Segismundo Moret

Segismundo Moret y Prendergast (Cádiz, June 2, 1833 – Madrid, January 28, 1913) was a Spanish landowner, writer and politician.

During the reign of Amadeo I he was Minister of Overseas and Minister of Finance; during the reign of Alfonso XII, Minister of the Interior; during the regency of María Cristina de Habsburgo, Minister of State, Minister of Public Works, again Minister of the Interior and Minister of Overseas; and finally, during the reign of Alfonso XIII, Minister of the Interior, President of the Council of Ministers and President of the Congress of Deputies.

Biography

Origins

He studied Law at the Central University of Madrid, where in 1858 he obtained the Chair of Finance Institutions. His origin from Cádiz and his family and business relations with Great Britain predestined him to be, as he was, an active defender of free trade.

In 1863 he was elected independent deputy for Almadén, province of Ciudad Real, a seat he would soon resign. He was re-elected, for Ciudad Real on this occasion, in 1868 after the triumph of the Revolution of 1868 and collaborated in the drafting of the Spanish Constitution of 1869. He was also a speaker at the Sunday conferences on the education of women (Universidad de Madrid), with the conference Influence of the mother on the vocation and profession of children (Madrid, 1869).

He was married to Concepción de Remisa y Rafo, daughter of Gaspar de Remisa Miarons, (1784-1847) 1st Marquis of Remisa and Viscount of Casa Sans and Marianna Teresa Rafo de Tolosa (1802 1822).

Abolition of slavery

Segismundo Moret, by Federico Madrazo (1855; Museo del Prado).

He was Minister of Overseas in the cabinet chaired by General Prim (1870). During his management, slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico, which was limited to the freedom of wombs, known as the Moret Law, of July 4, 1870 and promoted a constitutional text for Puerto Rico. He later became Minister of Finance in the first Government of the reign of Amadeo I (1871), but had to resign shortly after due to certain irregularities in two tobacco concessions.

Ambassador and Liberal Minister

Moret en The Spanish and American Illustration (1881).

Appointed ambassador to London in 1871, he took up residence there after his resignation as ambassador, to run a banking business. In 1875, after the Bourbon restoration, he returned to Spain and founded the Partido Democrático-Monárquico, which in 1882 merged into the Dynastic Left and ended up within the Liberal Party of Sagasta.

He was appointed Minister of the Interior in 1883 under the liberal government of José Posada Herrera. Since 1885 he was part of the Liberal Party, in which he collaborated with Sagasta as Minister of State (1885-1888), Interior (1888, 1901 and 1902), Development (1892), State (1892 and 1894) and Overseas (1897-1898).). His management as minister was highly contested by the Basque industrialist Víctor Chávarri, who understood that Moret's management and the treaty with Germany harmed the interests of Spanish heavy industry, managing to overthrow him from the ministry.

Sagasta's Council of Ministers in 1902, with Moret, on the left as Minister of Governance; Franzen's photograph.

After Sagasta's death, he participated in the struggles for the leadership of the party, in a hard fight with Montero Ríos, but his lack of resolution and the few scruples he had shown on occasions, blocked his way. In 1897, while Minister of Overseas, he decreed the autonomy of Cuba and Puerto Rico, in a vain attempt to prevent the emancipation of both colonies. Around 1902 he collaborated in the creation of the Institute of Social Reforms, the embryo of the future Ministry of Labor.

President

After the resignation of Montero Ríos due to his intention to sanction the military implicated in the events of the newspaper Cu-Cut!, he held the presidency of the Government (1905-1906). During this mandate, he supported the military and had the Law of Jurisdictions approved, which placed offenses against the Army and the symbols and unity of Spain under military jurisdiction, thus combining all the Catalan political sectors against him. One of his weapons to fight against them was the support that he gave secretly to Alejandro Lerroux, who with his demagogic radicalism could separate the Barcelona working masses from Catalanism. The attack by Mateo Morral against Alfonso XIII, in May 1906, forced him to resign in July 1906, after a management in which he had not gained any prestige, leaving him without a sufficient majority in the Cortes, although he briefly held that position again from 30 from November to December 4 of the same year, causing the "crisis of the little piece of paper" (November), but Congress made him the object of a vote of no confidence, and the new Moret government had to resign 48 hours after it was formed.

Fall and president of Congress

Monument to Segismundo Moret in Zaragoza

After the dramatic events of the Tragic Week in 1909, he once again became head of government, succeeding Antonio Maura, at the same time that he held the post of Interior, but again he had to resign in February of the following year when the dissolution was not achieved Parliament to obtain a majority to support his project, being replaced by Canalejas and overthrown by his fellow party members, who vetoed him and forced him to retire from active politics. In 1912, when Canalejas was assassinated, the government of the Count of Romanones elected him president of the Congress of Deputies, a position he held until his death.

He was named adoptive son of Cáceres in 1881 and favorite son of Cádiz in 1907.