Federalism in Spain

Its great theorist was the Catalan republican politician Francesc Pi i Margall author of "Las Nacionalidades" published in 1877 shortly after the failure of the federal experience of the First Spanish Republic.

"[4] The federalists' conception of Spain has been defined as a "multi-state nation that would make citizens and territories alike free", a "strange hybrid", according to Juan Francisco Fuentes, "between federalism and Jacobinism".

[5] This mixture can be seen in a document from the junta insurrecta of Barcelona in 1842 in which after reaffirming "the union and pure Spanishism of all Free Catalans" and denouncing "the tyranny and perfidy of power that has led the Nation to the most deplorable state," declared the "independence of Catalonia, with respect to the Court, until a just government is reestablished.

"[6] It appears again in the "Bases for the Federal Constitution of the Spanish Nation and for the State of Catalonia" by Valentí Almirall and, finally, in the draft Federal Constitution of 1873, whose 1st article read: "The States that make up the Spanish Nation are Upper Andalusia, Lower Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, New Castile, Old Castile, Catalonia, Cuba, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarre, Puerto Rico, Valencia, Basque Country".

The sub-state nationalisms were not satisfied with the autonomic solution, nor with the "coffee for all" ―the generalization of autonomies― which was finally adopted and they continued to demand a confederal model and even independence.