y Margall - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Francisco Pi y Margall (April 29, 1824 – November 29, 1901) was a liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

Spanish statesman and romanticist

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

writer. He was briefly president of the short-lived First Spanish Republic

First Spanish Republic

The First Spanish Republic was the political regime that existed in Spain between the parliamentary proclamation on 11 February 1873 and 29 December 1874 when General Arsenio Martínez-Campos's pronunciamento marked the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain...

in 1873.

Early life

Pi was the son of a working-class textile worker in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

on April 29, 1824. Pi's father entered him into a religious school in 1831 where he acquired an education in the humanities and the classics

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

. He was a member of the Societat Filomàtica, enabling him to meet some of the main thinkers and writers of the Catalan

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

romanticist

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

movement. In 1837, he left to study law, graduating with a law degree in 1847. He moved to Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

that year and began writing for the journal El Renacimiento and for El Correo as a theater critic, in which Pi's first political article was published. In need of further income, Pi also took a job for Martí, a Catalan

Catalonia

bank.

In 1848, Pi completed the unfinished Memories and Beauties of Spain by the poet Pau Piferrer, contributing to the sections on Catalonia

Catalonia

, Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

, and Granada

Granada

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...

. At this time, he connected himself with the Republican faction in Spanish politics. In 1851, he wrote a monumental and highly popular history of painting, though it was eventually condemned by the Church and the Spanish state for heterodoxy.

Political life under the monarchy

Pi was involved in the revolution of 1854 that brought the liberal

Liberalism

caudillo

Caudillo

Caudillo is a Spanish word for "leader" and usually describes a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power. The term translates into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman. Caudillo was the term used to refer to the charismatic...

Baldomero Espartero, Count of Luchana

Baldomero Espartero, Prince of Vergara

Don Joaquín Baldomero Fernández-Espartero y Alvarez de Toro, 1st Prince of Vergara, 1st Duke of la Victoria, 1st Duke of Morella, 1st Count of Luchana, 1st Viscount of Banderas was a Spanish general and political figure...

back to power. He published La reacción y la revolución in that year, influenced by G.W.F. Hegel's philosophy of history

Philosophy of history

The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...

and the thinking of the French anarchist

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...

. In 1856 he established a new journal, La Razón, that was closed when the moderate O'Donnell government was overthrown by the reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

Ramón María Narváez y Campos, Duke of Valencia. Pi fled to Guipúzcoa in the Basque country

Basque Country (historical territory)

The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....

until 1857, when Nicolás María Rivero asked him to return to Madrid

Madrid

to contribute to the Republican newspaper La Discusión. At La Discusión, Pi became acquainted with a number of leaders of the Spanish republican movement, including another future president of the First Republic

First Spanish Republic

, Estanislau Figueras i de Moragas. In 1864 he became the director of the newspaper.

After the sergeants' revolt at San Gil in 1866, Pi fled to Paris, where he gave lectures and translated several of Proudhon's works and became familiar with French positivism

Positivism

Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

. He developed ideas about revolutions and the philosophy of history, including a belief in an inevitable, progressive, and permanent movement in history toward greater freedom, embodied in federal

Federalism

Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and...

constitutions. Throughout his life he would promote republicanism and social objectives through the federal idea.

Pi returned from Paris in 1868 after the success of the Glorious Revolution. He was elected deputy on behalf of Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

and was part of the Cortes

Cortes Generales

The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...

that wrote the Spanish Constitution of 1869. During this time Pi became respected as a leader of the Republican party in the Cortes; he is officially named the head of the party in March 1870. He was replaced shortly thereafter by internal strife over the party's policy toward the Paris Commune

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

, conciliatory policy toward opposition groups, and electoral setbacks. He continued to adamantly promote the establishment of a federal republic

Federal republic

A federal republic is a federation of states with a republican form of government. A federation is the central government. The states in a federation also maintain the federation...

in place of a monarchy. He opposed the liberal monarchy of King Amadeo I of Spain

Amadeo I of Spain

Amadeo I was the only King of Spain from the House of Savoy...

during its short rule.

Presidency and later political life

When the First Spanish Republic

First Spanish Republic

was established in 1873 after the abdication of King Amadeo, the first president, Estanislao Figueras, named Pi Minister of the Interior. During his tenure as Interior Minister, Pi was responsible for the struggle against the cantonalist
Cantonal Revolution
The Cantonal Revolution was a cantonalist uprising that took place during the First Spanish Republic, starting on July 12 of 1873 in Cartagena...

movement in the provinces. On Figueras's resignation on June 11, Pi was named president. Pi presented to the Cortes an ambitious plan of reform, including a law formalizing a stricter separation of church and state

Separation of church and state

The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....

, the reorganization of the army, reduction of the working day to eight hours, regulation of child labor

Child labor

Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...

, enhancements to the relationship between business and labor, new laws regarding the autonomy of the regions of Spain, and a program of universal education. His acquaintance with Proudhon enabled Pi to warm relations between the Republicans and the socialists in Spain. However, Pi was unable to rein in the instability of the Republic; on the July 1, the more radical elements of the Republican party and federalists broke off and declared the government illegitimate, and new insurrections appeared in Alcoy

Alcoy

Alcoy may stand for:* Alcoy, Spain , a municipality in the province of Alicante, Spain* Alcoy, Cebu, province of Cebu, Philippines....

and Cartagena

Cartagena, Spain

Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...

only a week later. Under pressure from the Cortes and many leading Republicans who accused him of dangerous weakness, Pi resigned the presidency on July 18, only a little more than a month after he assumed the office.

After the end of the Republic in 1874, Pi left political life for a decade. During this time, he returned his attentions to his writings; only a few months after the end of the Republic, he wrote a treatise on its events, La República de 1873. He followed this with Las Nacionalidades and Joyas Literarias in 1876. The first volume of his Historia General de América was published in 1878, La Federación in 1880, and Las luchas de nuestros días and Observaciones sobre el carácter de don Juan Tenorio in 1884. In 1886 he returned to politics and was elected deputy for Figueres

Figueres

Figueres is the capital of the comarca of Alt Empordà, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain.The town is the birthplace of artist Salvador Dalí, and houses the Teatre-Museu Gala Salvador Dalí, a large museum designed by Dalí himself which attracts many visitors...

, in Catalonia

Catalonia

, and again in 1891 and 1893. He was involved in the fragmentation of the Spanish Republican movement in this period together with Estanislao Figueras, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla

Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla

Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla was a Spanish politician. He served as prime minister of Spain for a little over ten weeks in the summer of 1871, and again for eight months between June 1872 and February 1873....

, Emilio Castelar y Ripoll

Emilio Castelar y Ripoll

Emilio Castelar y Ripoll was a Spanish republican politician, and a president of the First Spanish Republic.Castelar was born in Cádiz. He was an eloquent and literary man...

, and Valentí Almirall. Pi was involved in the 1883 Republican Congress of Zaragoza that proposed a federal republican constitution for Spain; in 1894, he was instrumental in reforming the republican movement with a new manifesto for the Federal Party. In 1890, Pi founded the newspaper El Nuevo Régimen, which campaigned for Cuban independence. Pi's promotion of federalism and regional autonomy earned him popularity among Catalan anarchists

Anarchism

. He was also a supporter of Iberian Federalism.

Pi died in Madrid on November 29, 1901.

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