Republicanismos y Federalismos en la España del siglo XIX. El Federalismo catalán

Abstract

Spanish 19th Century republicanism was broadly divided into two main political cultures, the leading liberal-progressives and the marginal liberal-democrats. Within this latter liberal-democratic culture, Pi y Margall's federalist project represented an attempt to build a party which was genuinely based on the people, yet ideo-logically sound and well organised. In addition to its leftist social proposals, its main challenge was the definition of a federal State, which arised both of reactions against the «invasión» of bourgeois statism, and of the willingness of popular sectors to gain some control of local politics. Though limited, the relations between these federalists and different regionalist groups seemed to créate an alternative to the hegemonic conservatives. The most coherent project in this direction was no doubt J. M. Valles i Ribot's catala-nist federalism, whose ultímate failure was but a consequence of the global failure of Spanish democratic federalism vis-á-vis the consolidation of the liberal bourgeois Restoration State.