CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO, ANTONIO Spanish statesman and author, was born at Malaga on Feb. 8, 1828. He studied law at the University of Madrid, earning his living meanwhile by literature and journalism. He entered the tortes in 1854, and held various offices in Liberal cabinets be tween 186o and 1868. After the abdication of King Amadeus and the proclamation of the federal republic Canovas advocated the return of the Bourbons, and it was he who drew up the mani festo issued in 1874 by Alphonso XII., then a cadet at Sandhurst. But he opposed the method of the pronunciamiento. On the proclamation of Alphonso as king he formed a ministry, and held office, with two brief interruptions, for six years. He had to reconstruct a Conservative party out of the least reactionary parties of the days of Queen Isabella and out of the more mod erate elements of the revolution. With such followers he made the constitution of 1876 and all the laws of the monarchy, putting a limited franchise in the place of universal suffrage, curtailing liberty of conscience, rights of association and of meeting, lib erty of the press, checking democracy, obliging the military to abstain from politics, conciliating the Carlists and Catholics by his advances to the Vatican, the Church and the religious orders, adopting a protectionist tariff policy, and courting abroad the friendship of Germany and Austria after contributing to the marriage of his king to an Austrian princess. Canovas crowned his policy by countenancing the formation of a Liberal party under Sagasta, flanked by Marshal Serrano and other Liberal generals, which took office in 1881. Henceforth Sagasta and he alternated as prime ministers. He became prime minister for the fourth time in March 1895 immediately after the outbreak of the Cuban insurrection, and prepared to send 200,000 men to the West Indies to carry out his policy of no surrender, no conces sions and no reforms. He was making up his mind for another effort to enable Gen. Weyler to enforce the reforms that had been wrung from the Madrid government, more by American diplo macy than from a sense of the inevitable, when the bullet of an anarchist, in Aug. 1897, at the baths of Santa Agueda, cut short his career. Canovas was the author of numerous historical and other works, among which may be mentioned : Estudios literarios (1868) ; Historia del dominio austriaco en Espana (1869) ; and Estudios del reinado de Felipe IV. (1888-9o) .
See Casado Sanchez de Castilla, Canovas, apuntes biograficos (1887).