CASTELAR Y RIPOLL, EMILIO (1832-1899), Spanish statesman, was born at Cadiz, on Sept. 8, 183 2. He received the doctorate in philosophy and letters at Madrid in 1853, and from the time of the Spanish revolutionary movement of 1854 became active in politics, radical journalism, literary and historical pursuits. After his defeat in the first rising of June 1866, he fled to France to escape death, returning after the successful revolution of 1868 and entering the cortes as deputy for Saragossa. At the same time he resumed the professorship of history at Madrid. His demand for a federal republic in the constituent cortes of 1869 was realized on the abdication of Amadeus, but it lasted only from Feb. 11, 1873, to Jan. 3, 1874. Disorder was so rife that the president of the executive, Figueras, deserted his post. The doctrinaires, Pi y Margall and Salmeron, in successive attempts to govern, received no support from influential Spaniards. Finally at the beginning of September the federal cortes made Castelar chief of the executive and virtual ruler of Spain. He at once re organized the army and sent forces to cope with the 6o,000 Carlists in arms, and the cantonal insurrectionists around Alcoy and Cartagena (those of Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz, and Malaga had been already quelled under Salmeron).
Castelar next turned his attention to the Church. He put a stop to persecutions of the Church and religious orders and enforced respect of Church property. He attempted to restore order in the administration of finance, with a view to covering the expense of the three civil wars, Carlist, cantonal, and Cuban. The Cuban insurgents gave him much trouble, the famous Virginius incident nearly leading to a rupture with the United States. Castelar sent out reinforcements to Cuba and a new governor-general, Jovellar, whom he instructed to crush the mutinous spirit of the Cuban militia. At the end of 1873 Castelar had reason to be satisfied with the military operations in the peninsula, with the assistance he was getting from the middle classes and even from the non-republican elements. On the other hand, the extreme republicans openly dissented from his conservative and conciliatory policy. Hence when the federal cortes resumed its sittings (Jan. 2, 1874), it passed a vote of censure on Castelar. He resigned, and on the following day Pavia, the captain-general of Madrid, forcibly ejected the deputies, closed and dissolved the cortes, and called upon Marshal Serrano to form a provisional government.
A pronunciamiento put an end to Serrano's government in Dec., 1874, when Generals Campos at Sagunto, Jovellar at Valen cia, Primo de Rivera at Madrid, and Laserna at Logrono, pro claimed Alphonso XII. king of Spain. Castelar then went into voluntary exile for 15 months, at the end of which he was elected deputy for Barcelona. He sat in all subsequent parliaments. During that period he became more estranged from the majority of the republicans, because he elected to seek the realization of the programme of the Spanish revolution of 1868 by evolution, and legal, pacific means. Hence the contrast between his attitude from 1876 to 1886, during the reign of Alphonso XII., when he stood in the front rank of the Opposition to defend the reforms of that revolution against Canovas, and his attitude from 1886 to 1891 when he acted as a sort of independent auxiliary of Sagasta and of the Liberal party. Besides the unfinished history of Europe in the 19th century he left :—La civilisaci6n en los cinco primeros siglos del cristianismo (1875) ; Vida de Byron (1873) ; Cartas sobre politica europea (1875) ; and other works. Castelar died near Murcia, on May 25, See D. Hannay, Life of Castelar (1896) ; Butler Clarke, Modern Spain (1906) ; Correspondencia de Emilio Castelar 1868-g8 (1908) ; E. Varagnac, Emilio Castelar, un grand Espagnol (1920).