Castelár, EMILIO

Castelár, EMILIO, a prominent Spanish orator, statesman, and writer, was born at Cadiz, September 8, 1832. He studied at Madrid, and in 1856 became professor of History and Philosophy in the university there. He began early to write on letters and politics in the newspapers and magazines, and in 1864 started La Democracia, in the pages of which he inveighed fiercely against the government. After the abortive rising of 1866 he was condemned to death, but contrived to escape to Paris, returning when the revolution of 1868 began. All his ardour and eloquence could not hinder the crowning of King Amadeus, though it helped to bring about his downfall in 1873. In the September of that year the Cortes made Castelár dictator, but the orator proved somewhat ineffectual in action, and found himself unable to crush either the 'red demagogy of Socialism on the one hand, or the white demagogy of Carlism' on the other. In the beginning of 1874 a hostile vote in the Cortes obliged him to resign, and soon after the pronunciamento in favour of Alfonso XII. drove him across the frontier. He returned to Spain in 1876, and was returned to the Cortes, where, till his retirement in 1893, he often spoke with all his old eloquence. He died 25th May 1899. His chief writings are La Civilisazion (2d ed. 1865), Questiones politicas y sociales (3 vols. 1870), Historia del Movimiento republicano en Europa (2 vols. 1874), La Question de Oriente (1876). See Lives by Sanchez de Real (1874), Sandoval (1886), and Hannay (1896).