Manuel Alonso Martínez

Manuel Alonso Martínez (Burgos, January 1, 1827-Madrid, January 13, 1891) was a Spanish jurist and politician. Minister of Development, Finance and Grace and Justice on several occasions, he enjoyed the confidence of Isabel II, Alfonso XII and the Queen Regent María Cristina of Habsburg.

His law firm was for decades one of the most prestigious in Spain and he is also considered the main promoter of the political career of his son-in-law, the Count of Romanones. It is considered one of his most important achievements to obtain the approval of the Spanish Civil Code by Law of May 11, 1888 after the subsequent parliamentary procedure, for which he had to face severe criticism from the followers of the historical school, whose main representative at the time was Manuel Durán y Bas.

Biography

He was born in the city of Burgos, on Fernán González street. He studied Law and Philosophy and Letters at the Central University of Madrid. He practiced as a lawyer in his hometown until during the Progressive Biennium he was elected deputy for the province of Burgos. From 1855 to 1856 he served as Minister of Development under the government of Baldomero Espartero, highlighting his work in financing the Canal de Isabel II, and he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos III.

He joined the Liberal Union of Leopoldo O'Donnell in 1857 and held the position of civil governor of Madrid. From 1865 to 1866, during the decline of the liberal governments and before the Democratic Sexennium, he was Minister of Finance.

With the overthrow of Isabel II he abandoned political life. In 1869 he was elected president of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation and worked as a jurist and writer. In 1875, after the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Alfonso XII, he was named president of the commission that would draft the draft Constitution of 1876.

In 1881 he was appointed Minister of Grace and Justice under the presidency of Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, a position from which he actively participated in the drafting of the Civil Code. Alonso Martínez was a supporter of the codification of Spanish civil law to provide a solution to the problems that judges faced when establishing the priority between different norms that governed in different areas of Spain. Being Minister of Grace and Justice, in a key speech in 1881, he went so far as to say: "Our civil law is the image of chaos..." And he explained what the chaos of which he spoke consisted of:

The status quothe same in the provinces of common law as in those of the foral regime, is the extension of the legislative anarchy, which carries after itself, as an obligatory courtship, the doubt and uncertainty in the rights of the citizen, the ignorance of his duties, the confusion and the revolt in the judicial discussions, the variety and contradiction in the judgments, the judicial arbitrariness, the agglomeration of dispensive plets that would easily be resolved by

In addition to legal simplicity, Alonso Martínez was also in favor of codification, considering it a political instrument that would favor national unity. He considered the codification of civil legislation as a first step towards total, or almost total, legislative unity., throughout the Spanish territory. This principle of legislative unity was included in the Constitution of 1876, as well as in the previous ones, which the last one had maintained. For all these reasons, he declared himself, in his famous speech of 1881, a firm defender of codification: "I declare it frankly and nobly, my golden dream is the publication of the Civil Code...".

In 1889 he was elected president of the Congress of Deputies. Upon his death, his widow, Demetria Martín y Baraya, was awarded the title of Marchioness of Alonso Martínez.

Ideology

Although he belonged to the liberal movement, Alonso Martínez stood out for convictions more typical of the Old Regime. Convinced that taking men's individual freedoms to the extreme could lead to chaotic situations, he believed in a hierarchically organized society. Thus, he maintained the Aristotelian discourse and confronted not only any socialist theory, but also Krausist thought.

He was in favor of the union of peoples in increasingly larger political communities and declared himself reticent to the influence of localism.