Il federalismo sconfitto: Francesco Ferrara e Giuseppe Ferrari

Il federalismo sconfitto: Francesco Ferrara e Giuseppe Ferrari This essay aims to enable the reader to make a close comparison between the development and the decline of the Federalist ideology of the Sicilian liberal and “moderate” economist Francesco Ferrara (1810-1900) and of the Milanese democratic and socialist historian and political thinker Giuseppe Ferrari (1811-1876). Both deeply involved in the national movement for the freedom of Italy, though coming from different political and cultural experience, from different points of view and though oriented by different political patterns, they shared and largely illustrated in their 40’ and 50’ works the “scientific” conviction that the most natural and progressive way to raise an independent and enduring Italian State was the free subscription of a Federal union by the existing and reformed (Ferrara) or deeply renewed (Ferrari) States. Both saw in the King Carlo Alberto’s plans and attempt to submit Northern Italy, first, and then the most part of the Peninsula to Piedmont’s sovereignty the result of a despotic will to conquest and dominate, which was going to be accomplished in name of Italian unity. Apart from these fundamental common points, the views of the two patriots, who never met until the late 60’s, when they both sat in the Parliament, were quite different and would remain so also in the following decades: they were politically opposite and were not even able to set up a real dialogue. The main care of Ferrara, until 1860, was to ensure Sicily the independence from the kingdom of Naples and the rank of independent member of an Italian federal union, which should include the State of the Pope, whose role in the beginning of the national federal movement he greatly appreciated in 1847/48. Its constitution should follow the pattern of that of United States of America, but the Union should be composed by monarchical States, considering that Monarchy was the dominant regime of the Italian States. However Ferrara did not see a great difference between a constitutional monarchy and a republic. The Sicilian thinker considered a federal government the most suitable for a real freedom and prosperity of the States and citizens and he believed that the historical trend foresaw its general affirmation in the near or later future. He hoped that Italy, thanks to its ancient and still existing political fragmentation, could bypass the unitary stage and begin its new national life at a federal stage. In spite of the failure of the Sicilian revolution of 1848, which should have led to a Sicilian constitutional Kingdom whose crown had been offered to the second son of the same Carlo Alberto, Ferrara did not cease to pursue his dream for Sicily until the eve of the plebiscite for the annexation of Southern Italy to the Savoyard State. His last “federal” work sought a compromise solution, facing the unavoidable victory of the “fusionist” party, by proposing to grant Sicily a peculiarly large autonomy, including an exclusive legislative competence in all matters of local interest. It would be an useful experiment of an “almost federal” system, which he believed successfully extensible, thanks to its good results in increasing human freedom and economic progress, to the other “provinces” of Italy. The proclamation of the Unitarian Kingdom of Italy marks the end of Francesco Ferrara’s federalist thought. He accepted silently the defeat of his political program, but his private suffering for the lost freedom of his fatherland did not prevent him from becoming a loyal server of the new Italian State, although we notice that since then its public contribution was no longer concerned with the great institutional and political questions, but was confined to technical issues related to his economic competence. In his political thought, the federal issue disappeared suddenly, substituted by an increasing demand of freedom in all fields and especially in the economic one. The federalism of Giuseppe Ferrari was founded on a deep-rooted democratic faith and on a large, intense and original investigation and interpretation of European and Italian history, from the Roman conquest until his time. Every period of Italian history seemed to him to be characterized by a plurality and a great variety of political entities and by their “federal” common action against any Unitarian domination (as the Roman empire, for example, or the Longobard kingdom) or against any new attempt to impose it. The permanent victory of one conquering kingdom, which could, and still can, be possible only through despotic and brutal means, had always been hindered by the Pact that had been formally stipulated for the first time between the Pope and the King of Franks, in order to ensure reciprocal aid against any attempt to conquer Italy. This Pact, frequently renewed, until the time of the French Revolution and until the present time, had the most important consequences in Italy, being this country the See of the Papacy: until the end of 14th century it allowed the chaotic and revolutionary growth if an high number of political entities (commons, republics, “signorie”) whose freedom was the result of their “federal” networks. During this period, the Italian revolutions preceded and led to the progressive and revolutionary European movement. The renewal of the Covenant after the Reformation marks the beginning of an oppressive domination on the Peninsula by the Emperor and the Pope, and the end of the political influence of the Italian federation. From that time to the 19th century, Italy was characterized by being divided in a plurality of States (whose number had nevertheless progressively diminished to eight). Their economy and civilisation could sometimes flourish but their need for independence, power and freedom was frustrated by the absolutism of their Princes and by the tyrannical domination of the Papacy and of the clergy as by the oppressive and obscurant “fables” of the Catholic religion. With the 1789 Revolution and through its fight for human rights, France has assumed the leadership of the European progressive movement. Thanks to its influence and military action during the three Jacobin years (1796-1799) and during the Napoleonic period, Italy acquired a national consciousness; the revolutionary movement grew inside the States, aiming to renew political life according to democratic values and to federally connect this effort, in order to obtain a real freedom. Ferrari’s federalism was conceived with the purpose to solve Italy’s national question. According to him, the Pope, the clergy and the Italian princes were the Italian revolution’s main enemies. Consequently he considered the moderate federalism of Gioberti and Balbo and of their supporters, conservative and in fact reactionary, very negative. He did not mention, and probably did not know the federal thought of Francesco Ferrara, but, in spite of many coinciding aspects, his favour for a League of Princes including the Pope was reason enough to refuse it. For Ferrari, only a republican revolution in each Italian State, leading to free sovereign assemblies and to a federal Diet composed by their representatives could set up a Federal Italian Union. But he believed that this primary goal could be reached only with the French’s aid. His works of 1848-1851 sharply criticized Carlo Alberto’s behaviour and will to restore the “Longobard” oppressive kingdom, but even more sharply he criticized Mazzini and his followers, who gave up their revolutionary and republican principles, choosing to support the Savoyard monarchy in the name of the independence war against Austria. Also for Ferrari, federalism was the destiny of Italy. He founded this conviction on the result of his historical and politological investigation. His definition of federalism was very large and based on factual and economic elements. An Unitarian State would be possible only in countries where a great and unique capital city had become the centre of economic and social life. But in countries, like Italy, that lacked of such a capital, and that, on the contrary, had a plurality of almost equal centres - as Turin, Milan, Naples, Palermo – corresponding to a plurality of equal States, either one dominating centre would destroy all others, or only a federal union could give birth to an enduring and powerful independent political entity and could give to its members a revolutionary institutional and social progress. The success of the second Independence War took Ferrari to the new Italian Parliament, were he would sit almost uninterruptedly until his death. He accepted to swear his loyalty to the Kingdom but he did not renounce, during circa ten years, to preach and to expect the overcoming of the “Piedmont system” and the formal recognition that the country’s profound nature and real way of life were still “federal”. In spite of the increasing unification policy, Ferrari believed that the unity stage will be only transitory, but he ended by identifying the concept of “federation” with that of “decentred monarchy”, in order to pursue his fight for a very large legislative autonomy of the main ancient States (among them Ferrari put Sicily), which now he must call “regions”, acknowledging their subordination to the Italian Parliament. Ferrari’s criticism concerning the negative consequences of the annexation policy and of the “Piedmont system” decreased at the end of the 60’s and vanished at the moment of the conquest of Rome and of the Pope’s State. Above all, this event meant for him the defeat of the Papacy; and although it also meant the unitary solution of the capital-city issue, he welcomed it with a full appreciation of the constitutional and legal order granted by the Italian State and of the goals reached by its government. He intended to remain a minority MP and to go on pleading the cause of federalism. In fact, and in spite of his declarations, Ferrari gradually renounced to his primary federalist program and changed it into a vague regionalism. From 1870 onto his death, his speeches did not concern the federal subject any more. Also Ferrari appears to us as a defeated federalist. Neither he nor Ferrara thought about a specific application of the federal pattern to Europe as a whole, which makes their proposals really and definitively defeated. Only in their forced final opening to a kind of macro-regionalism can we see the early origins of a later and significant political view and movement. Thanks to his reference to the necessity to get to the United States of Europe the federal view of Carlo Cattaneo could, on the contrary, be ensured its survival and be celebrated until our time.