Monarchy of Spain an ambitious and far reaching project to implement major reforms in the administration of Spain and the Spanish empire. These changes, collectively known as the Bourbon Reforms attempted to rationalize administration and produce more revenue from its overseas empire. Philip V was the first member of the House of Bourbon (Spanish: "Borbón") to rule Spain, the dynasty that still rules today under Felipe VI. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte forced Ferdinand VII to abdicate in 1808 and the Bourbons became a focus of popular resistance against French rule. However, Ferdinand's rejection of the liberal Spanish Constitution
Bourbon Democrat Bourbon Democrats. The nickname "Bourbon Democrat" was first used as a pun, referring to bourbon whiskey from Kentucky and even more to the Bourbon Dynasty of France, which was overthrown in the French Revolution, but returned to power in 1815 to rule in a reactionary fashion until its final overthrow in the July Revolution of 1830. The term was occasionally used in the 1860s and 1870s to refer to conservative Democrats (both North and South) who still held the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and in the 1870s to refer to the regimes set up in the South