Francisco Silvela Le vielleuze

Francisco Silvela Le Villeuze

Francisco Silvela y de Le vielleuze (born December 15, 1843 in Madrid , † May 29, 1905 ibid) was a Spanish politician and Prime Minister of Spain ( Presidente del Consejo de Ministros ) .

biography

Study and MP

The son of the lawyer Francisco Agustín Silvela y Blanco, who was also a Minister, Vice-President of Parliament and Judge at the Supreme Court ( Tribunal Supremo ), studied law at the Universidad Central de Madrid .

His political career began on January 15, 1869 when he was a member of the Unión Liberal as a member of parliament ( Congreso de los Diputados ), where he initially represented the interests of the constituency Ávila for two electoral terms until April 1872 . On January 20, 1876, he was re-elected as a member of parliament and until his death initially again represented the constituency of Ávila and in the meantime from March 1893 to April 1896 the constituency of Pontevedra .

minister

Francisco Silvela Le Villeuze

After the restoration of the monarchy ( Restauración borbónica ) and the accession of King Alfonso XII. In 1875 he was first Undersecretary in the Ministry of the Interior. On March 7, 1879 he was first appointed as Minister of the Interior ( Ministro de Gobernación ) in the government of Arsenio Martínez-Campos , of which he was a member until December 9, 1879. During this time he carried out several reforms in the welfare system, which, however, led to criticism and opposition from Francisco Romero Robledo , who was both his predecessor and his successor as Minister of the Interior.

On January 18, 1884, he was appointed Minister for Grace and Justice ( Ministro de Gracia y Justicia ) and was a member of the fourth cabinet of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo until November 27, 1885. After the pact of El Pardo ( Pacto del Pardo ) between Cánovas del Castillo and Práxedes Mateo Sagasta came after the king's death , which more or less resulted in an alternation of Cánovas and Sagasta as prime ministers, he himself became one of the leading representatives of the Conservative Party.

On July 5, 1890, he was again Minister of the Interior in the fifth government of Cánovas del Castillo. On November 23, 1891, however, he resigned from this office after his old political opponent Romero Robledo should join the cabinet of Cánovas as Colonial Minister ( Ministro de Ultramar ) .

Chairman of the Conservative Party and two-time Prime Minister

In the following years he was in particular the author of a program for a new conservatism between 1894 and 1898 , which was based on a total reform of local government in order to avoid the domination and influence of nepotism and at the same time create a basis for future elections. At the same time he tried to introduce a new political morality as part of the reform and to enforce this reform as part of a government policy in which in August 1897 he asked the regent Maria Christina of Austria to carry out his conservative reform project ( Proyecto de Conservadurismo ) as the successor to the murdered man Appoint Prime Minister Cánovas. The regent refused this request and named Marcelo Azcárraga Palmero as his successor instead of his war minister . However, Silvela became the undisputed chairman of the Partido Conservador, succeeding Cánovas .

On March 4, 1899, after the “disaster” of 1898, he succeeded Sagasta as Prime Minister of Spain ( Presidente del Gobierno ) for the first time . In his cabinet, which was in office until October 23, 1900, he also assumed the post of Foreign Minister ( Ministro de Estado ) until April 18, 1900 and then the post of Minister of the Navy (Ministro de Marina) until the end of his term of office. At the same time, he appointed Interior Minister Eduardo Dato Iradier and Treasury and Colonial Minister Raimundo Fernández Villaverde, two aspiring politicians who would later become Prime Ministers themselves. On the other hand, his reign was marked by several political crises and uprisings by the labor movement . In addition, it came to the conclusion of the German-Spanish Treaty of 1899 , in which the German Empire exploited the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898 (first war for the "redistribution of the world") and forced Spain with a demonstration of the navy , which To surrender the Carolines , the Marianas and Palau in return for compensation of 17 million marks. These islands were intended to serve as a base for the German Empire for further colonial expansion. Ultimately, however, led the appointment of the former governor of Cuba , Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau , the General Captain ( Capitán General ) from Madrid to resign his government.

As the successor to Sagasta, he then became Prime Minister again on December 6, 1902 and formed a government of the National Regeneration that was in office until July 20, 1903, in which he was again Minister of the Interior for a week in February 1903 during the absence of the incumbent Antonio Maura Montaner . During this term of office he tried again for the social and communal reforms based on his New Conservatism. However, the protests of the labor movement and the student body against the reforms as well as the resignation of Treasury Minister Fernández Villaverde finally led to his resignation and his most extensive withdrawal from political life.

Writing activities

In addition to his political work, Silvela de Le Villeuze also worked as a writer and journalist and wrote several historical articles in addition to articles in the leading daily newspapers of the time such as "La Época" , "La Revista de España" , "El Imparcial" and "El Tiempo" and legal books such as:

• "La Filocalia, o arte de distinguir a los cursis de los que no lo son" , 1868 (The philosophy or art of distinguishing courses from those which are not)
• "Cartas de la Venerable Sor Maria de Agreda y El Señor Rey Don Felipe IV." , 1885 (Correspondence between Venerable María de Ágreda and King Philip IV )
• "Sin Pulso. Periódico El Tiempo" , 1898 (Without Puls. Article in El Tiempo newspaper)
• "Escritos y discurcos políticos" (Political writings and speeches)

Honorary positions

Silvela became a member of the Royal Academy of Law and Legislation ( Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación ) as early as 1862 , of which he was later president from 1879 to 1880, 1884, 1888 to 1889.

He was also a member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas , where he took chair 9 from June 1, 1886 until his death. At this academy he also gave the following speeches ( Memento from June 8, 2003 in the Internet Archive ):

• "Principios capitales a que deben ajustarse en nuestra codificación civil la vida y modo de ser las personas morales" (June 5, 1887) (Basic principles for our civil codification in life and ways to achieve personal morality)
• " Bentham : Sus trabajos sobre asuntos españoles - Expositor de su sistema en España" (April 8, 1894) (Bentham: His work on Spanish subjects - exhibition on his system in Spain)

He also became a member of the Real Academia Española in 1893 , where he took the armchair (Sillón) K until his death. Most recently, on January 21, 1898, he was also a member of the Royal Historical Academy ( Real Academia de la Historia ).

swell

Web links

• Biography on the homepage of the Spanish Prime Ministers ( Memento of October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Spanish)
• The cabinets during the reign of Alfonso XII. (1874–1884 - La Restauració)
• The cabinets during the reign of Maria Christina of Austria (1885–1902 - La Restauració)
• The governments during the reign of Alfonso XIII. (1902–1931)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of Members of Parliament from 1810 to 1977
2. ↑ List of Foreign Ministers ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Maestro Rosa, Julio: "Francisco Silvela y so Liberalismo Regeneracionista" ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Presidents of the Royal Academy of Law and Legislation in the 19th Century ( Memento of July 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Members of the Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas - Armchair 9 ( Memento from September 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Members of the Real Academia Española - Sillón K ( Memento of the original of December 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Members of the Royal Historical Academy ( Memento of the original dated February 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Práxedes Mateo Sagasta	Prime Minister of Spain 1899 - 1900	Marcelo Azcárraga Palmero

predecessor	Office	successor
Práxedes Mateo Sagasta	Prime Minister of Spain 1902 - 1903	Raimundo Fernández Villaverde