He was an obscure republican student during the Spanish revolutionary movement of 1854, and the young liberals and democrats of that era decided to hold a meeting in the largest theatre of the capital.

Castelar soon became famous for his speeches in the Constituent Cortes of 1869, where he led the republican minority in advocating a federal republic as the logical outcome of the recent revolution.

He thus gave much trouble to men like Serrano, Topete and Prim, who had never cherished the idea of establishing an advanced democracy, and who each had his own scheme for re-establishing the monarchy with certain constitutional restrictions.

Hence arose Castelar's constant and vigorous criticisms of the successive plans mooted to place a Hohenzollern, a Portuguese, the Duke of Montpensier, Espartero and finally Amadeus of Savoy on the throne.

The Senate and Congress, very largely composed of monarchists, permitted themselves to be dragged along into democracy by the republican minority headed by Salmerón, Figueras, Francesc Pi i Margall, and Castelar.

The short-lived federal republic from 11 February 1873 to 3 January 1874 was the culmination of the career of Castelar, and his conduct during those eleven months was much praised by the wiser [citation needed] part of his countrymen, though it alienated from him the sympathies of the majority of his sometime friends in the republican ranks.

He would have placed at the head of his commonwealth a president and Cortes freely elected by the people, ruling the country in a liberal spirit and with due respect for conservative principles, religious traditions, and national unity.

Castelar even went so far as to side with his colleagues, when serious difficulties arose between the new government and the president of the Cortes, Señor Martos, who was backed by a very imposing commission composed of the most influential conservative members of the last parliament of the Savoyard king, which had suspended its sittings shortly after proclaiming the federal republic.

[3] The battalions and the militia that had assembled in the bullring near Marshal Serrano's house to assist the anti-democratic movement were disarmed, and their leaders, the politicians and generals, were allowed to escape to France or Portugal.

Matters got to such a climax of disorder, disturbance and confusion from the highest to the lowest strata of Spanish society, that the president of the executive, Figueras, deserted his post and fled the country.

Salmeron had even to appeal to such well-known reactionary generals as Pavia, Sanchez, Bregna, and Moriones, to assume the command of the armies in the south and in the north of Spain.

This resignation was not an unfortunate event for the country, as the federal Cortes not only made Castelar chief of the executive, though his partisans were in a minority in the Parliament, but they gave him much liberty to act, as they decided to suspend the sittings of the house until 2 January 1874.

This force, though aided by considerable bodies of local militia and volunteers in the northern and western provinces, was insufficient to cope with the 60,000 Carlists in arms, and with the still formidable nucleus of cantonalists around Alcoy and Cartagena.

He attempted to restore some order in the treasury and administration of finance, with a view to obtain ways and means to cover the expense of the three civil wars, Carlist, cantonal and Cuban.

[4] At the end of 1873 Castelar had reason to be satisfied with the results of his efforts, with the military operations in the peninsula, with the assistance he was getting from the middle classes and even from many of the political elements of the Spanish revolution that were not republican.

Another pronunciamiento finally put an end to it in the last week of December 1874, when Generals Campos at Sagunto, Jovellar at Valencia, Primo de Rivera at Madrid, and Laserna at Logrono, proclaimed Alphonso XII king of Spain.