An Apocalyptic Speech Outlining a Theory of Dictatorship: Carl Schmitt Inspired by Juan Donoso Cortés

Carl Schmitt’s Die Diktatur (1921) and Politische Theologie (1922) have been widely discussed in political science and constitutional law literature. His distinction between commissarial and sovereign dictatorships makes these works indispensable references for studying autocracy. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, his idea of decisionism, which he summarized in the adage ‘sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception,’ attracted international attention. However, the literature largely overlooks that Schmitt based his decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology on an apocalyptic speech delivered by Juan Donoso Cortés in 1849, after the 1848 revolutions in Europe. Cortés alluded to various metaphors that presented the history of the West as a parable for the end of time. Schmitt’s early writings reveal his engagement with legal decisionism, but how he expanded this legal decisionism into a political decisionism as expressed in Politische Theologie, has not been explained yet. Through an analysis of his personal manuscripts from the early 1920s, I show that his reading of Donoso Cortés’s Speech on Dictatorship is an important source of inspiration for his decisionist theory of dictatorship that criticizes parliaments and liberalism. My paper is divided into two sections. First, I will explain the influence of Donoso Cortés on Schmitt’s works. Second, I present for the first time in the literature an analysis of Schmitt’s

have been widely discussed in political science and constitutional law literature.His distinction between commissarial and sovereign dictatorships makes these works indispensable references for studying autocracy.In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, his idea of decisionism, which he summarized in the adage 'sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception,' attracted international attention.However, the literature largely overlooks that Schmitt based his decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology on an apocalyptic speech delivered by Juan Donoso Cortés in 1849, after the 1848 revolutions in Europe.Cortés alluded to various metaphors that presented the history of the West as a parable for the end of time.Schmitt's early writings reveal his engagement with legal decisionism, but how he expanded this legal decisionism into a political decisionism as expressed in Politische Theologie, has not been explained yet.Through an analysis of his personal manuscripts from the early 1920s, I show that his reading of Donoso Cortés's Speech on Dictatorship is an important source of inspiration for his decisionist theory of dictatorship that criticizes parliaments and liberalism.My paper is divided into two sections.First, I will explain the influence of Donoso Cortés on Schmitt's works.Second, I present for the first time in the literature an analysis of Schmitt's unpublished manuscripts on the Spanish politician.I conclude that Schmitt developed his political decisionism on the basis of Donoso Cortés's idea of dictatorship.

INTRODUCTION
Two major works by the controversial German jurist Carl Schmitt, Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015) and Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015), today still have considerable influence (Croce & Salvatore 2023;Dean, List & Schwarzkopf 2023;Kutay 2019).In particular, Schmitt's distinction between the concepts of commissarial and sovereign dictatorship has become an indispensable reference point in discussions of the concept, as well as in the intellectual history of dictatorship (Prieto 2021;Scheuerman 2021;Wilde 2021Wilde , 2019)).In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, his idea of decisionism, which he summarized in the adage 'sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception,' was referred to internationally (MagShamhráin 2022;Mehring 2020b, c).Vinx and Zeitlin's (2021, 23-29) fine translation of Schmitt's legal-theoretical writings (1914Schmitt's legal-theoretical writings ( , 1912) ) reveal his early engagement with legal decisionism.However, how Schmitt extends this legal decisionism to political decisionism in the early 1920s in his Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015, [1921] 2015) has not been explained in detail yet.In analyzing his draft notes and manuscripts of the 1920s, my paper aims to show that Juan Donoso Cortés's Speech on Dictatorship ([1849] 2000) is one of the most important sources of intellectual inspiration for Schmitt's decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology.
The intellectual relationship between Donoso Cortés and Schmitt has been studied and discussed in the literature for decades (Beneyto 1988;Bueno 2013;Fox 2013;Ulmen 2002).To date, Hernández Arias's (1998) publication remains the most comprehensive study showing the presence of Donoso Cortés in Schmitt's work from the early 1920s to the 1970s.The general interest in this relationship has also been expressed in the important literature dealing with the German jurist's relationship with Spain (Guillén Kalle 2018;Molina 2019;Saralegui 2016).It is known that Schmitt's ideas were well received in the Second Spanish Republic and in Francoist Spain (Díaz & Molina 2022), also through his conference presentations in Spain.In the past decade, however, a critical reading has emerged that claims Schmitt instrumentalized Donoso Cortés's work for his own political purposes.Thus, Schmitt would use Donoso Cortés to mask his own political decisionism (Fox 2013;Mehring 2020a).In Mehring's (2021, 110) understanding, Schmitt sympathized with Donoso Cortés broadly in his mythologizing attitude toward the literature of Quevedo, the Machismo, the toreros, the picaresque novel, and the history of the Reconquista.Schmitt has therefore been criticized for misunderstanding Donoso Cortés, having instrumentalized his ideas to mask his own political purposes (Fox 2013, 182-185;Spektorowski 2002, 298-302).In contrast to this traditional perspective in the literature, I show that Donoso Cortés's ideas, even if misinterpreted or distorted as a vehicle for Schmitt's position, were inspirational to his political decisionism.
In studying his manuscripts from the 1920s, I find and present new historical evidence of the particular passages and ideas of Donoso Cortés that inspired Schmitt.These manuscripts are Schmitt's personal notes on the bibliographical references to Donoso Cortés in the first and second editions of Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015), his drafts of key in the original.To my knowledge, Schmitt only produces manuscripts and draft notes in Spanish about Donoso Cortés (and these are in his personal archive and library).
This finding is significant because it shows that Schmitt not only personally identified with the Spanish politician (Mehring 2021, 113-114), but he went further in appropriating his insights.The German jurist drew on the original version of Donoso Cortés's famous apocalyptic speech ([1849] 2000) and translated it into a theory of dictatorship that contained a counter-revolutionary and theologizing approach to politics.Based on his reading of Donoso Cortés, Schmitt expanded his early legal decisionism (Schmitt 2021) into a political decisionism, developing a counterrevolutionary idea of dictatorship, a sharp critique of liberalism and parliamentarism, a political-theological approach to Sieyès's idea of constituent power, and an antagonistic conception of politics.
Here, I briefly explain the method and content of my paper.A thorough examination of the relationship between Donoso Cortés and Schmitt can greatly enhance our understanding of why Schmitt shaped his decisionism the way he did.Thereby, we can explain some of the Schmittian idiosyncrasies that still inform political theory debates about dictatorship, states of exception, and political theology.Unlike previous studies on the influence of Donoso Cortés on Carl Schmitt, this study is based on an analysis of Schmitt's personal archive.This allowed me to determine which ideas and passages in Donoso Cortés's work apparently inspired Schmitt's political decisionism.The method I followed in my work is that of intellectual history and the study of political ideas in texts.I present this in two sections.In the first, I describe the presence of Donoso Cortés in two of Schmitt's major works, Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015) and Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015).Second, I examine Schmitt's unpublished manuscripts on the work of Donoso Cortés, and draw a connection between this unpublished material and his published work.In this way, I could determine which of the Spanish politician's ideas had the most significant influence.My work concludes that Schmitt developed his decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology in the early 1920s under the important influence of Donoso Cortés.

DONOSO CORTÉS'S PRESENCE IN DIE DIKTATUR AND POLITISCHE THEOLOGIE
Decisionist thought has been present in Schmitt's work since his early legal writings (1912,1914).Vinx and Zeitlin (2021) (Vinx and Zeitlin 2021, 24).Thus, the authors affirm that in this second of the two books, Schmitt asserts that 'sovereign authority is neither constrained nor constituted by positive law,' so that 'it is the task of the state, in making law, to implement some principle of legitimacy that is antecedent to positive law ' (2021, 24).Vinx and Zeitlin conclude that the continuity of Schmitt's early legal decisionism and his political decisionism in Politische Theologie lies in the idea of homogeneity: 'The thesis that any legal norm requires a "homogeneous medium," that is, "a normal, everyday frame of life to which it can be factually applied," constitutes another clear element of continuity between the argument of Political Theology and the views expressed in Schmitt's early legal-theoretical works' (2021,(24)(25).
Extending Vinx and Zeitlin's (2021) approach, my study aims to show that Donoso Shortly before that, he had studied the relations between the political thinkers of Romanticism and 19th-century European conservatism (Duke 2021;Schmitt [1919] 1998).His Spanish proficiency, at least for reading and writing texts, could be related to his solid knowledge of Latin and French, as evidenced by the bibliographical references in his early legal writings (Schmitt 2021).Already at the end of the second decade, Schmitt criticized 'political romanticism' (Schmitt [1919] (Schmitt [1921(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 192), 192).
Similarly, in chapter four of Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015), Schmitt cites Donoso Cortés to establish a relationship between his Catholic conception of dictatorship and Sieyès's idea of constituent power: More interesting, though, is the view on dictatorship proposed by Catholic political philosophers like Bonald, Görres and Donoso Cortés, since they regard the centralisation created by the Jacobines and by absolutismand hence the modern state, which appears in its essence to be a form of dictatorship -as a fruit of rationalism that, to be sure, can only be overcome by dictatorship itself.This is why the arguments of these great Catholics coincide in detail with those of the advocates of a dictatorship of the proletariat.The essence of the concept of dictatorship is that it constitutes an exception to organic development in order to justify the task of eliminating any mechanical hindrance that obstructs the immanent flow of history.Through this concept, of an immanent historical development, an opposition arises to the mechanistic and centralising state.The idea that the people assumes a pouvoir constituant remains in force, the only difference being that the proletariat is identified with the people (Schmitt [1921(Schmitt [ ] 2014, 279), 279).
This passage shows the connection between the concepts of dictatorship and constituent power, which reappears in Schmitt's influential work, Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015).In Die Diktatur, Donoso Cortés is presented as a political thinker who defends the necessity of dictatorship as a 'rational' means of containing the sovereign dictatorship of revolutionaries (referring to the socialists of 1848).In chapter four of Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015), Schmitt develops his reading further by situating Donoso Cortés as a political thinker who stands in the counter-revolutionary tradition of political thinkers such as Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre.Schmitt, however, distinguishes between Donoso Cortés and these defenders of monarchy and legitimism in France.He adopts the idea that the era of monarchies has come to an end from the Spanish politician and agrees that the only solution to restore the authority of the state in the face of a revolution, is a dictatorship.Similarly, Schmitt accepts that democracy and Sieyès's idea of constituent power provide the only legitimate basis for the theory of the state after the revolutions of 1848 in Europe: Since 1848 the theory of public law has become "positive," and behind this word is usually hidden its dilemma; or the theory has propounded in different paraphrases the idea that all power resides in the pouvoir constituant of the people, which means that the democratic notion  [1921] 2015, 55, [1922] 2005, 51-52).
The realization that monarchy had come to an end, that democratic legitimacy had triumphed, and that dictatorship had become a necessity in the face of revolutions, led Schmitt to the central concept of his political theology and his reading of constituent power: decisionism.He recognized that Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan resembles this decisionist thinking, albeit via a philosophical and mathematical method, in describing the concentration of state power in the person of the absolute monarch.
Schmitt's outline of the political decisionist idea in referring to Hobbes's statement that auctoritas non veritas facit legem, is well known.However, Schmitt notes that 'a detailed presentation of this kind of decisionism and a thorough appreciation of Donoso Cortés are not yet available' ([1922] 2005, 52).For this reason, Schmitt presents the Spanish politician as the intellectual pinnacle of decisionist political thought.
In the last paragraph of chapter three of Politische Theologie, Schmitt associates Donoso Cortés's decisionism with the political thought that defines personal decision (persönliche Entscheidung) as the basis of the concept of sovereignty: Here it can only be pointed out that the theological mode of thought of the Spaniard was in complete accord with the thought of the Middle Ages, whose construction was juristic.All his perceptions, all his arguments, down to the last atom, were juristic; his lack of understanding of the mathematical natural-scientific thinking of the nineteenth century mirrored the outlook of natural-scientific thinking toward decisionism and the specific logic of the juristic thinking that culminates in a personal decision [in einer persönlichen Entscheidung kulminierenden Denkens] (Schmitt [1921(Schmitt [ ] 2015(Schmitt [ , 55, [1922] ] 2005, 52).
Schmitt portrays Donoso Cortés as a Catholic and decisionist political thinker who starts from an anthropological pessimism bordering on madness: 'Die Verzweiflung dieses Mannes (…) ist oft dem Wahnsinn nahe" (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 63), 63).In Chapter 4 of Politische Theologie, a text that Schmitt later published as an article in the Archiv für Rechts-und Wirtschaftsphilosophie, his analysis of Donoso Cortés's work is expanded into a decisionist and political-theological conception of dictatorship.The text is only superficially a study of the theory of the state put forward by counter-revolutionary thinkers such as Bonald and De Maistre.In reality, from beginning to end, the discussion focuses on Donoso Cortés's Catholic political theory of dictatorship (Mehring 2021, 117).Schmitt describes the Spanish politician's anthropological pessimism as follows: 'Man's blind reason, his weak will, and the ridiculous vitality of his carnal longings appeared to him so pitiable that all words in every human language do not suffice to express the complete lowness of this creature' (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 63), 63).
Although the German jurist considers this description to be an exaggeration (Seine Verachtung der Menschen kennt keine Grenzen mehr), he is fascinated by Donoso Cortés's theological, apocalyptic, and pessimistic allegories: Humanity reels blindly through a labyrinth that we call history, whose boat aimlessly tossed about on the sea and manned by a mutinous, vulgar, forcibly recruited crew that howls and dances until God's rage pushes the rebellious rabble into the sea so that quiet can prevail once more (Obras IV, 102) (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005(Schmitt [ , 59, [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 63, 63).
An essential element that Schmitt takes over from Donoso Cortés and that is missing in his early legal decisionism is the criticism of parliamentarism.The Spanish politician's pessimistic and political-theological vision of the human condition led Schmitt to designate Donos Cortés's aims as ones intended to establish a final battle between Catholicism and socialism, between two enemies in an irreconcilable struggle: 'But the typical picture is a different one: the bloody decisive battle (die blutige Entscheidungsschlacht) that has flared up today between Catholicism and atheist socialism' (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005(Schmitt [ , 59, [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 63), 63).Schmitt emphasizes this idea of a 'decisive battle' between two enemies to portray political liberalism as incapable of making a decision (in the sense of decisionism) in the face of a blood feud.
When Donoso Cortés and Schmitt speak of liberalism, they are also referring to the tradition of parliamentarism as a political culture of discussing ideas in order to find the truth (Donoso Cortés [1851] 2019; Schmitt [1923] 2017, 9-13).The German jurist affirms that this expresses the romanticism of 'perpetual discussion' that counter- Kämpfe nicht gewachsen).The insecurity and immaturity of the liberal bourgeoisie of the July Monarchy can be recognized everywhere.Its liberal constitutionalism attempted to paralyze the king through parliament but permitted him to remain on the throne, an inconsistency committed by deism when it excluded God from the world but held onto his existence (here Donoso Cortes adopted from Bonald the immensely fruitful parallel of metaphysics and the theory of the state) (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005(Schmitt [ , 59, [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 63-64), 63-64).
The influence of Donoso Cortés's ideas in Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015) and Politische Theologie ([1922] 2015) is central in Schmitt's intellectual evolution to an antiparliamentarian and dictatorial political decisionism.The literature has noted these parallels, similarities, and differences between Schmitt and Donoso Cortés for decades.
However, which particular ideas and passages in Donoso Cortés's work inspired One of the reasons for this could be that he produced the manuscripts at the same time in different languages.The folder dedicated to the Spanish politician consists of drafts of manuscripts of his published works on Donoso Cortés (Schmitt [1929(Schmitt [ ] 1930(Schmitt [ , [1927(Schmitt [ ] 2001(Schmitt [ , [1950] ] 2012) and his unorganized annotations on sheets and notebooks written in German, Spanish, and French.Most of these annotations are bibliographic cards with references to book pages, but they do not follow a precise system that would allow the arguments to be connected.Further, much of this material is written in shorthand, a writing style Schmitt used throughout his academic career in his drafts, diaries, and reflections ('Steno-Transkription' 2020).Despite this drawback, we can distinguish some important references in these unpublished materials that we also find back in his texts that were published in the 1920s.In what follows, I analyze Schmitt's manuscripts and short notes on Donoso Cortés and their relationship to his decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology.
It is already known that Schmitt knew about Donoso Cortés's work since 1920.I was able to establish that he started working on an essay about his ideas in July 1921 (Schmitt 1921?).Between his manuscript notes on Donoso Cortés, there is a sheet on  1921?).This sheet is written as the title page of his private notes on Donoso Cortés.There is also a folder of 58 sheets with short notes on Donoso Cortés, one of which is dated 1921 (Schmitt 1920?).These manuscript sheets and short notes are his bibliographical notes on Donoso Cortés, which I found coincide with many passages in Die Diktatur, Politische Theologie, 'Donoso Cortés in Berlin' ([1927] 2014), and his conference presentation in Madrid ([1929] 1930).Schmitt's draft notes written in Spanish formed the basis for all his publications of the 1920s.
To better understand all this unpublished material, I analyze five key ideas given in Donoso Cortés's Speech on Dictatorship, which inspired Schmitt.

CRITICISM OF THE LEGITIMACY OF PARLIAMENTARISM AND DEFENSE OF DICTATORSHIP
The first idea in the Speech on Dictatorship that inspires of Politische Theologie, Schmitt elaborates on this idea in his critique of Hans Kelsen's legal positivism, which for Schmitt depersonalizes sovereignty by 'legalizing' the concept of the state.His concept of sovereignty is defined here as a decision: 'But sovereignty (and thus the state itself) resides in deciding this controversy, that is, in determining definitively what constitutes public order and security, in determining when they are disturbed, and so on' (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005, 9), 9).Decisionism thus refers to the suspension of positive law in facing a state of exception (Ausnahmezustand): 'The decision frees itself from all normative ties and becomes in the true sense absolute.The state suspends the law in the exception on the basis of its right of selfpreservation, as one would say' (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005, 12), 12).Vinx and Zeitlin (2021, 25-26) are correct in saying that these ideas in Politische Theologie take up an argument that Schmitt already made in The Value of the State (1914) about recomposing the conditions of normality and homogeneity.
However, an important feature at the beginning of the 1920s is that Schmitt now adopts an anti-parliamentary stance.We know that he expressed his critique of liberalism and parliamentarism in the Weimar Republic more clearly in his essay on the 'crisis of parliamentarism' (Schmitt [1923] 2017).Schmitt's critique is set in the European context of other studies, such as those of Robert Michels ([1910] 1970) and Max Weber (Palonen 2023;Weber [1919Weber [ ] 1988)), who criticized parliamentary government.However, here Schmitt also took up the anti-parliamentarism that he had already come across in the Spanish politician's speech.In one key passage, Donoso Cortés portrays the parliamentary government as incapable of taking decisions in the face of an extreme crisis.He associates parliamentarism with 'la legalidad' in the sense of defending positive law, while presenting his speech as a defense of dictatorship to save society.In his Spanish draft notes, Schmitt quotes the passage from Donoso Cortés's speech that inspired his anti-parliamentarism and defense of dictatorship: Gentlemen, what is Mr. Cortina's fundamental point?(…) It is legality in domestic policy [=the legality of parliamentarism].Everything exists by the exact letter of the law ["la legalidad"=positive law].The law must be exactly followed in all circumstances and on all occasions.Gentlemen, I believe that the laws are made for societies, not societies by laws.I say: society, everything through society, everything for society; always society, society in all circumstances and on all occasions.When the letter of the law is enough to save society, then the letter of the law is best.But when it is not enough, then dictatorship is best (Donoso Cortés [1849] 2000, 46).
This quote also supports Schmitt's argument toward the end of his book Die Diktatur, where he defends the idea that the 1848 Constituent Assembly was a sovereign dictatorship (Schmitt [1921(Schmitt [ ] 2015, 197), 197).The German jurist claims that the Assembly

THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF CONSTITUENT POWER
The third idea that inspires Schmitt is the political-theological allegory that Donoso Cortés established between the creative power of God and the concept of the constituent power of the people, that is, the power that creates the fundamental laws of the state, that is, the constitution.This connection between the concept of God as potestas constituens and the concept of the people is found in the chapter Schmitt devoted to the concept of sovereign dictatorship in Die Diktatur: 'Whenever in the monarchomachic literature the potestas constituens is mentioned in contrast to the potestas constituta, that "the people" as an authoritative entity itself is constituted by God, is hardly ever omitted' (Schmitt [1921(Schmitt [ ] 2014, 276), 276).However, in Politische Theologie the meaning of this political-theological allusion is more clearly formulated: 'The "omnipotence" of the modem lawgiver, of which one reads in every textbook on public law, is not only linguistically derived from theology.Many reminiscences of theology also appear in the details of the argumentation, most of course with polemic intent' (Schmitt [1922(Schmitt [ ] 2005, 38), 38).This political-theological approach of Schmitt to

Cortés' s
Speech on Dictatorship plays a key role in the connection between Schmitt's early legal decisionism and his political decisionism, as elaborated in Die Diktatur and Politische Theologie.Schmitt wrote his legal texts before the Great War, in times of normality, while his Weimar political writings take place in conditions of deep political and social crisis.To understand the influence of the Speech on dictatorship([1849] 2000), we must begin by briefly introducing the author.Juan Donoso Cortés (1809-1853) was a Spanish politician who was a liberal in his youth and later radicalized as a counterrevolutionary thinker.In his youth, he was attracted to the liberal ideas of Constant and Guizot, which is why until 1832, he was considered a liberal and a romantic(Dardé 2015, 5-10).Between 1832 and 1840, as a journalist and liberal deputy, he published work titled Report on the Current Situation of the Monarchy [Memoria sobre la situación actual de la Monarquía (1832)] and Lessons on Political Law [Lecciones sobre Derecho Político (1836)].However, as from 1847, Donoso Cortés underwent a political and religious transformation, after which he became a prophetic politician and apocalyptic essayist (Dardé 2015, 22-29).In connection with the Revolutions of 1848, he delivered the apocalyptic speeches that would make him famous in Europe.On January 4, 1849, Donoso Cortés delivered his Speech on Dictatorship in the Chamber of Deputies.This ideological turn toward dictatorship, counter-revolution, and anti-parliamentarism is consolidated in his Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism [Ensayo sobre el Catolicismo, el Liberalismo y el Socialismo (1851)].Schmitt was particularly interested in these last apocalyptic and counter-revolutionary ideas of Donoso Cortés.Schmitt had first-hand knowledge of Donoso Cortés's work since the early 1920s.
revolutionary and Catholic thinkers like Donoso Cortés reject.In such a counterrevolutionary reading, liberalism is portrayed as the bourgeoisie's idiosyncratic ways of thinking.Schmitt is intrigued by how the Spanish politician portrays the bourgeoisie as a 'discussing class' (clase discutidora) (Donoso Cortés [1851] 2019) incapable of making a political decision when a decisive battle is playing out: According to Donoso Cortés, it was characteristic of bourgeois liberalism not to decide in this battle but instead to begin a discussion.He straightforwardly defined the bourgeoisie as a "discussing class," una clase discutidora.It has thus been sentenced.This definition contains the class characteristic of wanting to evade the decision.A class that shifts all political activity onto the plane of conversation in the press and in parliament is no match for social conflict (Eine Klasse, die alle politische Aktivität ins Reden verlegt, in Presse und Parlament, ist einer Zeit sozialer

which
Schmitt writes in Sütterlin script (Sütterlinschrift), a form of German calligraphy used in the early 20th century, that he has begun work on Donoso Cortés on July 23, 1921.This material contains 27 sheets of annotations, one of which gives the title Donoso Cortés and the European Revolution.An Attempt at Explaining the Idea of Dictatorship [Donoso Cortés und die europäische Revolution.Ein Versuch zur Idee der Diktatur] (Schmitt was a dictatorship based on the constituent power of the people ('Der pouvoir constituant war die Grundlage dafür') because the 1848 Constituent Assembly granted General Cavaignac absolute power to put down the working-class uprising in Paris (the June Days uprising).Schmitt's historical reflections were inspired by this passage in Donoso Cortés's Speech on Dictatorship: This is the clear, luminous, and indestructible theory of dictatorship.Gentlemen (…), show me one society that has not had a dictatorship, only one.(. ..) Look at France and all of its vicissitudes.I will not speak about the First Republic, which was an enormous dictatorship without limits and full of horrors.I am speaking about a later time.In the Charter of the Restoration, dictatorship had taken refuge, or found an asylum, in Article 14.In the Charter of 1830 one finds it in the Preamble.[And in the present Republic (1848)?Let us say nothing of this one:] What is it except a dictatorship under the nickname of Republic?[Loud applause] (Donoso Cortés [1849] 2000, 47; Donoso Cortés 1854, 3:257).
have shown how Schmitt addressed the question of decision based on his critical examination of the legal literature that dealt with legal determinacy and judgments.These authors point out that, at first glance, the decisionism in the books Die Diktatur and Politische Theologie seems to have nothing to do with those legal writings.However, the continuity of decisionism lies Pérez-Crespo The first time Schmitt refers directly to Donoso Cortés is in his work Die Diktatur([1921] 2015).Schmitt mentions him as one of the Catholic theorists of the state who defended dictatorship against revolution.Later, in the second edition of Die Diktatur, he cites the Spanish politician's Speech on Dictatorship to illustrate that the dictatorship of government in France was present in Article 14 of the 1814 Constitutional Charter, in the introduction to the 1830 Constitutional Charter, and in the 1848 Constitution 1998) for its tendency toward 'eternal conversation' (das ewige Gespräch)([1922] 2015, 59).Donoso Cortés is portrayed in his first bibliographic references as an anti-romantic and counter-revolutionary political thinker, a man of action who prioritized political decision over parliamentary discussion.
the metaphysical kernel of all politics, concluded in reference to the revolution of 1848, that the epoch of royalism was at an end.Royalism is no longer because there are no kings.Therefore legitimacy no longer exists in the traditional sense.For him there was thus only one solution: dictatorship [Demnach bleibt für ihn nur ein Resultat: die Diktatur] (Schmitt of legitimacy (demokratische Legitimitätsgedanke) has replaced the monarchical.It was therefore an occurrence of utmost significance that Donoso Cortés, one of the foremost representatives of decisionist thinking and a Catholic philosopher of the state, one who was intensely conscious Pérez-Crespo of Schmitt's manuscripts and short notes on Donoso Cortés are in his personal archive, his Nachlass, in Duisburg (Van Laak and Villinger 1993).Despite the extensive literature on Schmitt's relationship with Spain (Guillén Kalle 2018; Molina 2019; Schmitt have not been studied in detail.Therefore, in the following section, I present a first study to investigate Schmitt's unpublished manuscripts on Donoso Cortés. Schmitt is Donoso Cortés's critique of parliamentarism ('la legalidad') and his defense of decisionism and dictatorship.This form of decisionism against positive law was not yet fully developed in Schmitt's early legal writings, but appears more clearly in his conceptualization of commissarial dictatorship in Die Diktatur ([1921] 2015, chap.2).Primarily in Chapter 2 . Quotations from Donoso Cortés shape Schmitt's arguments.Interestingly, the Pérez-Crespo German jurist's notes transcribe a passage from Donoso Cortés's speech that he later quotes in the second edition of Die Diktatur([1921] 2015, chap.6).This describes the history of the state of siege in France in the first half of the 19th century.The quote is meant to legitimize dictatorships as having existed throughout history, and exemplified by the emergency laws that gave the head of state extraordinary powers to suppress revolutions:The royalists called the state of siege a government dictatorship.In his speech of 4 January 1849, which was held in the Spanish House of Deputies, Donoso Cortés said that dictatorship was stuck in Article 14 of the Restoration charter; in the introduction of the charter from 1830; and the republic of 1848 was nothing but a dictatorship in republican disguise [die Republik von 1848 sei überhaupt nichts als Diktatur unter republikanischem Namen]