1857 Wallachian legislative election

The Ordinary National Assembly, 1831 watercolor

The Principalities had been occupied by the Russian Empire during the latter's war with the Ottomans (1829). The result was a shared Russian–Ottoman custody, with Regulamentul Organic as a constitutional law imposed on both vassals. Introducing modernizing principles such as the separation of powers, Regulamentul also reformed representation for the estates of the realm, producing the "Ordinary National Assembly"; in Wallachia, this comprised 42 members—19 of whom were elected by the 17 counties.[1] The electoral corps was exceedingly small: 20 representatives of the upper-crust boyar aristocracy were voted in by 56 electors, and the county representatives, generally low-ranking boyars, by some 400 electors.[2] This mixture of modernizing and traditional elements was arrived at by repressing both the emerging liberal current, which wanted more complete freedoms, and the traditionalist boyars, who resented power-sharing combinations.[3]

By 1836, the Assembly and the titular Prince of Wallachia, Alexandru II Ghica, were in open conflict, the boyars having discovered that sections of Regulamentul had been forged, giving legislative oversight to the Russian envoys. Although the event ended in defeat for the deputies, it helped consolidate a "National Party", which was increasingly anti-Russian.[4] This period saw early projects to unite Wallachia and Moldavia, with even liberal Russians encouraging the idea of a "Dacian" dukedom;[5] at least one such proposal, drafted by the Moldavian boyar Leonte Radu, also included the Principality of Serbia.[6]

Following Ghica's ouster, his replacement was to be elected by the estates and then recognized by Sultan Abdulmejid I. The vote took place in December 1842, confronting two Russophile brothers with discreet nationalist agendas—Gheorghe Bibescu and Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei—, with each other, with the anti-Russian Iordache Filipescu, and with the arch-conservative Alecu Filipescu-Vulpea.[7] Bibescu won by exhaustive ballot, picking 69% of the votes in the last round.[8] Although nepotistic, his government introduced various liberal reforms, including a customs union with Moldavia, the defense of education in the national language, and the first steps toward abolishing Roma slavery.[9] He soon found himself at odds with the National Party over the issue of mines concessions and dismissed the Assembly, effectively ruling as an absolute monarch from 1844 to 1846. When finally elections were held in November 1846, the Prince clamped down on the boyars' electoral privilege by outlawing multiple registrations and by imposing his own candidates: 18 of 20 elected by the first estate were his close associates.[10]

However, within two years, he and his friendly Assembly were toppled by the liberal-and-nationalist Revolution. Regulamentul was denounced and publicly burned.[11] During this brief interregnum, the Proclamation of Islaz promised universal male suffrage (tempered by indirect elections) within a republicized elective monarchy. Most revolutionaries agreed that there was still no social grounding for universal direct suffrage.[12] Some elections based on these quasi-democratic principles were held at Vlașca, but the process was cut short by more pressing political issues.[13] The new forms of representation allowed peasant deputies such as Ene Cojocaru to demand the abolition of corvée, which survived despite there being no formal serfdom. The issue became entangled with a lengthy and divisive discussion about land reform.[14]

Participants in the Wallachian Revolution of 1848 prosecuted by Russophile "boyars". Political allegory of 1868

The clampdown by a joint Ottoman–Russian intervention, and the Convention of Balta Liman, restored Regulamentul but suspended the elective monarchy. Princes were designated by Abdulmejid, with Știrbei taking the throne of Wallachia for a period of seven years.[15] The Assembly, reconstituted as the "National Divan", mainly preserved consultative functions, being composed entirely of bureaucrats, judges, and bishops of the Wallachian Orthodox Church.[16] Most revolutionary leaders were either expelled or self-exiled. This group only included 23 men;[17] however, the government also began a clampdown on political activities, persecuting even those remotely associated with the 1848 cause—for instance, the architect Iacob Melic.[18] The poet Constantin D. Aricescu, who circulated revolutionary poetry in manuscript form, was arrested and imprisoned.[19]

The National Party was reconstructed in exile by the 1848 revolutionaries, who, from ca. 1850, began pressing for union above all other points on the agenda,[20] although its leaders remained committed to international republican and European federalist causes to 1856.[21] In this context, there was a noticeable rapprochement between Bibescu and the exiled revolutionaries, pushing Știrbei to adopt an even more conservative stance, and making him more reliant on the military.[22] His repressive regime was cut short by the Crimean War, in which Western powers sided with the Ottomans against Russia. The events also interrupted Nicolae Pleșoianu's designs to participate with other former revolutionaries in the New South Wales gold rush. However, most failed to enlist in the Ottoman Army, as they had intended.[23]

In June 1854, the Austrian Empire occupied both Principalities, preventing Russia from maintaining a presence in the Balkans. With Count Coronini as military supervisor, Știrbei was reconfirmed as Prince. Alongside his minister Nicolae Crețulescu, he consolidated conservatism, refusing to grant entry permits to exile radicals, and instituting heavy censorship of the media.[24] Both however endorsed the unionist cause, explicitly so from 1855, when Crețulescu lobbied the Palmerston cabinet and Napoleon III for a unified Romania, governed from Bucharest and possibly ruled upon by Știrbei.[25] In such proposals, Știrbei also insisted that Wallachia preserve its dominant role, and campaigned against moving the capital to Iași.[26] He found an ally in Ioan Maiorescu, the former revolutionary, who drafted a unionist project stressed the need for a Wallachian on the throne, and also promised to draw the resulting state into Austria's sphere of influence—though both regarded the latter proposal as unrealistic.[27]

Știrbei and Maiorescu's vision was endorsed by some of the more conservative exiles, including Gheorghe Magheru and Ion Heliade Rădulescu; others, including the Romanian Revolutionary Committee of Paris, militated both against Știrbei and for unification.[28] Another wing of the unionist movement was a "bourgeois group", clandestinely formed during autumn 1854 to support Alexandru II Ghica's return on the throne. Its members included Ion Ghica, Constantin Bosianu, economist Gheorghe Costaforu, and banker Cristache Polihroniadi, who together sponsored the newspaper Timpul.[29] As noted by diplomat Henry Stanley, the Wallachians were also divided along geopolitical priorities. Boyars, who were especially fearful of land reform, included "many Russian partizans [sic]", while the middle classes were mostly against Russia, with students and peasants generally pro-Ottoman.[30] While still present in the Principalities, Austrian envoys gave some endorsement to the more radical projects for peasant emancipation. According to historian Alexandru Lapedatu, they did so in order to stoke social conflict, as the unionist nationalism embraced by boyars raised the issue of irredentism among the Romanians of Transylvania and Bukovina.[31]

Although he welcomed constitutionalism, Viscount Palmerston rejected the proposal to make Wallachia and Moldavia a condominium of the West and the Ottomans, regarding them as inalienably Ottoman. He remained agnostic about union, although Villiers of Clarendon and Napoleon came to support the idea.[32] Napoleon, "eager as he was to dismantle the creation of the 1815 Vienna treaties",[33] also envisaged a foreign dynasty for the new state, moving either Francis of Modena or Robert of Parma to the new throne.[34]

Știrbei, who emerged as the Austrian favorite in a close race with Bibescu,[35] continued to preserve an ambiguous, "extremely prudent",[36] course. In 1855, seeking to curtail the Ghicas' influence, he repressed Timpul and encouraged radical unionists to publish a more left-wing paper called Patria.[29] During September, members of this group, led by a 19-year-old Eugeniu Carada, publicly celebrated the fall of Sevastopol. Știrbei again attempted to contain the movement by co-opting Carada as a junior Dragoman in his ministry.[37] Writing at the time, Maiorescu also advised Știrbei to seek counsel from the more "mature" among Wallachia's revolutionary exiles.[38] In February 1856, Știrbei issued letters of protest, directed against the Ottomans' attempt to re-annex the Principalities—but also criticizing the Wallachian revolutionaries active in Ottoman ranks. He also pressed for a boyar assembly to review and reform Regulamentul.[39]

With the defeat of Russia drawing near, exiled unionists began presenting their case to the Ottoman statesmen, introducing their project as a moderate guarantee against both Pan-Slavism and Greek nationalism; some in this group also wished for union to be effected under Grigore V Ghica, who was at the time the reigning Prince of Moldavia.[40] Still a conditional Știrbeist, Maiorescu opposed the ideological threat posed by Ottomanism, and, with Constantin Hurmuzachi, prepared for print a brochure accusing the Sublime Porte of pervasive encroachment on Wallachian and Moldavian autonomy.[41] During those weeks, Ottoman and Austrian diplomats met with envoys of Britain and Imperial France to discuss the property regime in Wallachia and Moldavia. Though divided between a radical anti-boyar position taken by Austria's Prince Prokesch-Osten and a strongly conservative project advanced by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, they eventually agreed on the need to suspend the corvée and eliminate all remaining forms of personal servitude.[42]

In March 1856, a Western protectorate was established under the Treaty of Paris; Ottoman sovereignty was kept in check by Austria, Russia, Britain, France, Prussia, and Sardinia. The Treaty also specified the notion of representation and public consultation, instituting the ad-hoc Divans. Consultation was going to take place including in respect to the Principalities' union—although the latter was opposed by the Ottomans and the Austrians.[43] The Ottoman viewpoint was embraced by Palmerston and Clarendon, who tried to persuade the French into renouncing the foreign dynasty scheme, which was particularly disliked by Abdulmejid.[44]

With censorship laws still in place, the unionist campaign was supported from Moldavia by the National Party magazine Stéoa Dunărei.[45] Public disputes were focused on conflicts between the conservatives Știrbei and Alexandru Ghica, who took over as Caimacam (regent); the National Party was organizing more discreetly, with Ioan I. Filipescu forming a club for what he called the Bucharest sans-culottes.[46] Unionism of various hues was also spread by the Freemasonry. A Masonic Lodge established for this purpose was particularly active in the border town of Focșanii Munteniei, reuniting boyar and bourgeois activists: Alexandru Plagino, Grigore D. Marghiloman, Constantin Robescu, Alecu Sihleanu, and Panaite Tufelcică.[47] Filipescu also contacted Aga Constantin A. Crețulescu, brother of the resigning minister, asking him to sponsor a unionist gazette. Crețulescu refused, reportedly because he disliked the movement's anti-boyar radicalization and "anarchism".[48]

By August 1856, Caimacam Ghica, who remained an anti-unionist and "not a man of progress",[49] had split the conservatives by ordering a purge of Știrbeists from the administration. Barbu Știrbei, his son George, and Plagino were all driven into passivity or collaboration with the National Party.[50] Most boyars rallied with yet another conservative-and-unionist faction, which was headed by Bibescu; Ghica sought to counter the trend, outing himself as a backer of Timpul.[51] Filipescu also used this confusion to set up a clandestine Unionist Committee, which branched out into all Wallachian cities and began petitioning foreign governments to obtain a timetable for the unification. The Committee was also behind the enthusiastic welcoming of the French Commissioner, Baron Talleyrand, which doubled as an anti-Ottoman and anti-Austrian demonstration.[52]

Over those months, the revolutionary exiles began testing Caimacam Ghica's resolve by making their way back into the country, sometimes with Știrbei's tacit endorsement: Magheru, Alexandru G. Golescu[53] and Grigore Serrurie[54] had regained Bucharest before the end of 1856. Ion Brătianu returned in the early months of 1857.[55] In September, Alexandru's nephew, Beizadea Dimitrie Ghica, who had kept a low profile ever since 1848, publicized his own manifesto, which offered a crossover of liberal and conservative doctrines, chiding youth for the Talleyrand incident.[56] This younger Ghica did not oppose union with Moldavia, but advised its partisans not to draw too much attention to their project.[57] This revival failed to impress the returning exiles, with Serrurie writing in November that boyardom needed to be "burned alive and its ashes scattered".[58]

Heliade's conservatives, who maintained some links with the Ghicas,[59] also began reorganizing themselves into a more cohesive group: by November, Heliade and his associate Niculae Rusu Locusteanu were putting out their own newspaper, Conservatorul, from exile in Bellinzona. It published political essays critical of other emergent factions, and praised the Caimacam as a balanced reformist.[60] They differed from all other factions in their solution to the peasant issue, advocating collective farming and utopian socialism, and even suggesting the violent expropriation of boyar estates.[61]

After consultations with Western plenipotentiaries,[62] the Sultan took the initiative and, on January 13, 1857, issued a firman sanctioning elections. This was read out publicly in Bucharest in March, and signed into law by Ghica in April.[63] It set the voting age at 30, while splitting the electoral corps into five classes of voters, with massive enfranchisement.[64] There were 10,141 qualified electors in Wallachia, as opposed to only 2,954 in Moldavia.[65] At core, the Divans would still preserve corporatism as the electoral principle, retaining a characteristic of its 1840s predecessors; however, the firman introduced radically new divisions of the body politic, such as recognizing the political importance of liberal professions.[66] Although, in the 1850s, guilds "no longer controlled production", they maintained some local importance as "professional and fiscal organizations",[67] and were still assigned an electoral function.

Overall, there were 94 to 100 deputies. Accounts differ because of the unspecified number of supplementary seats for the Wallachian clergy, which now enfranchised priests and stareți. The bishops were members by right; clergy also elected 6 or 10 deputies altogether—4 of which represented the high clergy.[68] Outside the church class, there were 90 Divan deputies, representing the 17 counties, with at least one deputy per county capital and at least 4 from the rural constituencies. Dolj and Prahova had 6 deputies each, and Ilfov had 8, 4 of them representing Bucharest.[69]

Boyars were controversially merged into a single group, and, except for the wealthiest, were not allowed to vote outside their home county, partially confirming Bibescu's earlier limitations of suffrage. High-ranking boyars, comprising some 90 people, were thus fused with the 2,700 of the low-and-middle boyar category; the only requirement for membership was owning an estate over 111 hectares (0.4 square miles), although candidates had to own at least 334 hectares (1.3 square miles).[70] By September, the category had been restructured to include 753 voters, about 20% of whom were concentrated in Ilfov and Buzău.[71]

Urban constituencies included all 17 county capitals, each electing one deputy, except for Bucharest's 4, and for 2 each in Craiova and Brăila. Brăila was eventually relegated to one deputy, and Ploiești moved up to where it had two.[72] Voting rights were only extended to some portions of the urban class, with various grandfather clauses attached; groups included: state-recognized professionals, regardless of wealth, who had been living in the respective town or city for no less than three years; homeowners with a taxable wealth set at 8,000 kuruşlar—or 20,000 in Bucharest; attested tradesman and master craftsmen; and journeymen (voting indirectly—with 4 electors per guild.[73] This electoral geography produced an urban constituency comprising, overall, 3,000 voters: 1,300 were in Bucharest (about 2% of that city's population), and 285 at Craiova, with as few as 43 for Târgu Jiu.[69]

The other two classes, both rural, voted indirectly: 8,000 non-aristocratic landowners were defined as having at least 11 hectares (27 acres), and sent 5 electors and 1 deputy per county (although their numbers ranged from 1,630 in Romanați to only 12 in Brăila County); 220,000 peasants were represented through their 2,931 village assemblies, which elected two delegates each, with all county delegates electing one deputy per county.[74] The latter provision was especially unpopular with the boyars, who feared a surge of "mean passions". Resigning from the ministry in April 1857, N. Crețulescu asked Édouard Thouvenel, France's Ambassador to the Porte, to withdraw that requirement (although he conceded on the inclusion of non-boyars and guilds).[75]

Timpul was again published from December 1856, signalling the lifting of censorship. By then, its "anti-feudal" campaign was also assisted by Costaforu's theoretical journal, Magazinul Judecătoresc.[76] In February of the following year, C. A. Crețulescu was finally allowed to put out a moderate unionist paper, Concordia, published in Bucharest.[77] Eventually, Caimacam Ghica also renounced anti-unionism and, alongside the Timpul faction, moved closer to the National Party, hoping to defeat Bibescu. Also in February, two of the Caimacam's counsels, Costaforu and Bosianu, alongside his nephew Dimitrie and Barbu Bellu, published an "ultra-liberal" manifesto for the foreseeable elections.[78] They now attacked Concordia for its views on class collaboration—according to historian Vasile Maciu, Bellu was infiltrated into the group by Bibescu partisans such as Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Barbu Catargiu, who hoped that ideological conflicts would distract both groups from pushing an egalitarian agenda.[79]

During the last days of February, Costaforu and Bosianu split with Bellu, establishing a "free assembly" of the National Party.[80] Writing for Timpul, Costaforu invited the grand boyars to voluntarily relinquish all privilege or risk placing themselves "outside the nation." His party did not support land reforms, but stated its opposition to the corvée system, declaring it a breach on personal sovereignty.[81] Union, Costaforu argued, was an "old idea of our nation", the "political tendency of the whole people", and was therefore inevitable.[82] Concordia's Ion Bălăceanu joined the club on its creation, but left within days, alleging that it only existed to serve the Ghicas; in fact, Costaforu was attempting to energize the middle class into preventing all boyar candidacies for the Divan, and hinted at designs for a democratic republic.[83]

Beyond Concordia and Timpul, the unionist campaign also relied on direct tactics, including oratory: voter interest was exceptionally high, with as many as 700 attendees at campaign meeting in Bucharest in March (almost half of the entire electoral basin).[84] Majority groups rejected the radical platform advanced by the Ghicas, leading Bosianu to withdraw from the National Party.[63] Before March 3 (New Style: March 15), he was talked into rejoining and awarded with a seat on the Unified Committees, alongside Costaforu. The party as a whole, co-chaired by C. A. Crețulescu and banker Lazăr (Lazaros) Kalenderoglu, issued a program demanding union under a foreign dynasty, with autonomy, perpetual neutrality, extended suffrage, and representative government. The extended agenda proposed equality before the law, a codified right to property, freedom of contract and the suspension of corvées.[85]

These principles were communicated to the local branches, which also organized in the open. While heading the National Party as a whole, C. A. Crețulescu also organized the Brăila County section.[86] At Vlașca, Serrurie held a chair on the regional Committee, alongside State Ariton and Ioniță Gurki.[54] Aricescu emerged as the radical unionist leader in Muscel County, also putting out political plays as a means of propagating the nationalist slogans.[87] The Bucharest trend was also witnessed in Prahova, were, as historian Silvia Marton notes, "liberals and unionists feverishly organized themselves".[88] Before May, Costaforu had traveled around Wallachia, spreading his philosophy among the various clubs. This activity was observed and criticized by the Russian consul C. Basily, who argued that calls for a "social revolution" would compromise any "political reform" that was expected of the union.[89]

Union of the Principalities, July 1857 painting by Theodor Aman—personifications of Moldavia (left) and Wallachia as maidens in national costume

Also fearing the growth of democratic unionism, Bibescu's party channeled the conservative vote, forming its own Unionist Committee on March 10 (March 22). This faction insisted on maintaining boyar representation; however, Bibescuists also claimed authorship for the core unionist program, accusing the Crețulescu group of plagiarism.[90] In their version, it included references to a hereditary monarch, or Domnitor; representative government and meritocracy; a limited Ottoman rule with adherence to the Capitulations; and full respect for the property rights.[91] This was a significant moment in history, signaling that the staunchest conservatives had renounced the notion of boyar-only representation, and only slightly amended the language of liberal ideologists.[92] Hoping to attract support from the lower classes, they also reputedly promised a confiscation of monastery land.[93] Bibescu himself held no official seat on the organization, which was nominally headed by Catargiu, Ion Emanuel Florescu, and Scarlat Bărcănescu.[94]

Before April, some conservatives quit this group to join Crețulescu's Committee, which now clarified its stance by declaring itself against land reforms.[95] Bibescuists remained especially strong at Craiova, where party organizers included Emanoil Quinezu and Nicolae Haralambie. Bibescu himself was welcomed in triumph by the city, but remained hesitant about capturing the unionist movement for his own goals.[96] Știrbei also published a constitutional project with virtually the same proposals.[97] Meanwhile, a Caimacam party again emerged when Bosianu again withdrew from the National Party venture, establishing his own Unionist Committee, and hoping to elect Dimitrie Ghica as Prince. Very few joined him,[98] since, at the time, the Beizadea himself supported the notion of electing a foreigner.[99] Bosianu established his own newspaper, called România. It depicted itself as a moderate and dispassionate voice in politics, and on such grounds presented arguments in support of the common unionist platform; by June, Bosianu himself had endorsed the project to import a Western European ruling house.[100]

On March 11 (March 23), 1857, the Austrians evacuated Bucharest, and the longest ever campaigning in Romanian political history began officially.[101] Its staples now included political imagery. At an early stage, most unionist propaganda art was produced by Constantin Lecca, with historical scenes that reminded Wallachians about an earlier union, under Michael the Brave.[102] In July 1857, the debuting painter Theodor Aman of Craiova completed an allegorical canvass, the Union of the Principalities. Hailed as a milestone in patriotic artistry, it was followed soon after by mass prints of Petre Alexandrescu's similarly titled piece.[103]

The democratic side of unionism was by then completely free to organize, and its most radical proponents, C. A. Rosetti and Christian Tell, regained Bucharest during June. Highly popular with what Bălăceanu called the "socialist youth", they joined Concordia and shunned Timpul.[104] Elsewhere, differences of opinion between the unionists were muted by agreements between voters. For instance, all 292 voters registered in Vlașca vowed to support the candidate deemed best during Unionist Committee primaries.[105] In that context, very few Wallachians still rejected union, and did not ever form a party of their own. As noted by historian A. D. Xenopol, they included Colonel Dimitrie Papazoglu, and also those boyars who feared competition from the more numerous Moldavians for the ranks and offices of the court.[106] Opposition to the unionist project came from the outsiders Heliade and Rusu Locusteanu. They endorsed the union on principle, but objected to the Divans being convened by the Porte; overall, they also favored a crowned republic under a native ruler.[107]