civil rights.

Pending the selection of a sovereign, a regency was established under
Marshal Serrano. Among the several dignitaries who were
considered--Alfonso (son of the deposed Isabella) the Duke of
Montpensier, Ferdinand of Savoy (brother of King Victor Emmanuel of
Italy), King Luiz of Portugal, Ferdinand of Saxony, Leopold of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and Prince Amadeo, duke of Aosta, second son
of Victor Emmanuel--favor settled eventually upon the last named, who
was elected November 19, 1870, by a vote of 191 to 120. At the end of
1870 the new sovereign arrived in Spain, and February 2, 1871, he took
oath to uphold the recently established constitution. From the outset,
however, his position was one of extreme difficulty. He was opposed by
those who desired a republic, by the Carlists, by the adherents of the
former crown prince Alfonso, and by the clergy; and as a foreigner he
was regarded with indifference, if not antipathy, by patriotic
Spaniards generally. February 10, 1873, wearied by the turbulence in
which he was engulfed, he resigned his powers into the hands of the
Cortes, and by that body his abdication was forthwith accepted. It is
a sufficient commentary upon the political character of the reign to
observe that within the twenty-four months which it covered there were
no fewer than six ministerial crises and three general elections.

*674. The Republic (1873-1875): Monarchy Restored.*--The breakdown of
the elective monarchy, following thus closely the overthrow of
absolutism, cleared the way for the triumph of the republicans. The
monarchist parties, confronted suddenly by an unanticipated situation,
were able to agree upon no plan of action, and the upshot was that, by
a vote of 258 to 32, the Cortes declared for a republic and decreed
that the drafting of a republican constitution should be undertaken by
a specially elected convention. Although it was true, as Castelar
asserted, that the monarchy had perished from natural causes, that the
republic was the inevitable product of existing circumstance, and that
the transition from the one to the other was effected without
bloodshed, it was apparent from the outset that republicanism had not,
after all, struck root deeply. A constitution was drawn up, but it was
at no time really put into operation. The supporters of the new regime
were far from agreed as to the kind of republic, federal or (p. 610)
centralized, that should be established;[843]