CHAPTER I

LATIN AMERICA:

ITS RISE AND PROGRESS

BY

F. GARCIA CALDERON

WITH A PREFACE BY

RAYMOND POINCARÉ

_Of the French Academy, President of the French Republic_

TRANSLATED BY BERNARD MIALL

WITH A MAP AND 34 ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

597-599 FIFTH AVENUE

1915

[_All rights reserved_]

TO

MONSIEUR ÉMILE BOUTROUX

(_of the Institute of France_)

Permit me to offer you this book as a mark of admiration and

gratitude. Often of an evening, in the sober hour of twilight,

hearing you comment upon a page of Plato or a line of Goethe, or

explain to me with unfailing geniality and marvellous lucidity the

troubles of the present day, I have gained a fuller understanding of

the magnificent radiance of the French genius; and always, on leaving

you, I have found pleasure in repeating the thought of Emerson, of

the Emerson whom you love, concerning the utility of great men: "They

make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found life glad

and nutritious."

F. G. C.

PARIS, _November_, 1911.

{9}

PREFACE

Here is a book that should be read and digested by every one

interested in the future of the Latin genius. It is written by a

young Peruvian diplomatist. It is full of life and of thought.

History, politics, economic and social science, literature,

philosophy--M. Calderon is familiar with all and touches upon all

with competence and without pedantry. The entire evolution of the

South American republics is comprised in the volume which he now

submits to the European public.

M. Calderon, a pupil in the school of the best modern historians,

seeks in the past the laws of the future development of the Latin

republics. By means of a scholarly and painstaking analysis, he

shows us, in the South American Creole, a Spaniard of the heroic age,

slowly transformed by miscegenation and the influence of climate; he

sees in him, modified by time and enfeebled by cross-breeding, the

most ancient characteristics of the Iberian race; and he expounds, in

a few pages, the heroic epoch in which the individualism of Spain

broke out into the audacious adventure of the conquistadores and the

savage mysticism of the Inquisitors.

Then comes the colonial phase, with its disappointments, its

illusions, its abuses and errors; the domination of an oppressive

theocracy, of crushing monopolies; the insolence of privileged

castes, and the indignities of the Peninsular agents. A thirst for

independence gradually possesses the Spanish and Portuguese colonies;

they rebel not merely against the economic and fiscal tyranny which

is crushing them, but also against the rigours of a political and

{10} moral tutelage that leaves them no political liberty. It is a

great and terrible crisis. The movement of liberation fulfils itself

in three phases: firstly, the colonies seek to obtain reforms of the

metropolis, still anxious to remain loyal; then they consider the

question of submitting themselves to European monarchs; and, finally,

the republican idea appears, develops, and is victorious.

A cycle of pioneers and a cycle of liberators: M. Calderon expounds

this tragic history with a sense of gratitude. He examines with

remarkable insight the fundamental causes of the Revolution--the

excesses of Spanish absolutism; the influence of the Encyclopædia and

the doctrines of 1789; the example of North America; the gold of

England, and the intervention of Canning; the various converging

forces whose fulminating combination created a new world, ill

prepared for social life, fragmentary, and in travail.

M. Calderon transports us into certain of the portions of this

newborn America. He makes this the occasion of setting before us a

whole gallery of vigorously painted pictures. The field of vision is

occupied successively by Paraguay, with the long dictatorship of its

first _caudillo_, the gloomy, taciturn Francia, with his

authoritative traditions and warlike instincts; Uruguay, with its

intensely national life; Ecuador, bearing the heavy imprint of Garcia

Moreno; Peru, with its tormented history, the powerful but fortunate

dictatorship of Don Ramon Castilla and Manuel Pardo and the epidemic

of speculation, the insanity of the saltpetre and guano booms, the

abuse of loans, warfare and anarchy, and the present effort towards

economic recovery and national stability; Bolivia, with the cold and

crafty ambition of Santa-Cruz; Venezuela, with the gross and material

audacity of Paez, and the empirical despotism of Guzman-Blanco, that

politician without doctrines, avid of power, but a patriot and a

paternal {11} ruler. As M. Calderon says, the history of these

Republics is difficult to distinguish from that of their _caudillos_,

those representative men who personify, at any given moment, the

virtues and vices of their peoples.

After the magnificent epic of Simon Bolivar, which M. Calderon

recalls with the enthusiasm of gratitude, there commenced a troublous

era of military anarchy. The ambition of the _caudillos_ rent South

America and multiplied her states. But the soul of germinating

nationalities was steeped in the blood of battles, and in the heart

of each people a national conscience was awakened. This was the

troublous epoch of wars and revolutions.

The South American lived a life of danger, like the Florentine of the

Renaissance or the Frenchman of the Terror; but presently, in the

shadow of military power, wealth was evolved and order established;

property became more secure, and existence more tame and normal; it

was the advent of industry, commercialism, and peace. It seems to me

that M. Calderon rather regrets having been born too late into a

world already too old. What he terms the twilight of the _caudillos_

fills him with a melancholy nostalgia for the bygone days. The

tyrants, who were as a rule supported by the negroes and half-castes,

helped to destroy racial differences and oligarchies. They have thus

founded democracies which the liberal mind of M. Calderon cannot

regard without goodwill, but which, to his mind, are too far lacking

in the sense of solidarity; they are clumsy, inorganic, incapable of

associating human effort; the rivalry of families and the hatred of

factions absorbs and disturbs them, as it did the mediæval republics,

and under the brilliant polish of French ideals they mask a confused

medley of Europeans and Indians, Asiatics and Africans.

In these turbulent republics, however, M. Calderon is able clearly to

perceive the reassuring symptoms {12} of a powerful vitality, and he

does not despair of seeing them profit in the near future by the

influence of Latin discipline. From the scholastic erudition of the

colonial epoch, he attentively follows the intellectual evolution of

the South American populations, through the troublous mists of

political ideology, to the hitherto pallid imitations of European

philosophies. Despite the diversity of races intermingling in the

southern continent, he is convinced that the constant and secular

action of the Roman law, a common religion, and French ideals, has

given these young republics a Latin conscience, intangible and

sacred. And he expresses the hope, very wisely and reasonably, that

the peoples of South America will continue in the path of

self-improvement without breaking with the traditions that are

natural to them, and without subjecting themselves to alien

influences.

He goes on to review the German peril, the North American peril, and

the Japanese peril. He does not fail to realise the extent of the

first named, and he complains of the progress of the commercial

immigration of Germans, especially in the southern provinces of

Brazil; but he considers that the German element, in the very process

of fecundation, will disappear amidst the mass of the nation. He is,

on the other hand, very keenly concerned with the North American

peril. Not that he fails to do justice to the marvellous qualities

of the Anglo-Saxon race; not that he is indifferent to the prestige

of the great northern Republic, or that he is forgetful of its

services to the cause of American autonomy; but he feels the

increasing weight of a tutelage originally beneficent, and anxiously

demands, _Quis custodiet custodem_? He is not oblivious of the fact

that the Monroe doctrine is changing, that it has insensibly passed

from the defensive to intervention, and from intervention to

conquest, and this metamorphosis gives him food for reflection.

Whatever the qualities of Yankee civilisation, it is not Latin

civilisation, and {13} M. Calderon would not have the latter

sacrificed to the former. He implores South America to defend itself

against the danger of a Saxon hegemony, to enrich itself by means of

European influences, to encourage French and Italian immigration, and

to purify its races by an influx of new blood.

In the Japanese, as in the German, M. Calderon sees an indefatigable

emissary of the Imperialist idea. According to him, no antagonism is

more irreducible than that of America and Japan. Japanese artisans

are invading the shipyards and foundries of Chili, Peru, and Brazil.

They form a refractory element which will never be assimilated. He

foresees that the supremacy of Japan may shortly extend over the

entire Pacific, and that the whole of America will find it no trivial

task to oppose this formidable power. From beginning to end of this

book we hear the rallying-cry of the Latin republics. I believe that

at heart M. Calderon regrets the excessive division of the states of

South America. But the problem of unity, often brought to the fore

in congresses and conferences, appears to him insoluble, and in

default of this he would be content with intellectual alliances, with

economic or fiscal unions, which would still permit the various

republics to draw nearer to one another, to know one another better,

and in time and on occasion to associate their defensive efforts.

I do not feel competent to criticise the advice which M. Calderon

offers his compatriots.

In particular I cannot speak of his opinions concerning the

presidential system in the republics of South America, and their

constitutional methods, which differ so sensibly from our French

parliamentary methods.

I would only remark that M. Calderon is right in warning the American

states against a plague of which we in France know something, but

which in young societies, deficient in established traditions, and

without ancient and well-tried organisations, may {14} well be

exceptionally dangerous--the invasion of a parasitical bureaucracy,

which would increasingly develop itself at the expense of the healthy

portions of the nation, and which would gradually infect the soundest

and most vital tissues.

Finally, without indiscretion, I may perhaps express my approval of

M. Calderon's stern requisition against the policy of excessive

loans. It is by running into debt over unlicensed extravagances that

certain of the South American republics have gained in Europe the

reputation of being financially unsound or dishonest, and have

thereby, by mere force of proximity, injured the repute of wiser and

more economical states.

Since the republics of South America have need of European money,

they would be greatly at fault did they alienate it by excessive or

reckless budgets.

Never, I believe, shall we see the dismal hour which M. Calderon's

imagination hears already striking; when, expelled by Slavs and

Teutons, the Latins of the old world will be forced to take refuge on

the shores of the blue sea that bore their floating cradle; and a

Frenchman may be forgiven for refusing to believe that the capital of

classic culture will ever pass from Paris to Buenos-Ayres, as it has

passed from Rome to Paris. But without lingering over such alarming

anticipations as these we may delight our eyes with brighter and more

immediate prospects. May South America, while remaining herself,

while cultivating, as M. Calderon advises her to cultivate, the

American ideal, grow ever more and more hospitable to the literature,

the arts, the commerce, and the capital of France. Thereby the great

Latin family can only gain in material prosperity and moral authority.

RAYMOND POINCARÉ

(_of the French Academy_).

(M. Poincaré wrote this Preface in December, 1911, before he became

President of Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs.)

{15}

FOREWORD

There are two Americas. In the north, the "Outre-Mer" of Bourget, is

a powerful industrial republic, a vast country of rude energies, of

the "strenuous life." In the south are twenty leisurely states of

unequal civilisation, troubled by anarchy and the colour problem.

The prestige of the United States, their imperialism, and their

wealth, have cast a shade over the less orderly Latin republics of

the south. The title of America seems to be applied solely to the

great imperial democracy of the north.

Yet among these American nations are wealthy peoples whose domestic

organisation has been greatly improved, such as the Argentine,

Brazil, Chili, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay. They must not be

confounded with the republics of Central America, with Hayti or

Paraguay. French writers and politicians, such as M. Anatole France,

M. Clemenceau, and M. Jaurès, who have visited the Argentine, Brazil,

and Uruguay, have remarked there not only an established Latin

culture, but noble efforts in the direction of augmenting the

internal peace of the nations, and extraordinary riches. They are

agreed in declaring that these young countries possess economic

forces and an optimism which will yield them a brilliant future.

Several of these states have lately celebrated their first centenary.

Their independence was won during the first decade of the nineteenth

century. The year {16} 1810 was the beginning of a new epoch, during

which autonomous republics were formed, not without tragedy, upon the

remnants of the Spanish power.

The time has come, it would seem, to study these peoples, together

with their evolution and progress, unless we are willing to take it

as proved that the United States of North America are the sole focus

of Transatlantic civilisation and energy.

We propose to draw up the balance-sheet of these South American

republics. This is the object of this book. We must seek in the

history of these states the reason of their inferiority and the data

which relate to their future.

First of all we must study the conquering race which discovered and

colonised America. We must analyse the Spanish and Portuguese

genius, the Iberian genius, half European, half African. After the

conquest new societies sprang up under the stern domination of Spain

and Portugal. They were over-seas theocracies, jealously guarded

from all alien trade. Unlike Saxon America, where the Dutch and

English immigrants held themselves sternly apart from the Indians,

pursuing them and forcing them westward, in South America conquerors

and conquered intermingled. The half-castes became the masters by

force of numbers, conceiving a thirst for power and a hatred of the

proud and overbearing Spaniards and Portuguese. War broke out

between the Iberians and the Americans; it was a civil war. Then new

states were rapidly formed, without traditions of government or

established social classification.

These states were dominated by military chieftains, by _caudillos_.

From barbarism and periodic anarchy proceeded the Dictators. We

shall be able to study some of the representative personalities of

this period, and to disentangle from the monotonous development of

events the history of certain nations, such as {17} Brazil, in which

the social medley has been dominated by the principle of authority.

In the Argentine, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Chili we shall perceive a

new industrial order, by means of which political life grows less

disturbed and the _caudillos_ lose their authority (Books I. and II.).

The study of intellectual evolution shows us how great is the power

of ideology in these rising democracies. They imitate the French

Revolution; they submit themselves to the influence of the ideas of

Rousseau and the Romantics, and of the doctrines of the

individualists. America, Spanish and Portuguese by origin, is

becoming French by culture (Book III.).

Here we proceed to the study of the part played by the Latin spirit

in the formation of these peoples, and the perils which threaten

them, whether these proceed from the United States, from Germany, or

from Japan, and to consider the faults and the qualities of this

spirit (Book IV.). Then follows an analysis of the problems and the

future of Latin America (Book V.).

The conclusion to be drawn from this examination is that the

political life of the Ibero-American peoples is as yet chaotic, but

that some of them have already cast off the fetters of an unfortunate

heredity. Across the ocean liberty and democracy are steadily

becoming realities. In the battles of the future the support of

America will be valued by the great peoples of the Mediterranean who

are struggling for the supremacy of the Latin race.

{19}

CONTENTS

PREFACE

FOREWORD

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

THE CONQUERING RACE

Its psychological characteristics--Individualism and its aspects--The

sentiment of equality--African fanaticism.

CHAPTER II

THE COLONIES OVERSEA

The conquerors--The conquered races--The influence of religion in the

new societies--Colonial life.

CHAPTER III

THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

I. Economic and political aspects of the struggles--Monarchy and the

Republic--The leaders: Miranda, Belgrano, Francia, Iturbide, King

Pedro I., Artigas, San Martin, Bolivar--Bolivar the Liberator: his

ideas and his deeds.

II. Revolutionary ideology--Influence of Rousseau--The rights of

man--The example of the United States--English ideas in the

constitutional projects of Miranda and Bolivar--European action:

Canning--Nationalism versus Americanism.

{20}

CHAPTER IV

MILITARY ANARCHY AND THE INDUSTRIAL PERIOD

Anarchy and dictatorship--The civil wars: their

significance--Characteristics of the industrial period.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

VENEZUELA: PAEZ--GUZMAN-BLANCO

The moral authority of Paez--The Monagas--The tyranny of

Guzman-Blanco--Material progress.

CHAPTER II

PERU: GENERAL CASTILLA--MANUEL PARDO--PIEROLA

The political work of General Castilla--Domestic peace--The deposits

of guano and saltpetre--Manuel Pardo, founder of the anti-military

party--The last _caudillo_--Pierola: his reforms.

CHAPTER III

BOLIVIA: SANTA-CRUZ

Santa-Cruz and the Confederation of Peru and Bolivia--The tyrants

Belzu, Molgarejo--The last _caudillos_: Pando, Montes.

CHAPTER IV

URUGUAY: LAVALLEJA--RIVERA--THE NEW _CAUDILLOS_

The factions: Reds and Whites--The leaders: Artigas, Lavalleja,

Rivera--The modern period.

CHAPTER V

THE ARGENTINE: RIVADAVIA--QUIROGA--ROSAS

Anarchy in 1820--The _caudillos_: their part in the formation of

nationality--A Girondist, Rivadavia--The despotism of Rosas--Its

duration and its essential aspects.

{21}

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

MEXICO: THE TWO EMPIRES--THE DICTATORS

The Emperor Iturbide--The conflicts between Federals and

Unitarians--The Reformation--The foreign Emperor--The dictatorship of

Porfirio Diaz--Material progress and servitude--The Yankee influence.

CHAPTER II

CHILI: A REPUBLIC OF THE ANGLO-SAXON TYPE

Portales and the oligarchy--The ten-years' Presidency--Montt and his

influence--Balmaceda the reformer.

CHAPTER III

BRAZIL: THE EMPIRE--THE REPUBLIC

The influence of the Imperial _régime_--A transatlantic Marcus

Aurelius--Dom Pedro II.--The Federal Republic.

CHAPTER IV

PARAGUAY: PERPETUAL DICTATORSHIP

Dr. Francia--The opinion of Carlyle--The two Lopez--Tyranny and the

military spirit in Paraguay.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

COLOMBIA

Conservatives and Radicals--General Mosquera: his influence--A

statesman: Raphael Nuñez, his doctrines political.

{22}

CHAPTER II

ECUADOR

Religious conflicts--General Flores and his political labours--Garcia

Moreno--The Republic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

CHAPTER III

THE ANARCHY OF THE TROPICS--CENTRAL AMERICA--HAYTI--SAN-DOMINGO

Tyrannies and revolutions--The action of climate and miscegenation--A

republic of negroes: Hayti.

BOOK V

CHAPTER I

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

Conservatives and Liberals -- Lastarria -- Bilbao -- Echeverria --

Montalvo -- Vigil -- The Revolution of 1848 and its influence in

America--English ideas: Bello, Alberdi--The educationists.

CHAPTER II

THE LITERATURE OF THE YOUNG DEMOCRACIES

Spanish classicism and French romanticism--Their influence in

America--Modernism--The work of Ruben Dario--The novel--The _conte_

or short story.

CHAPTER III

THE EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHY

Bello--Hostos--The influence of England--Positivism--The influence of

Spencer and Fouillée---The sociologists

{23}

BOOK VI

CHAPTER I

ARE THE IBERO-AMERICANS OF LATIN RACE?

Spanish and Portuguese heredity--Latin culture--The influence of the

Roman laws, of Catholicism, and of French thought--The Latin spirit

in America: its qualities and defects.

CHAPTER II

THE GERMAN PERIL

German Imperialism and the Monroe doctrine--Das Deutschtum and

Southern Brazil--What the Brazilians think about it.

CHAPTER III

THE NORTH AMERICAN PERIL

The policy of the United States--The Monroe doctrine: its various

aspects--Greatness and decadence of the United States--The two

Americas, Latin and Anglo-Saxon.

CHAPTER IV

A POLITICAL EXPERIMENT: CUBA

The work of Spain--The North-American reforms--The future.

CHAPTER V

THE JAPANESE PERIL

The ambitions of the Mikado--The Shin Nippon in Western

America--Pacific invasion--Japanese and Americans.

{24}

BOOK VII

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM OF UNITY

The foundations of unity: religion, language, and similarity of

development--Neither Europe, nor Asia, nor Africa presents this moral

unity in the same degree as Latin America--The future groupings of

the peoples: Central America, the Confederation of the Antilles,

Greater Colombia, the Confederation of the Pacific, and the

Confederation of La Plata--Political and economical aspects of these

unions--The last attempts at federation in Central America--The

Bolivian Congress--The A.B.C.--the union of the Argentine, Brazil,

and Chili.

CHAPTER II

THE PROBLEM OF RACE

The gravity of the problem--The three races, European, Indian, and

negro--Their characteristics--The mestizos and mulattos--The

conditions of miscegenation according to M. Gustave Le

Bon--Regression to the primitive type.

CHAPTER III

THE POLITICAL PROBLEM

The _caudillos_: their action--Revolutions--Divorce between written

Constitutions and political life--The future parties--The bureaucracy.

CHAPTER IV

THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM

Loans--Budgets--Paper money--The formation of national capital.

CONCLUSION

AMERICA AND THE FUTURE OF THE LATIN PEOPLES

The Panama Canal and the two Americas--The future conflicts between

Slavs, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Latins--The role of Latin America.

INDEX

{25}

ILLUSTRATIONS

HIDALGO

GABINO BARREDA

GENERAL JOSÉ ANTONIO PAEZ

GENERAL FRANCISCO DE MIRANDA (VENEZUELA)

SAN MARTIN

BOLIVAR IN 1810

BOLIVAR

GENERAL JUAN JOSÉ FLORES

ARTIGAS

GENERAL JOSÉ TADEO MONAGAS

GENERAL ANDRES SANTA CRUZ

MANUEL PARDO

DON NICOLAS DE PIEROLA

DON FRANCISCO GARCIA CALDERON

OPENING OF CONGRESS, LA PAZ, BOLIVIA

COLONEL ISMAEL MONTES

JUAN ANTONIO LAVALLEJA

RIVADAVIA

{26}

ROSAS, THE ARGENTINE TYRANT

PASEO DE LA REFORMA, CITY OF MEXICO, ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

BENITO JUAREZ

JOSÉ IVES LIMANTOUR

GENERAL PORFIRIO DIAZ

THE CATHEDRAL, SANTIAGO, CHILE

JOSÉ MANUEL BALMACEDA

GENERAL MOSQUERA

CLÉMENTE PALMA

RICARDO PALMER

RUFINO BLANCO FOMBONA (VENEZUELA)

MANUEL UGARTE (ARGENTINA)

RICARDO ROJAS (ARGENTINA)

GOMEZ CARRILLO

JOSÉ ENRIQUE RODÓ (URUGUAY)

ALCIDES ARGUEDAS (BOLIVIA)

MAP

[Transcriber's note: The above map (of South America) was omitted

from this ebook, being too large (approximately 18"x24") and fragile

to scan.]

{27}

BOOK I

_THE FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLES_

When the Iberians arrived in America they found either tribes or

peoples of semi-civilised inhabitants. These natives differed from

the Spanish and Portuguese invaders to such a degree that their

conquest was a true creation of new societies on the ruins of ancient

barbarian states. Before analysing the various aspects of American

history we must therefore know something of the genius of the

conquering race.

Conquerors and vanquished intermingled; territorial possession

modified the spirit of the conquerors; and the colonies began to

dream of conquering their independence. After twenty years of

warfare the republic became the political type of these societies,

which were exhausted by Spanish tyranny. Two periods, one of

military anarchy, the other of domestic order, wealth, and

industrialism, succeeded in the new States.

{28}

[Illustration: HIDALGO. A priest who prepared for the independence

of Mexico from the Spanish power. To face p. 29.]

{29}

LATIN AMERICA

CHAPTER I

THE CONQUERING RACE

Its psychological characteristics--Individualism and its aspects--The

sentiment of equality.--African fanaticism.

Travellers and psychologists find in modern Greece the craft of

Ulysses, the rhetorical ability of the Athenian sophists, and the

anarchy of the brilliant democracies once grouped about the blue

Mediterranean. Though its purity has been tainted by the onset of

Africa and the Turks, the old Hellenic spirit survives in the race.

A similar vitality is to be observed in America. The transatlantic

Creole is a Spaniard of the heroic period, enervated by miscegenation

and climate. It is impossible to understand or explain his character

unless we take into account the genius of Spain. The wars of

independence gave the Latin New World political liberty, and a

deceptive novelty of forms and institutions, but beneath these the

spirit of race survives: the Republic reproduces the essential traits

of the colonial empire. In the cities, despite the invasion of

cosmopolitanism, the old life persists, silent and monotonous,

flowing past the ancient landmarks. The same little anxieties

trouble mankind, which no longer has the haughty moral rigidity of

the old hidalgos. Belief, conversation, intolerance--all retain the

{30} imprint of the narrow mould imposed upon them by three centuries

of the proudly exclusive spirit of Spain. To study the political and

religious history of the last century in the American democracies is

to add a chapter to the history of Iberian evolution. Beyond the

ocean and the fabled columns which were overthrown by the pikes of

the conquistadors is another Spain, tropical, and divided against

itself, in which the grace of Andalusia has vanquished the austerity

of Castile.[1]

If the troublous existence of the metropolitan state could be reduced

to the simplicity of a formula, that formula would also explain the

troublous history of a score of American republics, just as the deep

root will reveal the germ of the vicious development of a tropical

tree. But nothing would be more impossible than to reduce to an

abstract and enforced unity the disturbed evolution of Spain, full as

it is of anarchy and bloodshed. The Peninsula, divided into hostile

regions, the refuge of inimical races, presents in its past such

contradictions as defy synthesis. Amid this theocratic people the

development of municipal liberties was premature. While feudality

still imposed its authority upon the rest of Europe, Spain saw the

rise of the free cities. Beside the eternal Quixotism which

renounces the vulgar kingdom of the useful in order to give itself

only to the ideal the wise refrains of the people express a dense,

prosaic, positive realism. The Catholic nation _par excellence_

furnished the Duke of Alba with the troops that were to conquer Rome.

After long years of absolute monarchy the old democratic spirit was

reborn in the Peninsular _juntas_ which opposed the {31} French

invasion. From Cantabria to Cadiz we discover, beneath the unity of

Castile, a splendid variety of provincial types. The Asturian

hardness contrasts with the rhythm of Andalusia, the impetuosity of

Estremadura with the dryness of Catalonia, the tenacity of the

Basques with the proud idleness of the Castilian.

From this territorial complexity arises a turbulent life: the secular

struggle in favour of national unity, the generous epic of the

Catholic crusade against Islam, and the gloomy pursuit of religious

unity by means of inquisitorial holocausts. European history is

transformed south of the Pyrenees. Feudality is arrested; the

crusade against the infidel lasts eight centuries; religion and

empire are established in magnificence like that of the Oriental

theocracies. In the wealth of this national development persist the

racial characteristics which we wish to determine: individualism,

democracy, the local spirit so inimical to great unities, and the

African fanaticism which is satisfied only with excessive sensations

and extreme solutions--in short, the heritage of a grave and heroic

race, in a state of perpetual moral tension, proud in the face of God

and king and fate.

Individualism is the fundamental note of the Spanish psychology. An

Iberian characteristic, it has all the force of an imperious atavism.

It exalts any form of action, of self-affirmation; it inspires an

unreasonable confidence in self and the powers of self; it tends to

develop human energy, to preserve the national independence from

external pressure, to defend it against the rigour of the law, the

moral imperative, and the rigidity of duty; and it creates in exalted

spirits an ardent desire of domination.

Strabo observed among the primitive Iberians, who were divided into

hostile tribes, an immense pride, inimical to union and discipline.

In his life and {32} attitude the Spaniard reveals all the outward

and inward aspects of individualism. The austerity and arrogance

revealed by the very folds of the hidalgo's mantle, by his majestic

port, his sonorous speech, and his lordly gesture, the personal

valour which turns history into an epic, the audacity, the love of

adventure, and the isolation, are forms of personal exaltation. "The

Spaniards, in their simplicity," says the squire Marcos de Obregon,

"persuade themselves that they are the absolute masters of all."

Individualism explains the analogies between Iberian and English

history: the civilisation of the Peninsula recalls, in some of its

characteristics, that of the Anglo-Saxons. In both we find the

premature affirmation of liberty, an excessive pride, and a long

struggle against invasions. From this arises an aggressive

imperialism: commercial in the north, religious in the south. In

England the climate and the territory gave individualism a

utilitarian bent; in Spain the conflict with Islam gave it a warlike

tendency. Idealism, the inward life, and imaginative exaltation

created the Puritans in England; in Spain the mystics and the

inquisitors. But in the conquest of hostile circumstances the Saxon

acquires a sense of realism; while the Iberian, under a fiery sun,

becomes in Spain as in America a hunter of chimeras. A symbol will

express the resemblance between the two histories: Ariel and Caliban,

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza represent the same eternal dualism of

idealism and realism. Caliban has given England a vast empire; the

knight-errant has returned to his native La Mancha, exhausted by his

barren adventure.

Spanish evolution, and the moral and religious aspects of Peninsular

life, are to be explained by this perpetual exaltation of the

individual. Stoicism is the moral aspect of individualism. It

preaches virility (_esto vir._ says Seneca): it develops the human

{33} will as opposed to Destiny; it is a gospel of austerity in the

face of suffering, of silent heroism in the face of death. Seneca is

for Roman Spain the teacher of energy; from his teaching proceeds

that tenacious faith in character which touches Peninsular history

with a grave virility. Christianity, which proclaims human dignity,

becomes the national religion south of the Pyrenees. According to

the Stoics, all men are equal before Destiny; according to Christ,

they are equal before God; and of these two doctrines a formidable

pride is born. Finally, in mysticism, the original expression of the

religious genius of Spain, there is nothing to recall the pantheism

of the Orient, nor the annihilation of man before the Absolute. The

Peninsular mystics exalt their individuality, draw strength from the

visit of their Friend, become divine through ecstasy, and aspire with

the ardour of conquerors to the possession of God. To the German

Reformation, which preached predestination, the theologians of Spain

opposed free human choice, the efficacy of action, and the dignity

and merit of effort. The Spanish religion was by no means satisfied

with speculation; it made for action and preached energy. The

struggles of Spain have a religious significance; the heroes are

mystics and the mystics "knights of the Divine order." Ignatius

Loyola and Saint Teresa dream of heroic undertakings and read the

romances of chivalry. Mysticism inspires the warriors; faith

purifies the covetousness of the conquerors.

Wilful and mystical, the Spanish temperament is active, and expresses

itself externally in conflict; it manifests itself in comedy and

tragedy. The Peninsular genius is dramatic. Adventure, movement,

and the shock of passions are developed in an ample theatre which

expresses all the aspects of aggravated individualism. The struggle

is not only for independence, but for fame, to preserve the integrity

of honour in the general eye. Jealous and {34} revengeful, this

preoccupation in respect of honour, which is profoundly Spanish,

inspires innumerable tragedies. Antagonisms, ruptures, theses, and

antitheses abound in Iberian history; the positivism of Sancho Panza,

the idealism of Don Quixote; obstinacy and idleness; sloth and

violence; parasitism and adventure; gloom and solemnity such as we

find in the paintings of Zurbaran and Ribera, together with the

frivolity of harmonious dance and festival and light-headed madness

in the hot sunlight; faith in the will and acceptation of destiny;

the ardour of mystics and conquerors and the cynicism of rogues and

beggars; heroic disinterestedness and passionate covetousness: these

are the irreducible contradictions of the Spanish mind, which explain

the long conflict, the intensity of the internal drama. On the stage

we find the reflection of these conflicts, these indurated wills;

subtle passions, grandiose pride, lofty character; tragedies with a

touch of farce and comedies with a mystic background. The literature

of Chivalry--the immense crop of romances, the rude primitive poetry,

the _Cid_, the _Children of Lara_--is a commentary upon individualism

and action. The great literary types--the hero, the adventurer, the

mystic, the noble chieftain, the knight, the lover--are exalted

individualities. The _picaro_ himself belongs to this hardy family;

he is proud as any knight, and a goodly number of knights are

_picaresque_. Subtle and sceptical, the _picaro_ employs both

cunning and heroism in the daily struggle for life. Of "Gongorism,"

a school of Spanish literature, Martinez-Ruiz has written that it is

the expression of movement in language, a dynamic poetry for men of

action. Dramas and romances of energy, violent epics, with nothing

of the antique serenity: these form the true literature of Spain.

In art and philosophy and literature there are {35} really no

schools, but writers, philosophers, and painters; such as El Greco,

who left no imitators; solitary individuals such as Gratian and

Quevedo. But in Spain we see the triumph of those military and

political organisations in which the individual finds the greatest

freedom: the people, the tribe, the guerilla band, the battalion.

The cult of rebellious and exuberant energy is general. In the

relations of king and subject the same Peninsular individualism

appears.

"For besar mano de rey

No me tengo por honrado,

Porque la besó mi padre

Me tengo por afrentado."

says a Spanish rhyme. Obedience to the king is conditional; it is

based upon the monarch's respect for the supreme order of justice,

and his submission to a tacit or explicit contract between king and

people. Charters, traditions, and usages limit the absolutism of the

monarch. In the Cortes of Orcana in 1469 it is declared that the

king is the "mercenary" of the people, who pay him a "salary."[2]

All Spanish obedience is steeped in this kind of pride; the nobles of

Aragon feel themselves individually the equals of the king, and

collectively his superior. The cities, federated into _hermandades_

or unions, treat with the monarch; they form a State within the

State; they oppose the Government and force it to recognise their

privileges. In 1226 the cities of Aragon and Catalonia demand of

Jaime II. the grant of a charter of popular rights. Insurrections

are frequent, and are incarnated in a hero of the rude national epic:

the _Cid_. Mariana, a historian, authorises any violence directed

against royal tyranny.

{36}

This individualism upholds a strict justice against the narrowness of

the laws and the Byzantine debates of lawyers; against sentences,

penalties, and tribunals. Poems and proverbs express this continual

clash between the juridic ideal and the law; the Peninsular

conscience condemns the partial and precarious justice of the codes.

Joaquin Costa writes: "Of all the epics known to me--whether national

or racial--the Spanish has done most to elevate the principle of

justice, and has rendered the cult of justice most fervent." Austere

and inviolable, the law represents a category of eternal relations,

beside which all individualities are insignificant, even that of the

king, and all institutions fragile, even the Church.

Stoical because it believed in pure justice; nourished by rude

heroisms, inward visions, romances, and legends; exalted by mystic

dialogues, and hardened by centuries of religious wars; the Spanish

spirit, full of enthusiasm, entered upon the Renaissance, that

sixteenth century which was to reveal the new continents across the

ocean, the laws of Nature behind her mystery, and to create imperious

personalities which opposed themselves to Fate. Then Spanish

individualism broke out into mysticism, audacity, and adventure: it

was the epoch of _conquistadors_, of politicians, of inquisitors, of

Jimenez and Pizarro, Torquemada, Loyola, and Cortez. Spain broke

through the circle of the Old World, fought in defence of Christian

civilisation at Lepanto, and of Catholicism in Germany and Flanders;

coveted the Mediterranean countries; colonised an immense and unknown

continent; threatened Europe with the religious imperialism of

Charles V. and Philip II., and, thanks to the legions of the Duke of

Alba, imposed her will on the Pope. Her policy had the old Roman

majesty and force; literature had found its "golden age"; philosophy

proposed the vast harmonious solutions of Fox {37} Morcillo, and laid

down the bases of natural and national law by the pens of Francisco

de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto. It was a splendid prodigality of

energy, creation, conquest, and heroism--the last stage of a history

of violent stoicism, which announced a long and majestic decadence.

Distrustful of hierarchies, Spanish individualism created social and

democratic forms. Traditions, doctrines, customs, and laws denoted

an exact sense of human equality. "Monachal democracy," said

Menendez-Pelayo, in speaking of Spain, because the levelling of all

classes offered certain conventual characteristics, and because there

was a Christian basis to the fervour of the equalitarians; a

"picaresque" democracy, wrote Salillas, alluding to the equality of

the knight and the _picaro_, to the double phenomenon of a proud

people making pretensions to nobility and a careless aristocracy

continually drifting into democracy by reason of the lack of middle

classes and the traditional idleness of the hidalgo. An anarchical

democracy, inimical to hierarchy, proud and undisciplined, according

to the analysis of Unamuno, in his profound work, _En torno al

Casticismo_; a democratic Cæsarism, thought Oliveira Martins, for the

absolutism of the monarch was not feudal royalty, but rather a

principality of the Roman type. The king presided over a democracy

of knights, mystics, adventurers, and rogues. This spirit of

equality may be observed even in the formation of the Spanish

aristocracy; the Gothic and hereditary nobility is foreign to the

evolution of the Peninsular. The national aristocracy is to be found

in the bosom of the Church; it is elective, subject to the current

popular vicissitudes, to such a degree that the ecclesiastical

councils are more truly national than the military councils and

assemblies. Servitude is less rude in mediæval Spain than in the

rest of Europe; the cultivator progresses, but disappears {38} from

the other side of the Pyrenees before the invasion of feudalism, and

the hired or leasehold cultivator is almost free. There are

tributary nobles: between the democracy and the nobility there are no

irreducible divisions.

This equalitarian development is especially notable in the political

world. In Spain feudalism is not a national institution, and the

spirit of Gothic kingship becomes transformed under Iberian

influences. In Leon and Castile the nobility are less powerful than

in France or other parts of Spain, Catalonia, Navarre, and Aragon.[3]

The social classes are not superimposed in rigorous order; cities

acquire franchises, and "popular seigneuries" are formed.

The monarchy, too, undergoes this process of levelling or

democratisation. The Emperor aims at equilibrium in equality; he

destroys the excessive privileges of the aristocracy and the people;

in the political conflict he leans to one side or the other

alternately. The popular tongue consecrates the equality of the

social classes: "In a hundred years a king becomes a thrall; in a

hundred and six a thrall becomes a king." "All are equal to the

king, except in wealth."

The Spanish commune lasts, because it is the centre of this great

democracy. From the beginnings of Peninsular history we see the

cities struggling for their independence. They reproduce the

_djemaa_ of the Atlas, beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, amid the

Berbers, the parents of the Iberians; the _djemaa_ is the African

progenitor of the Spanish commune; both make an equal distribution of

goods, and endeavour to avoid poverty. The _djemaa_, or

municipality, or commune, isolated and autonomous, constitutes the

political unit: the State is a confederation of free cities. The

Spanish towns defend their {39} liberties against every form of

artificial unity, whether Phoenician, Greek, or Roman. Rome reigns

for seven hundred years; but because she partially recognises the

autonomy of the municipalities, the Spanish democracy; she increases

civil rights, founds small republics, which elect their own

magistrates, administer the communal finances, and discuss the

payment of imposts and the distribution of lands in their ward. Thus

Spanish individualism is satisfied. Rome, absorbing and centralising

under the Cæsars, destroys local liberty; but a deep-seated current

re-establishes the autonomy of the peoples when the Roman power

decays. Assemblies of free citizens govern the cities; the Visigoth

monarchy, at the suggestion of the national Church, respects the

municipal organisation. Thus a hybrid system springs up, feudal in

the Germanic character of the predominant aristocracy, democratic by

virtue of the Councils, the Church, and the tenacious power of the

cities. In the struggle against the Moors the kings compound with

the proud, free cities, conceding charters and municipal privileges

in exchange for a tribute of gold or flesh and blood.

Liberty and democracy are of more ancient date in Spain than in

England. The charter of Leon, dated 1020, anterior to the great

English charter, grants the municipalities an administrative and

judicial jurisdiction; it recognises the hereditary rights of the

serf in the soil which he tills, and his full liberty to change his

seigneur; herein we see a modified feudalism. The first charters of

Castile recognised the rights of the cities. In the councils of

Burgos in 1169 and of Leon in 1188 the delegates of the

municipalities figured; even in the Cortes of Aragon, where the

Germanic tradition was predominant, representatives of the cities

were admitted as early as the twelfth century. The overlord, who

extended his protectorate over a city, did not despoil {40} it of its

former sovereignty; the _Behetrias_ were cities or groups of cities

which chose as their guardian a baron or warrior chief, without

losing anything of their autonomy. The cities, proud of their

privileges, united with the royal power in struggling against the

nobility; thirty-four of them, in 1295, constituted the _Hermandad_

(brotherhood, guild) of Castile, which eventually numbered as many as

a hundred cities. In ancient Spain we are always discovering

something of the nature of a contract, a concert of free wills, a

perpetual _concordat_ between governors and governed. From the

Iberian tribe to the Roman city, from the city with its franchises to

the villages grouped in _hermandades_, and from these to the popular

_juntas_ which defend Spain against the power of France and organise

an epic resistance, there is an obvious historical continuity. Local

patriotism is inimical to ambitious constructive policies. Many

peoples invade the Peninsula--Semites, Berbers, Arabs, Copts,

Touaregs, Syrians, Kelts, Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans,

Franks, Suabians, Vandals, Goths: they become superimposed like

geological strata, draw apart from one another in the mountainous

parts of Spain, and convert the quarrels of provinces and the

rivalries of cities into regional conflicts and racial antagonisms.

In the clash of Spanish individualities, in the rude assertion of

municipal prerogatives, in the democratic developments which are so

hostile to any hierarchy, an African or Semitic patriotism is

revealed, which converts history into a bloody tragedy. In the arid

Castilian plain, confined by its glaring horizons, under its burning

sun, we see the spectacle of a proud people defending absolute

principles with aggressive faith. Religion is dry and fiery as the

desert. Señor de Unamuno, writing of Spain,[4] calls her "a nation

fanatical rather than superstitious, to {41} whom the Semitic

monotheism is better adapted than the Aryan polytheism." Jews and

Moors are expelled from the Peninsula in the name of simple and rigid

ideals, by an intolerance at once religious and political. Thus the

spiritual integrity of Spain is achieved; but industry decays,

poverty increases, decadence appears, and in a Spain drained of its

blood by _autodafés_ and emigrations a solitary cross is raised, the

symbol of an African Christianity, to which the love of mankind is a

stranger.

Spain is African, even from the prehistoric ages. The Iberian is

like the men of the Atlas; like them, he is brown and

dolicocephalous. The Kabyle _douar_ and the Spanish village present

remarkable analogies. An early geological change separates, by a

narrow strait, two similar countries; two successive invasions spread

an infusion of African blood throughout the Peninsula. Phoenicians

and Carthaginians found colonies in maritime Spain; in 711 seven

thousand Berbers establish themselves in the south; and the invasion

of the Almohades in 1145 still further unites Iberians and Africans.

During the long centuries of conflict between Christians and Arabs

the two races intermingle under the cultivated tolerance of the

Khalifs. The Gothic kings seek the aid of Arab chieftains in their

quarrels; the Cid is a condottiere who fights alternately in the

Mussulman and Christian armies, serving, with his troop of heroes,

under the highest bidder. The Spanish monarchs in turn intervene in

the quarrels of the Khalifs, and Alfonso VI., in 1185, allies himself

with the Moorish king of Seville in order to conquer Toledo. The

Arabs study under the masters of the Spanish capitals, while the

Spaniards study Arabic, and are initiated into Oriental science. The

language still preserves traces of the commerce between the two

races. The Arabs, sceptical and refined, overlords already enervated

by the grace {42} and luxury of Andalusia, rule without fanaticism;

they leave the vanquished their religion and their usages, their

laws, authorities, and judges; they free such Christian slaves as are

converted to Islam. The Mozarabs, Christians who live in the

Mussulman States, without renouncing their faith and customs, pave

the way for the fusion of the hostile races. In spite of a continual

warfare, under the indifferent and alien rule of the Arab both

victors and vanquished become subject, as did the first Gothic kings,

to the national influence. It seems as though the gradual action of

a common life were about to reconstitute the primitive type of man

who once peopled Iberia from the Pyrenees to the Atlas.

The originality of Spain, contrasting, in her development, with the

Indo-European nations, comes from Africa, from the atavism of the

Iberians, from the long domination of the Moors, and from the Semitic

Orient.

The anarchy of the tribe persists; the clergy are all-powerful, as

are the African marabouts. To the feudal nobility and the European

parliament the Peninsula opposes the Councils; to the struggles

between Pope and Emperor, the Oriental fusion of religion and the

monarchy, the Inquisition, and the omnipotence of the clergy; to the

Reformation, the coalition of Catholics with Protestants, and the

league of the princes of Christendom with the Sultan, a fanatical

Christianity which realises the ideal of national unity by expelling

Jews and Moors, and burning sorcerers and heretics in the crackling

flames of _autodafés_. When Spain enters upon her decadence her

ancient characteristics--individualism, the municipal spirit, and the

democratic fervour--disappear, and the African and Semitic influences

predominate. Under the theocracy the nation of conquerors

degenerates; at Villalar the monarchy conquers the free cities and

the arrogant nobility. {43} The clergy reign in school and palace;

as in the East, they form a superior caste. Rogues and ruffians--the

_picaros_--succeed to the heroes and adventurers of the days of old;

an Oriental parasitism invades the Peninsula, and legions of arrogant

beggars people the highways of Castile. It is the final crisis of

heroic Quixotism. The Moors are revenged for their defeat, imposing

their African fanaticism on an impoverished Peninsula. New Spains

across the ocean rise against the decadent mother-country. Exhausted

with creating new nations, the conquering race sinks into repose, and

a score of democracies prepare to enjoy its moral heritage.

[1] Of the Portuguese conquerors we may say that in their

individualism and their love of adventure they resembled the

Spaniards. Their fanaticism was certainly less bitter, perhaps

because they had not been forced to struggle against the enemies of

their faith.

[2] See Joaquín Costa, _Concepto del Derecho en la Poesia española_

(_Estudios jurídicos y politicos_, Madrid 1884)

[3] Altamira, _Historia de España y de la Civilizatión española_,

vol. i. p. 229 _et seq_.

[4] _En torno al Casticismo_, Madrid, 1902, p. 115.

{44}

CHAPTER II

THE COLONIES OVERSEA

The conquerors--The conquered races--The influence of religion in the

new societies--Colonial life.

In the sixteenth century the Spanish race conquered the various

kingdoms of America. It founded new societies, destroyed ancient

empires, and created cities in the wilderness; and in the following

century it made innumerable laws and sent forth innumerable warlike

expeditions. Between one period and the next--the rude epic of

conquest and the tame existence of the civilised colonies--a strange

contrast is to be observed.

In the first period cupidity may be said to be the _deus ex machina_

of the great epic acted by the conquerors: there is a bloody and

barbarous conflict with the unknown territory, the hostile Indians,

the mysterious forests, the enormous rivers, and the desert that

swallows whole legions. This marvellous age is followed, in the

silent cities, by a monotonous, pious, puerile existence. Exhausted

by heroism, the race declines, mingles itself with the Indians,

imports black slaves from Africa, and obeys its Inquisitors and

viceroys. The obscure events of its lamentable existence take place

in a veritable wilderness. Grey and unrelieved is this period, the

period known as "the Colony," for the unstable societies of America

reflect the life of Spain; while the first, that of the Conquest, is

an age of greed and bloodshed, in {45} which the impetuous

adventurers of the Peninsula roam from Mexico to Patagonia,

realising, in the words of de Heredia's sonnet, their "brutal and

heroic dream."

The Spaniard and the Portuguese of the sixteenth century were men of

the Renaissance; of that age which was perturbed by the restored

spectacle of the life of the world. Voyages, discoveries, Greek

myths and classic poems, which filled the past with legends and

heroic deeds, gave the Latins of the Mediterranean the longing to

explore lands and seas unknown. Individuality developed with an

energy that often merged in crime. Tyrants or conquerors longing for

power and adventure lived in regions far removed from ideals of good

and evil. Mystics--for the mediæval gloom still hung over

Europe--they joined cupidity to faith, and renounced a life of

contemplation in order to push back the limits of the world. Heirs

of the Phoenician ambition, the Portuguese encircled Africa before

discovering America; and many a Spanish captain, before invading the

regions oversea, had fought in Flanders, pillaged Rome, and repeated

the journey of Don Quixote across La Mancha.

The soul of the _conquistador_ combined audacity with covetousness,

superstition with cruelty, the pride of the hidalgo with the rigour

of the ascetics, a rigid individualism and a thirst for glory with an

infallible faith in the greatness of its own destiny. The

adventurers of the Peninsula were professors of energy: like the

Italian condottieri, like the captains of the Napoleonic epic. A

group of adventurers enslaved the empire of Mexico, destroyed the

power of the Incas, and defeated the indomitable Araucan. Cortez

burned his ships when his companions spoke of renouncing the

difficult enterprise of conquest. Pizarro, with twelve of his

lieutenants, resolved, in a desert island, to invade Peru.

{46}

Cortez conquered Mexico; Pizarro and Almagro, Peru; Valdivia and

Almagro, Araucania; Jimenez de Quesada and Benalcazar, the

territories of Colombia; Pedro de Alvarado, Guatemala; Martinez de

Irala, Paraguay; Juan de Garay, the province of La Plata; Martin

Affonso, the Souzas and others, Brazil. Others brought from Italy

the spirit of the Renaissance; such was Pedro de Mendoza, enriched by

the sack of Rome, who, in 1554, organised an expedition to the Rio de

la Plata. The sixteenth century, the age of discoveries, was also

the age of conquest. From all the provinces of Spain and Portugal

adventurers poured into America. The energetic Basques led the way;

but there were fiery Estremadurans, austere Castilians, meditative

Portuguese, and witty Andalusians. Triumph lay before them; they

advanced to conquest over the ruins of cities and the bodies of

Indians. Their incredible prowess often ended in their death upon

the soil they trod as intruders and invaders.

The America conquered by the Spaniards and Portuguese was peopled by

various races and occupied by many different civilisations. The

invaders unified all these regions, imposing uniform laws, customs,

and religion. In Brazil they found scattered tribes: Tupis,

Tupinambas, Caribs; in Paraguay, the Guaranis; in Uruguay, the

Charruas. The organisation of these peoples of hunters and fishers

was simple; in time of war as in peace they obeyed their chiefs.

These vast territories presented many different tongues, and an

infinite variety of tribes, clans, and societies; ranging from

cannibalism and savagery, through the primitive forms of culture, to

nomadism and the sedentary state. The Araucanians of Chili, a

warlike people, held assemblies to decide upon war, joined in

confederations, and obeyed a _cacique_, who was the strongest and

bravest man of the tribe. They lived in isolation the better to

preserve their independence.

{47}

Three barbaric monarchies--the Chibchas or Muiscas in Colombia, the

Incas in Peru, and the Aztecs in Mexico--which boasted of laws,

majestic cities, social classes, colleges of priests, reigning

dynasties, organised armies, academic myths, and even hieroglyphs and

astrologers (not unlike those of Assyria)--differed profoundly in

their complex political organisation from the tribes of America.

Although the Incas were not the liberal princes of Marmontel's dream,

and although the history of their rule was not an idyll, their

meticulous and beneficent tyranny did after long wars of conquest

erect in the ancient Tahuantisuyu a great empire of silent obedience,

an anticipation of the ideals of State Socialism. Property was

collective, and existence subject to strict regulations. The Incas

made labour obligatory, supervised all agricultural operations, and

respected, when they extended their domains, the rites and customs of

vanquished races.

If the Inca monarchy recalls the great empires of Asia, China, and

Assyria, Mexico, on the other hand, appears to have been a feudal

kingdom in which _caciques_, governors of vast provinces, ruled

beside the absolute monarch. "There is no general overlord,"

observed Cortez. There was a central authority, as in Peru, but the

Mexican despotism was more rude and barbarous than that of the Incas;

the blood of human victims dripped from its smoking altars. The

social organism had not reached the degree of perfection attained by

the Inca monarchy.

The Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, with their mediæval ideas,

their African fanaticism, their marvellous ships, and their powerful

weapons, terrified these peoples who were still dwelling in the age

of bronze and polished stone. Historians report the surprise of

these hungry adventurers before the treasures of Mexico and Peru.

Atahualpa offered to fill with gold the chamber in which Pizarro held

{48} him prisoner. The court of Montezuma displayed an Asiatic

luxury: surrounded with women, buffoons, idols, and strange birds,

under a resplendent canopy loaded with gold and jewels, the Aztec

monarch advances like a king in an Oriental tale. His escort is of

haughty princes. The imperial city abounds in temples, lakes, and

causeways; it is melancholy and sumptuous, the capital of Mexico.

The chroniclers of the time tell us how the cupidity of the

_conquistadors_ was awakened: men who had left a ruined Spain to find

these immense treasures in America; they are writing for impoverished

hidalgos, and fear that they will not be believed when they speak of

this fabulous abundance of gold. Since the days of Ophir and the

Queen of Sheba, says one of these historians, "no ancient writing had

ever stated that gold, silver, and jewels" had ever been discovered

in such vast quantities as those which Castile was about to receive

from her new colonies.

The soldiers of the conquest pillaged these treasures, sacked temples

and palaces, and quarrelled over their wealth in a series of tragic

struggles. Around the mines cities sprang up and parties were

formed; at Potosi Vicuñas and Biscayans, excited by the sight of the

metal which delighted their cupidity, prolonged the savagery of the

first conflict. Where minerals existed the colonial life was

unstable, harsh, and brutal; in poor countries, such as Chili and the

Argentine, societies were slowly formed which cultivated the soil:

tenacious oligarchies bound to the new country by solid interests.

The vanquished races and the victors differed greatly from one

another; hence amidst the political and moral unity of the new

societies arose different characteristics and incipient antagonisms.

Spaniards and Portuguese took Indian wives or women; the leaders

married princesses of Mexico and Peru; the soldiers founded

provisional homes in the colonies. {49} The Andalusians settled in

the tropics; the Basques in the temperate regions; and the Castilians

swarmed in the towns. A curious affinity of race, as between the

Basques and the Araucanians, and analogies of climate and landscape,

and, apart from these factors, the erratic wanderings of the

conquerors, explain this original diversity of the American

provinces. Why should they be similar: the offspring of the gentle

Indian Quechuas and the fiery Andalusians; the children of the virile

Araucanians and the calm, reasonable Basques? Wherever the native

population was more abundant, and the political organisation more

complicated, as in Mexico and Peru, its influence on miscegenation

was more potent than in colonies from which the Indian was

disappearing (as the Charruas of Uruguay or the nomadic tribes of

Brazil) before the onset of civilisation. The climate, severe on the

plateaux, and favourable to an energetic existence, warm and

enervating on the coast, contributed to the variety of human types.

The first families sprung of the sensuality of the conquerors already

revealed the elements of future developments.

It was an age of creation: races and cities, new rites and customs;

all were sprung of the crossing of Iberian and Indian. The diversity

of the elements whose fusion was paving the way for a new caste gave

mankind an interesting variety. The negro, imported by the Spaniard

for the cultivation of the tropical soil, added yet another

complication to the first admixture of castes. Grotesque generations

with every shade of complexion and every conformation of skull were

born in America from the unions stimulated by the kings of Spain. In

the Anglo-Saxon provinces of North America the climate only changed

the invaders; in the Iberian colonies the conquered race, the land

itself, the air they breathed, all modified the conquerors.

Creation, the synthesis of human elements, action and reaction

between the country and {50} the men who ruled it, a crucible

continually agitated by unheard-of fusions of races; all this gave

the process of evolution the intensity and the aspect of a continual

conflict. From the negro _bozal_ recently imported from Africa to

the _quinteron_, the offspring of slaves purified by successive

unions with the whites; from the Indian who mourned his monotonous

servitude in the solitude of the mountains, to the coloured student

of the universities, we find, in the seventeenth century as in the

twentieth, in the colonies as in the republics, every variety of this

admixture of Iberians, Indians, and Africans. From a social point of

view the rank of the individual corresponded generally with the shade

of his epidermis. "In America," wrote Humboldt at the beginning of

the nineteenth century, "the more or less white skin determines the

position which a man holds in society."

The Spaniard degenerated in the colonies. The passage from a period

of violence to one of conventual quietude betrayed this slow

decadence of the invader, under the pressure of the climate and in

contact with the conquered races. The Creole, the Spaniard born in

America, has lost the prickly characteristics of the hidalgo: the

proud individualism, the love of bloody adventure, the stoicism, the

tenacity in resistance and conflict, and the rigidity of faith.

In flexibility, brilliance, and grace he has surpassed the rude

Iberian; but his effort is transitory, his will weak; his hatred is

as ephemeral as his love. The new race produces neither mystics nor

men of action, but poets, orators, admirable intriguers, superficial

scholars, brilliant commentators of exotic ideas; from the

seventeenth century onwards they succeed to the first generation of

audacious colonists, heroic monks, and warlike captains.

To extend the domains of the monarch, to "cause the Indians to live

in the knowledge of our Catholic {51} faith," they conquered America,

and they brought to the New World a religion, a political _régime_,

universities, an economic system--all the elements, in short, of a

traditional civilisation. Absolutism in government, monopoly in

matters of commerce and finance, intolerance in questions of dogma

and morality, tutelage and rigorous isolation; these were the

foundations of Spanish colonisation. The methods practised by the

Dutch and the English in their colonies were not essentially

different. Toqueville and Boutmy have studied the effects, in the

United States, of Calvinistic intolerance and commercial monopoly.

They have remarked upon the slavery of negroes in the agricultural

districts of Virginia, and the cupidity of the emigrants who pursued

the Indians with a truly Puritan ardour.

The viceroy, the representative of the monarch, exercised full powers

of government in the colonies. He presided over the _Real

Audiencia_, the king's tribunal, was superintendent of finances,

protector of the Church, and chief of the army. To him all power was

subordinate, whether ecclesiastical, military, or civil. A luxurious

court surrounded him, the flattery of courtiers intoxicated him, and

subornation had its way with him. Sometimes the viceroys represented

the real aspirations of the colonists, and were serious legislators,

such as Francisco de Toledo, in Peru; or they defended the colonists

from the expeditions of filibusters with such energy that their

fiercely contested battles evoked the sentiment of nationality. At

other times they enriched themselves by the sale of posts, and

drained the treasury, or passed in progress through the cities of

their state, haughty overlords surrounded with luxury and gold.

To her political despotism corresponds the commercial monopoly which

Spain established in her dominions. Humboldt defined the ancient

ideal of {52} the colonising races in his "Essay on the Government of

New Spain": "For centuries a colony was regarded as useful to the

metropolis only inasmuch as it furnished a great number of raw

materials and consumed plenty of goods and merchandise, which were

borne by the vessels of the mother-country."[1] England, Holland,

Spain, and Portugal acted upon the same exclusivist principles; the

ordinances of Cromwell were as inflexible on this point as the

schedules of Philip II. Commercial liberty and industrial

competition were condemned on the same grounds as rebellion and

heresy.

Politics and economics were subordinated to religion; the third

combined the absolutism of the first and the monopoly of the second.

The conquest of America was apostolic. The Spanish captains fought

to convert the overseas infidels. The imperialism of Charles V. and

Philip II. had a religious character. To preserve the colonies from

heresy it closed the ports, prohibited all traffic with foreigners,

and imposed a conventual seclusion upon a whole world. The Church

was the centre of colonial life. She governed in the spiritual

order; imposed punishments, flagellations, exile, and

excommunication, and delivered unbelievers and sorcerers to the

purifying care of the Inquisition. In the department of morals she

kept a watchful eye upon the people; she defended the Indians, and

often opposed the governors. Viceroy and _cacique_ feared her

equally. A formidable moral power, she helped to discipline the

unruly Creoles, to unite classes and races, and to form nations. The

cities were adorned by her chapels and convents, and to these

convents, in pious mood, the hidalgos often left all their

possessions.

Thus property became a monopoly of the convents. Hence a plethora of

monks and nuns, and the {53} accumulation, in Mexico and at Lima, of

enormous wealth. In Peru the annual income of the archbishop

amounted to £8,000, and that of some bishops to £4,000. What with

bishops and viceroys there was no lack of luxury. A pompous and

sensual Catholicism satisfied the imagination of the Creoles, the

superstitious fears of the Indians, and the cheerful materialism of

the negroes. The Aztec, the _quechua_, accepted from the monks a

strange, Byzantine dogma, mingled with aristocratic ideals and

Oriental mysteries. The native soon confounded the two mythologies.

In Mexico, so Humboldt reported, "the Holy Ghost is the sacred eagle

of the Aztecs." Novel and sumptuous rites were added to the

traditional religion. Processions and festivals, a kind of continual

religious fair, united all races. The people loved the cult of

religion, with its external manifestations, its virgins loaded with

heavy _ex-votos_, its sorrowing Christs, its gorgeously-decked

saints, and the glitter of gold and silk.

As confessor the priest influenced the family and directed the

education of children; as preacher he condemned immorality and judged

the governors. As in Byzantium, as in the Florence of Savonarola,

the colonial monk, speaking in the name of the exploited populace,

was an austere professor of virtue. The Creole admired his

ecclesiastical learning, and his invincible attitude before the

powers of this world; in him the Indian found a protector.

The American colonies differed in social composition. The negro

abounded in Peru and Cuba, but soon disappeared in Chili and the

Argentine. The poverty of Araucania contrasted with the opulence of

Caracas, Lima, and Mexico. In the Aztec capital some territorial

seigneurs drew forty thousand a year sterling in revenues. Frezier

valued the jewels of a rich lady of Lima at 240,000 livres of silver.

The melancholy Sierra, peopled by Indians, contrasted {54} with the

life of the coast, where luxurious cities attracted the traveller.

In the cities of the interior, Cordoba or Charcas, we find settled

traditions, tenacity, and sobriety, but in the capitals of the coast

all is luxury, instability, and licence.

Spain tended to destroy this variety by uniform laws.[2] Originality

was as odious to her as heresy. Customs and beliefs, hierarchies and

privileges, all must be uniform. Under such a _régime_ the life of

the colonies was dull and monotonous. The cities slumbered, lulled

by the murmur of prayers and fountains. Idleness was the natural

condition of the Creole; lengthy meals and daily siestas limited his

inconsiderable activities. The empty streets and squares knew hours

of silence; rejoicings were ordered, and the orders pasted on the

hoardings; gaiety itself was imposed. It seemed as though time

itself must stand still in these cities of parallel streets; that the

ideal of all men must be absolute quietude.

The hidalgo of noble origin, the owner of vast domains, governed his

sons and his slaves with the severity of a Roman patrician. He could

be neither merchant nor manufacturer; commerce and industry were "low

callings." He was attracted rather by the bar, the subtleties of the

"doctors," the scholarship and poetry of the courts. Whether at the

university or the _cabildo_ (municipality), his life would be the

same. He would sing the glory of viceroys in Gongoric rhymes, or

commentate upon Duns Scotus, or meticulously construct acrostics or

syllogisms. In the café, at social gatherings, in the literary

salons, he would whisper criticisms of the governors and the bishops,

or discuss the titles to nobility of a marquis of recent creation, or

the purity {55} of blood of an enriched mulatto. A conventual

chapter, or the quarrel of a bishop and a viceroy, or a bull-fight,

would fill him with ecstasy. Attending mass in the morning, and in

the evening driving through the stately streets in a luxurious

_calèche_, the proud caballero would bear himself majestically. At

night, in his gloomy house, he would find his wife telling her beads,

surrounded by docile slaves.

Sensuality and mysticism were the pleasures of the colonists. The

convents themselves, despite their high walls, were not able to shut

out these violent delights. Licentious monks, nuns with lovers,

sprightly abbés, figure in the chronicles of the period as in the

Italian _contes_. The cloister, with its rich arabesques, the

_patio_ (courtyard) perfumed with orange-blossom, the murmuring jet

of the fountain: these evoke the passion of Andalusia. A devout

society pays the insatiable convents a tribute of gold and virgins;

and love, fleeing the dead cities, takes refuge in cells quick with

ambition and unruly desires.

The woman, guarded in the Oriental fashion, in houses strong as

fortresses, attracts society to her salon by her Parisian grace; in a

world of ponderous scholars she is famous for her amenity and

subtlety. Her fidelity, for the hidalgo, is a question of his

honour. The husband revenges himself for transgressions by terrible

punishments, as in the Calderonian drama, while the heroic lover

brings his exasperated desires to the Moorish balcony, where he

awaits his lady in torment. Away from home, a host of illegitimate

unions, of concubines, of clandestine amours.

Passion will be tragic and devotion voluptuous; in place of mystics

we shall find _illuminés_. The devil is the essential personage of

this religion of minutiæ; thanks to him the dreary colonial life is

surrounded by mystery; his appearances and his manoeuvres thrill the

Creole's blood. Hobgoblins, {56} sorcerers, spells, thefts of the

consecrated host, and exorcisms occupy the Inquisition; tales of

incubi and succubi, of pacts with Satan, of ghosts that expiate their

old offences in long-abandoned houses; absurd miracles of saints;

processions mingling with the dances of slaves; gaily decked temples

and parasitic rights which stifle the traditional faith, deprive the

Catholicism of Spain of its Semitic rigidity.

All through life the pious colonist is surrounded by marvels. He

loves nature with an ingenuous faith, and attributes to the saints

and demons a continual intervention in his placid existence. An

unexpected sound reveals the presence of a soul in torment; a tremor

of the earth, the divine wrath; sickness is a proof of diabolic

influence; health, of the efficacy of an amulet. In the pharmacies

chimerical products may be purchased--condor's grease, unicorn's

horns, and the claws of the "great beast."

The monotonous hours are passed in devotions and futilities, prayers

and conventual disputes, long ceremonies and useless entertainments.

Sometimes the even course of life is interrupted by a startling feat

of prowess, or a festival, all gold and servility; the royal seals

have arrived, a princess is born in Spain, a treasure has been

discovered, a port has been sacked by audacious pirates, or sorcerers

or Portuguese Jews are to be burned in an imposing _autodafé_. Then

the provincial cities, slowly threaded by sumptuous processions, are

all astir, but the dazzling vision is only ephemeral, and the grey

monotony returns, with its petty quarrels, its indolence, its

exaggerated rites.

The royal seals arrive under a _pallium_, and a luxuriously appointed

horse advances, bearing the treasure. The spectators kneel before

the symbol of monarchical majesty, and incense, as at the feet of a

Byzantine ikon, expresses the adoration of {57} believers. The

viceroy also enters beneath a canopy, passing in solemn procession

through the servile city, while the bells of a hundred churches

celebrate his advent, and a solemn cohort of _cabildantes_ in their

robes, monks of all orders, and bedizened doctors, praise with

courtier-like devotion the glory of the royal messenger. In the

religious festivals the majestic altars which the devout, in token of

penitence, carry upon their shoulders, bear virgins clad in velvets

and glittering with jewels, or saints that bow to one another like

courtly hidalgos, or Christs that weep before the wondering crowd.

Around these gorgeous altars dance the slaves, and the monks chant a

melancholy anthem. Seized by a sacred intoxication, men and women

scourge their bodies till they bleed.

The cry of anguish mingles with the monotony of the prayers, amidst

the tremulous excitement of the faithful.

The _autodafés_ were the supreme feast of blood. The chronicles of

the time praise the "marvellous" spectacle. The funeral procession

advanced towards the pyre, surrounded by burlesque and fanatical

groups. Groaning monks hemmed in the sorcerers, the blasphemers, the

heretics; some bearing a yellow and others a green veil, and

lugubrious draperies on which were miniature paintings descriptive of

the infernal torments; others wore dunces' caps, which excited the

cruelty of the people. As the victims proceeded to the pyre a crowd

thirsting for the sight and sound of martyrdom, drunken with the heat

of the sun, acclaimed the holocaust beneath the impassive tribune of

the Inquisitors. Farce and grotesque invention mingled with tragedy,

Oriental luxury with a mystic terror; and the great lady who at night

would be dancing the pavane in her salon now devoutly sniffed the

acrid stench of charred flesh and blood.

[1] Vol. iv. p. 285; Paris, 1811.

[2] The Portuguese colonisation of Brazil was less rigid, and the

commercial isolation less rigorous; and religion was neither

fanatical nor so powerful as in the Spanish colonies.

{58}

CHAPTER III

THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

I. Economic and political aspects of the struggles--Monarchy and the

Republic--The leaders: Miranda, Belgrano, Francia, Iturbide, King

Pedro I., Artigas, San Martin, Bolivar--Bolivar the Liberator: his

ideas and his deeds.

II. Revolutionary ideology--Influence of Rousseau--The Rights of

Man--The example of the United States--English ideas in the

constitutional projects of Miranda and Bolivar--European action:

Canning.

I. Oppressed by theocracy and monopoly, by privileged castes and

Peninsular functionaries, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies aspired

towards independence. The English provinces of the North separated

themselves from England for practical reasons; in the struggles of

the South we see a double economic and political motive. In some

vice-royalties, such as that of La Plata, the struggle was due

chiefly to an opposition of interests; in other provinces, as in

Venezuela, ideas of political reform were predominant.

Writers have attempted to explain the unanimity of the liberative

movement by a "historical materialism" analogous to that of Karl Marx

and Labriola; but the reality, richer and more complex, does not

submit itself to this logical simplicity. The revolution was not

merely an economic protest; it nourished concrete social ambitions.

An equalising movement, it aimed at the destruction of privileges, of

the arbitrary Spanish hierarchy, and finally, when {59} its levelling

instinct was aroused and irritated, the destruction of authority to

the profit of anarchy. The Creoles, deprived of all political

function, revolted; in matters of economics they condemned excessive

taxation and monopoly; in matters of politics they attacked slavery,

the Inquisition, and moral tutelage. Charles III. had recognised, in

1783, in spite of the counsels of his minister Aranda, the

independence of the United States, which were to serve his own

colonies as precedent, and he expelled the Jesuits from America, the

defence of the Indians against the oppression of Spanish governors.

The corruption of the courts, the sale of offices, and the tyranny of

the viceroys, all added to the causes of discontent, disturbance, and

poverty.

The Creoles opposed nationality to patriotism, the half-castes

opposed democracy to the oligarchies. These were two phases of a

great revolution. The first battle was over in 1830, and the

conflict between the privileged class and the democracy commenced.

It reached its culminating point about 1860, with the enfranchisement

of the slaves, but it continued during the rest of the century and

engendered an interminable civil discord.

The Spanish provinces, subjected to a political absolutism,

transformed themselves into republics, a change of system that was

not effected without a moral crisis. Even while fighting their

battles the Creoles sought uneasily for a new mould into which to

pour their liberalism. In the face of increasing disorder they had

thoughts of a monarchy, of an oligarchic republic, of a permanent

presidency: of various forms which might possess the necessary

stability. Three phases may be distinguished in the movement of

liberation: the colonial, the monarchical, and the republican.

During the first phase the colonists manifested their loyalty to the

Peninsular monarchy.

{60}

The first colonial _juntas_, in 1809 and 1810, desired the Spanish

suzerainty to be preserved. They invoked the feudal tie which bound

them to the monarch, the imprisoned Ferdinand VII. The French were

triumphant in the Peninsula, but they swore fidelity to the absent

king. Vassalage having been destroyed by the foreign invasion, the

colonies, in accordance with the law of _las partidas_, acquired the

right of self-government; they were reserved for the king. The

_juntas_ disguised their radical ambitions under legal forms. Their

effort towards traditionalism was perhaps sincere on some occasions,

but the current of revolution, which was gathering itself together in

the womb of history, destroyed these provisional vistas. Thus the

_cabildo_ of Buenos-Ayres declared that "no obligations would be

recognised other than those due to his person" (the King's).

Spaniards and Americans joined in taking an oath of fidelity to

Ferdinand VII. The captain-general of Venezuela, deprived of his

functions in 1810, was replaced by a "Supreme Junta," preserving the

rights of the sovereign, and the oath of fidelity to the monarch was

observed. In 1809 the Junta of La Paz, which emancipated the

Creoles, and the revolt of Quito, recognised the same royal tutelage.

The Chilian regulations of 1811 enacted that the executive power

should govern in the name of the king. In 1821 Iturbide proclaimed

his submission to the king upon founding the empire of Mexico.

It was an ephemeral loyalty, given to a king who had abdicated, who

had suffered exile, and who, after the liberal Cortes of Cadiz,

re-established a despotic government. These immense colonies did not

revolt merely in order to restore an incapable prince to his throne.

While newly-created generals were winning battles political autonomy

was becoming a fact. The Creoles, who had directed the revolutionary

movement, concealed their bold ambitions {61} from a populace that

was passive, a slave to routine, and largely royalist.

[Illustration: GABINO BARREDA. Great Mexican Educationalist GENERAL

JOSÉ ANTONIO PAEZ. President of Venezuela (1831-1935 and 1838-1842)]

The American _élite_ were monarchists. In liberating a continent

their generals and statesmen professed to endow the new nations with

the stability of a monarchy. Iturbide was Emperor of Mexico. The

lieutenants of Bolivar offered the latter a crown; Paez persistently

held the imperial ambition before him. Belgrano, in 1816, at the

Congress of Tucuman, stated that the best form of government for the

Argentine was "a tempered monarchy"; and many deputies in that

Assembly demanded the restoration of the throne of the Incas and of

its traditional seat at Cuzco: in short, the creation of an American

dynasty.

Bolivar wished to see Colombia and Spanish America constitutional

monarchies with foreign princes. Ministers were to exercise a policy

"of vigilance or defence, of mediation or influence, of protection or

tutelage" on the part of the great European states in respect of the

Colombian nation. Other partisans of the monarchy were Flores,

Sucre, Monteagudo, Garcia del Rio, Riva-Agüero, and the Argentine

director Posadas, who wished to establish that form of government "on

solid and permanent foundations" in the provinces of La Plata; Dean

Funes, the Colombians Nariño, Mosquera, Briceno Mendez, and others.

The founders of South American independence understood that only a

strong government could save the new nations from demagogy, anarchy,

warfare between military chiefs, and untimely provincial ambitions.

They wanted autonomy without licence, monarchy without despotism, and

political solidity without Spanish suzerainty.

Despite this conviction on the part of the revolutionaries, South

America saw the birth of the Republic. Alberdi wrote that its origin

was involuntary, and that it was the result of European {62}

indifference and Yankee egoism; more than involuntary, it was

spontaneous. The demagogues and the crowd accepted it as the

negation of monarchy. The latter symbolised the Gothic despotism,

the old humiliating domination, the persistence of castes and

municipal privilege. In the popular mind, naturally of a simplifying

tendency, monarchy was slavery; anarchy and the republic were

liberty; there was no distinction between the King of Spain and other

princes, between the absolutism of Ferdinand VII. and the

constitutional monarchy of England. A universal hatred condemned all

kings. The republic was not so much an organisation or a political

system as a negation, and indissolubly bound up with it were the

cardinal ideas of country, equality, and liberty.

Monarchy offered America stability and independence; it would have

prevented civil war and avoided half a century of anarchy. It was

the sole American tradition. The battles of the Revolution gave the

hegemony to ambitious generals; against these a central government,

above the quarrels of parties, would have defended liberal

institutions. A constitutional prince would have given these divided

nations unity and continuity, under the pressure of which ambitions,

parties, and classes would finally have found their places. The

social elevation of half-castes and mulattos would have been less

violent under such a system.

Finally, the American monarchy would have entered into the group of

Occidental nations, and the Monroe doctrine would not have isolated

her politically from the Europe that sent her men, money, and ideas.

But would it have been possible to found respectable and lasting

dynasties in America? The fall of two empires, Mexico and Brazil,

tells us that republicanism is obscurely implicated with the {63}

destinies of the country. The new States had no nobles to surround a

prince, nor could they have supported the luxury of a court.

The equalitarian instinct condemned all hierarchies in America, and

there were no princes to become creators of nationality as in modern

Europe. The viceroys and semi-feudal barons exercised an ephemeral

empire and were not Americans; the colonies were used to frequent

changes of authority. To these reasons in favour of a republic we

must add the danger that foreign monarchies might have involved the

continent in the diplomatic complications of Europe. Perhaps even

the Holy Alliance would have led the colonies back to Spain, as a

prodigal child is led back to its parents.

Bolivar expounded the defects of a foreign monarchy. To the imported

king he would have preferred the irremovable president and the

English senate, and if in the face of advancing anarchy he glanced at

the question of European princes he soon understood that it could

never prove a radical solution of the problems of the New World.

"There is no power more difficult to maintain than that of a new

prince" he told the Bolivians. There were in America "neither great

nobles nor great prelates, and without these two props no monarchy is

permanent." To the Liberator kings symbolised tyranny; he connected

independence with republicanism, and believed that nature itself

would oppose the monarchical system in America. In 1829, in a letter

to Vergera, the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, he expressed

his arguments against the monarchy with great precision: "No foreign

prince," he wrote, "would accept as his patrimony a principality

which was anarchical and without guarantees; the national debts and

the poverty of the country leave no means to entertain a prince and a

court, even miserably; the lower classes would {64} take alarm,

fearing the effects of aristocracy and inequality; the generals and

the ambitious of every stamp could never support the idea of seeing

themselves deprived of the supreme command; the new nobility

indispensable to a monarchy would issue from the mass of the people,

with every species of jealousy on the one hand and of pride on the

other. No one would patiently endure such a miserable aristocracy,

steeped in ignorance and poverty and full of ridiculous pretensions."

The creator of five nations, Bolivar was profoundly conscious of the

new social body, a disturbed and disorganised mass. He understood

that the ambition of his lieutenants and the equalitarian tendency of

the mob would oppose an American monarchy or a foreign principality.

Iturbide and Maximilian, two emperors dethroned and shot, have

justified his objections.

England, who might have founded constitutional monarchies in America,

in spite of the Holy Alliance, pursued a commercial rather than a

political policy. In 1829 Lord Aberdeen announced that his

Government would not permit the establishment of a French or English

prince, nor a prince of any other European dynasty, in Colombia. He

would accept only a Spanish prince, or the monarchy of Bolivar

himself.[1] The Conde de Aranda proposed to the King of Spain that

America should be divided into nations governed by the Infantas, but

his plan was not followed up. Once the independence of America was a

fact, and the despotism of Ferdinand VII. re-established, no Spanish

prince could be acceptable either to Argentina or Colombia. In the

face of European indifference the tentative efforts of the

monarchists spent themselves in America, and the continent acquired

its definitive individuality. In opposition to the monarchies by

divine right of the {65} Old World a liberal world came to birth;

incoherent and incipient nationalities adopted equalitarian

constitutions, which were, in the distant future, to flood their

deserted territories with immense moral and material forces.

From Mexico to Chili the same revolutionary fervour engendered the

partial movements of 1808 to 1811. Conspirators similar to the

Italian _carbonari_, lodges in which men spoke of liberty in the

midst of ingenuous rites, and university students who had read the

Encyclopædists, were preparing the great crusade. The year 1809 was

the first of the Revolution. On the 1st of January there was a

popular rising in Buenos-Ayres; on the 16th of July a revolt at La

Paz; on the 2nd of August a meeting took place at Quito. In 1806 an

English expedition attacked Buenos-Ayres. At a venture, on his way

home from Africa, an officer who entertained ambitions in the

direction of new territory and new sources of wealth--Sir Home

Popham--invaded the capital of the viceroyalty of La Plata. This

city was defended not by the legitimate Spanish authority, but by a

noble _caudillo_, who was soon to be a popular viceroy: Santiago de

Liniers, the hero of the "Reconquest." In this struggle against the

imperialist invader the Argentine people found the first revelation

of nationality. First they freed themselves from the English; then

from the Spaniards. On the 25th of May, 1810, the _cabildo abierto_

(the municipality and the people), who had united on the 22nd,

demanded the dismissal of the viceroy, and elected a governmental and

revolutionary _junta_, patriotic but undecided. As early as 1808, in

Montevideo, a _junta_ formed in the heat of a violent popular

commotion had turned against the viceroy of Buenos-Ayres.

Spain implacably condemned these precursors of the Independence. She

exiled or strangled the rebels, {66} Zela in Peru; Dr. Espejo in

Ecuador; Gual y España in Venezuela; two indomitable priests, Hidalgo

and Morelos, in Mexico; Father Camilo Henriquez and Dr. Martinez de

Rosas in Chili; Tiradentes in Brazil; Nariño in Colombia; all,

between 1780 and 1810, struggled against the governors and viceroys,

and in their liberal enthusiasm were precursors of the audacious wars

of the future. The most notable of these was a Byronic individual,

the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda. He was born in Caracas in 1756.

He had a brilliant career in Europe, knew ministers and monarchs, was

the favourite of Catherine of Russia, fought beside Dumouriez in the

armies of the French Revolution, went to the United States with the

legion which Spain sent thither to fight in the cause of American

independence, obtained the sanction of Pitt to lead revolutionary

expeditions against the Spanish authorities in Venezuela, and was

concerned in all the liberative movements of his time, whether in

Caracas or Buenos-Ayres. He formed an alliance between the destinies

of the continent and the ambition of England, the gold of the London

bankers, and the interests of English merchants, and so contributed,

even more than by his abortive enterprises, to the cause of American

liberty.

The cycle of the Precursors closed and that of the Liberators opened.

The Spanish reaction had not vanquished the revolutionary principle.

The first _caudillos_ were dead; they were replaced by fresh leaders:

the Directors, energetic and impassioned: Belgrano and San Martin in

the Argentine, Dr. Francia in Paraguay, Artigas in Uruguay, Iturbide

in Mexico, General Morazan in Central America, King Pedro I. in

Brazil, and Bolivar, the liberator of five republics.

[Illustration: GENERAL FRANCISCO DE MIRANDA (VENEZUELA). Who

prepared for the liberation of his country. To face p. 66.]

Belgrano, an economic reformer, a supporter of commercial liberty, a

founder of schools, was the {67} leader of the Argentine

emancipation. He fought in Paraguay, where he suggested autonomy; in

Uruguay, in the Argentine Sierra, and on the frontiers of Upper Peru.

He was not a fortunate leader; he won the battle of Tucuman, but he

was defeated by the royalists in other battles: Vilcapugio and

Ayohuma. He retired, then returned to the struggle; took part in the

civil wars against the dissident leaders, defended the constitutional

monarchy at the Congress of Tucuman, and from 1808 to 1820

personified the uncertain progress of the Argentine revolution.

San Martin was his superior as a successful fighter, and in the scope

of his action as liberator; he was a continental figure. A great

general, able to organise armies and lead them to victory, his mind

was methodical and conservative; he disliked abstractions, and was

concrete and positive in his plans. He delivered Chili and

contributed to the independence of Peru. While others were drawing

up political programmes he was winning battles. He recalls

Washington by the disinterested nobility of his character; he refused

power after liberating two nations, and condemned himself to exile,

being surrounded by ambitious generals who quarrelled for the supreme

power. In action he was simple and orderly, and progressive; he

defeated the Spaniards at San Lorenzo in 1813, giving proof of

admirable warlike qualities; he then led the army of the North which

fought in Upper Peru, and became the intendant of an Argentine

province, Cuyo, in 1814. There he formed an army, and proposed to

cross the Andes to the aid of the Chilian patriots. According to a

French military critic, M. Charles Malo, "the passage of the Andes

was in no way surpassed by the more famous passage of the Alps by the

French." The summits of the Cordilleras are over twelve thousand

feet high; and it was across them that {68} the army of San Martin,

decimated and heroic, victorious over cold and fatigue, made its way

into Chili. From that time forward the Argentine leader was an

American general. At the foot of the Cordilleras, on the flanks of

Chacabuco, he gained a decisive battle over the Spaniards (1817). He

dislodged them from the summits which they occupied and entered

Santiago in triumph, and was there proclaimed supreme director of

Chili. He accepted the command of the armies, and was thereafter

victorious at Maipo (1818), where his artillery put the royalists to

flight. Chilian independence once assured, he aspired to fresh

victories in Peru. American autonomy was his unfaltering ambition.

The Peruvian viceroyalty was the centre of the Spanish power, the

treasury and arsenal of the royalists. Bolivar, in Colombia, and San

Martin, in Chili, understood that all their victories would remain

futile if they did not defeat Spain in the richest and most

impregnable of her domains. Lord Cochrane, an English privateer, who

had seen service in the Mediterranean, formed a squadron in Chilian

waters for the purpose of dominating the Pacific (1819). He defeated

the Spanish fleet at Callao, and declared a blockade of the Peruvian

ports as far as Guayaquil. During this time San Martin was making

ready, with his Argentine and Chilian troops, for his expedition of

liberation. The Peruvian revolutionaries were awaiting him. He

landed at Pisco (1820) with his army, and proclaimed the independence

of Peru at Lima, which the Spaniards had deserted, on the 21st of

July, 1821. Appointed Protector of the Republic which he had

founded, he promulgated a provisional Constitution. Then from the

North came another Liberator, Bolivar, to discuss with San Martin, in

that mysterious interview at Guayaquil, the destinies of the Spanish

New World.

[Illustration: SAN MARTIN. General of Argentine, Liberator of Chile,

and Protector of Peru. To face p. 68.]

San Martin, stoical and silent, yielded to the {69} impetuosity of

Bolivar, abandoned Peru to him, the theatre of his future deeds of

prowess, renounced his position (1822), and left America. His

ambition, like his genius, was circumscribed; he preferred military

glory to dictatorships; he believed in the benefits of foreign

monarchies: he could organise armies, but he was powerless before

anarchy.

Bolivar is the greatest of the American liberators. He surpasses

some in ambition, others in heroism, and all in multiform activity,

in prophetic insight, and in power. He was, amid the glorious

generals and rival _caudillos_, the hero of Carlyle, "source of

light, of intimate and native originality, virility, nobility, and

heroism, in contact with whom every soul feels that it is in its

element." All powers yielded to him. "Often," writes General

Santander, "I go to him full of rancour, and only to see him disarms

me, and I go away full of admiration." The people, with an

infallible instinct, understood his heroic mission and worshipped

him; the clergy praised him, and the glory of Bolivar was sung in the

Catholic churches. He was statesman and warrior; he could criticise

Olmedo's ode on the battle of Junin, decide the make-up of a journal,

draw a plan of battle, organise legions, draft statutes, give

diplomatic advice, and direct great campaigns; his genius was as rich

and as various as that of Napoleon. Five nations, which he had

snatched from the rule of Spain, seemed to him a narrow theatre for

his magnificent career; he conceived a vast plan of Continental

federation. At Panama he assembled the ambassadors of ten republics,

and was already dreaming of an amphictyonic league of nations which

should influence the destinies of the world.

Simon Bolivar was born at Caracas on the 24th of July, 1783, of a

noble family of Vascongadas. In his youth he travelled through

Europe in company {70} with his tutor, Simon Rodriguez: an austere

mentor. He studied the Latin classics, Montesquieu, Rousseau,

Holbach, and the Encyclopædists. Before his tutor, at Rome, on the

Monte Sacro, he swore, like Hannibal of old, to consecrate his life

to the liberation of his native country. He was nervous, impetuous,

sensual--traits of the American Creole of the South; active and

persevering in his undertakings, as an heir to the tenacity of the

Biscayan should be; generous to a fault, and valiant to the verge of

folly. He had the bearing and the features of a typical _caudillo_;

the forehead high, the back straight; a luminous glance that

impressed both friends and enemies, a resolute air, and eloquent

gestures. His was a nature shaped for action, unhesitating and

immediate; he had the face and the genius of an Imperator. At

Caracas, after his long years of travel, he kept his Roman oath.

From 1813 to 1830 he fought against the Spaniards and against his own

generals, indefatigable in his task of liberation. Two terrible

Iberian warriors, Boves and Morillo, carried "war to the death" into

Venezuela. Bolivar opposed them, aided by Bermudez Piar, Mariño, and

Paez, lieutenants alternately for and against him during his warlike

career. In the Antilles he made ready for many expeditions. He was

appointed supreme leader, provisional president, and director of the

country; his generals doubted him, were jealous of his fame, and

conspired against his authority, but Bolivar continued the war in the

midst of the anarchy of Colombia.

[Illustration: BOLIVAR IN 1810. To face p. 71.]

He routed the Spaniards at Boyaca in 1819, and at Carabobo in 1821,

and entered Caracas victorious. Colombia liberated, he turned to

Quito. One of his lieutenants, Sucre, a man heroic and noble as the

heroes of antiquity, won fresh battles at Bombona and Pinchincha

(1822). Peru appealed to the Liberator, to "Bolivar, the hero of

America."

{71}

The Colombian _caudillo_ did not ignore the perils of the

undertaking; the Spanish troops were good fighters; they had been

victorious, and were not without resources in the Sierra; and the

Peruvian and Colombian allies were inferior to them in experience and

cohesion. "This matter of the war in Peru demands an enormous effort

and inexhaustible resources," he wrote to Sucre. Impelled by his

genius, he accepted the offer of the Peruvians, for he did not forget

that "the loss of Peru would necessarily involve that of the whole of

the south of Colombia." The Congress of Lima invested him with "the

supreme military authority throughout the territory of the Republic."

Two great battles, Junin and Ayacucho (1824), assured the

independence of America. At Junin Bolivar led a cavalry charge which

decided the day, which was followed by a hand-to-hand fight, not a

single musket-shot being heard above the ring and clash of the

sabres. Sucre was the hero of Ayacucho: it was he who devised the

admirable plan of battle. The patriots were 6,000, the Spaniards

9,000. The Spanish artillery was superior to that of the allies.

The enemy opened fire, descending the hillsides; the two lines of

battle drew together. Night brought a truce; the officers of the two

armies chatted in friendly groups before the coming conflict. On the

morning of the 9th of December a charge of cavalry under General

Cordova scattered the Spanish battalions: whereupon the royalist

reserve came into action. The left wing of the allies wavered, but

was reinforced, and the victory was complete. The Spanish army

capitulated, its generals surrendered, and Peru was abandoned by its

ancient rulers. Bolivar praised the heroism of Sucre, "the father of

Ayacucho, the saviour of the sons of the sun," and Lima lauded the

Liberator to the skies, proclaimed him the father and saviour of

Peru, and elected him permanent President. After {72} these

victories the capture of Potosi by the troops of Sucre and the

reduction of the fortress of Callao, where the _penates_ of Spain

were guarded, terminated Bolivar's magnificent career. His last

years were melancholy, like a tropical twilight. Paez and Santander

revolted against him; he was given the supreme power and deprived of

it; he was offered a crown, and was the victim of conspiracy. The

Liberator died, abandoned, a tragic figure, at Santa Marta, on the

deserted Colombian coast, like Napoleon at St. Helena, at the age of

forty-seven, on the 17th of December, 1830.

Statesman and general, Bolivar was even greater in the assembly than

on the field of battle. Equal to Sucre and San Martin as tactician,

as politician he was the greatest of all the _caudillos_. He was the

thinker of the Revolution; he drafted statutes, analysed the social

condition of the democracies he liberated, and foretold the future

with the precision of a seer. The enemy of ideologists, like the

great First Consul, an idealist and a romantic, a lover of syntheses

in the region of ideas and of politics, he never forgot the rude

environment of his deeds. His Latin dreams were tempered by a Saxon

realism. A disciple of Rousseau, he wished "the will of the people

to be the only power existing on the face of the earth"; but in the

face of an anarchical democracy he sought uneasily for a moral power.

In 1823 he thought that the sovereignty of the people was not

illimitable: "justice is its basis, and perfect utility sets a term

to it." A republican--"since Napoleon has been a monarch," he said,

he who so admired Napoleon, "his glory seems to me a gleam from

Hell"--he wished, despite the servile admiration of his friends, to

be neither a Napoleon nor an Iturbide. He disdained all imperial

pomp; he wished to be merely the soldier of the Independence. He

made a profound analysis of the failings of a future {73} monarchy in

the old Spanish colonies. At the Conference of Guayaquil (1822) San

Martin represented the monarchical tendency, Bolivar the republican

principle. Their opposition was irreconcilable, said Mitre, the

Argentine historian, for one was working for the Argentine hegemony

and the other for the Colombian: the first respected the

individuality of the separate peoples and would only accept

intervention in exceptional cases; the second wished to unite the

various peoples according to a "plan of absorption and monocracy."[2]

This antagonism called for a superior point of agreement, a

synthesis, for the Colombian doctrine brought with it as a reaction

the premature formation of unstable democracies, and the Argentine

theory favoured indifference, egoism, and the isolation of nations

united by race, tradition, and history.

The genius, aristocratic pride, and ambition of Bolivar impelled him

towards autocracy. He exercised a dictatorship and believed in the

benefits of a permanent presidency. "In republics," he stated, "the

executive power should be of the strongest, for all conspire against

it; while in monarchies the legislative power should be supreme, for

all conspire in favour of the monarch. Hence the necessity of giving

a republican magistrate more authority than a constitutional prince."

He did not forget the dangers of an autocratic presidency; but he

feared anarchy, "the ferocious hydra of discordant anarchy," which

grew like a noxious vegetation, stifling his triumphant work. He

regarded with amazement the contradictions of American life: disorder

leads to dictatorship, and the latter is the enemy of democracy.

"The permanence of power in a single individual," writes the

Liberator, "has often marked the end of democratic governments." Yet

"indefinite liberty, absolute democracy, are {74} snares in which all

republican hopes come to grief." Liberty without licence, authority

without tyranny: such was the ideal of Bolivar. In vain did he

struggle single-handed amid ambitious generals and a disordered

people; before he died he understood the vanity of his efforts.

"Those who have served the cause of the Revolution," he cried, "have

ploughed the sand.... If it were possible that a portion of the

world should return to its primitive chaos, such would be the last

phase of America." He denounced the moral poverty of these new

republics with the severity of a Hebrew prophet. "There is no faith

in America, neither in men nor in nations. Their treaties are waste

paper; their constitutions are paper and ink; their elections are

battles; liberty is anarchy, and life a torment."

This pessimism, the _credo_ of his maturity, was born of his

implacable analysis of American failings. Bolivar understood the

original traits and the vices of the new continent. "We are," he

said, "a small human family; we possess a world of our own,

surrounded by vast oceans; new in almost every art and science,

although, in a certain sense, old in the usages of civil society.

The present state of America recalls the fall of the Roman Empire,

when each part formed a distinct political system, in conformity with

its interests, its situation, or its corporations." "We shall not

see, nor the generation following us," he wrote in 1822, "the triumph

of the America we are founding: I regard America as in the chrysalis.

There will be a metamorphosis in the physical life of its

inhabitants; there will finally be a new caste, of all the races,

which will result in the homogeneity of the people."

While scholars were constructing Utopias, imitating, in their

provisional statutes, the federal constitution of the United States,

and legislating for an ideal democracy, Bolivar was studying the

social {75} conditions of America. "We are not Europeans," he wrote,

"nor Indians either; but a kind of half-way species between the

aborigines and the Spaniards; American by birth, European by right,

we find ourselves forced to dispute our titles of possession with the

natives, and to maintain ourselves in the country which saw our birth

in spite of the opposition of invaders: so that our case is all the

more extraordinary and complicated." "Let us be careful not to

forget that our race is neither European nor North American; but

rather a composite of America and Africa, than an emanation from

Europe, since Spain herself ceased to be European by virtue of her

African [Arab] blood, her institutions, and her character."

The Liberator proposed political institutions suited to a continent

which in its territory and race and history was original. He was in

favour of a tutelary authority: "The American States need the care of

paternal governments which will heal the wounds and sores of

despotism and war." He loathed federalism and the division of power:

"Let us abandon the federal forms of government: they are not suited

to us. Such a form of society is a regularised anarchy, or rather a

law which implicitly prescribes the necessity of dissociating and

ruining the State in all its members.... Let us abandon the

Triumvirate of the Executive Power, by concentrating it in the person

of a President, and conferring on him a sufficient authority to

enable him to maintain himself and contend against the inconveniences

inherent in our recent situation." He taught valuable lessons in

public wisdom: "To form a stable Government we must have the basis of

a national spirit which has for its object a uniform inclination

towards two capital points: to moderate the general will and limit

the public authority. The blood of our fellow-citizens presents many

diversities: let us {76} mix it in order to unify it; our

constitution has divided its powers: let us confound them in order to

unite them.... We ought to induce immigration of the peoples of

North America and Europe, in order that they may settle here and

bring us their arts and sciences. These advantages, an independent

government, free schools, and intermarriage with Europeans and

Anglo-Americans, will totally change the character of the country,

and will render it well-informed and prosperous.... We lack

mechanics and agriculturists, and it is these that the country has

need of to ensure advancement and progress." In Bolivar's writings

are to be found the best programmes of political and social reform

for America; he was the first sociologist of these romantic

democracies.

Carabobo and Junin were his great military triumphs; the letter from

Jamaica (1815), the constitutional project of Angostura (1819), the

statute of Bolivia (1825), and the Congress of Panama (1826) were his

most admirable political creations. To unite the American nations in

a permanent assembly; to oppose Anglo-Saxon power by Latin force, the

necessary factor of Continental equilibrium; to labour in favour of

unity and synthesis: such was the aim of the abortive Assembly of

Panama. The letter from Jamaica was a prophecy which the docile

reality was to accomplish during the century. "From the nature of

the different regions of the country, from the wealth, population,

and character of the Mexicans," said the Liberator, "I imagine that

they will attempt in the beginning to establish a representative

Republic in which the Executive will have very wide attributes and

will be concentred in a single person, who, if he governs with wisdom

and justice, will attain almost naturally to irremovable authority."

"If the preponderant party is military or aristocratic, it will be in

favour of a monarchy, which {77} will probably be limited and

constitutional in the first place, but will very soon become

absolute." The presidency of Porfirio Diaz, the empire of Iturbide

and Maximilian, supported by the monarchist party, and even the

dictatorship of Juarez, and the powers which the Mexican

constitutions have conferred on the head of the State, all confirmed

the predictions of Bolivar. "The States of the Isthmus of Panama as

far as Guatemala will form a federation." This federation existed

until 1842, and to-day the Central American republics are slowly

returning to it. Panama was for the Liberator the emporium of the

world. "Its canals will shorten the distances of the world, will

strengthen the ordinary ties between Europe, America, and Asia, and

will bring to this happy region the tribute of the four quarters of

the globe. There alone, perhaps, the capital of the world might be

set, as Constantine pretended to make of Byzantium the capital of the

ancient world."

"New Granada will unite itself to Venezuela in order to form a

Central Republic, whose capital will be Maracaibo, or a new city,

which, under the name of Las Casas (in honour of that hero of

philanthropy), will spring up on the confines of the two countries,

on the superb harbour of Bahia-Honda." Bolivar kept Venezuela and

New Granada united until 1830; then new leaders, such as General

Mosquera, wished to establish the federation which even to-day is

still the object of the politicians of Ecuador, Venezuela, and

Colombia. "At Buenos-Ayres there will be a central government, in

which the military power will be supreme as a consequence of

intestine divisions and external war." This is a prophecy of

Argentine history up to the advent of Rosas, the struggles of the

_caudillos_, and the anarchy of 1820. "This constitution will

necessarily degenerate into an oligarchy or a monocracy." And a

plutocratic group did actually rule in Buenos-Ayres, {78} and over

all rose the monocracy of Rosas. "Chili is called by the nature of

her situation, by the simple customs of her virtuous inhabitants, and

the example of her neighbours, the proud Republicans of Araucania, to

enjoy the benefits of the just and mild laws of a republic. If any

republic lasts long in America I incline to think it will be the

Chilian.... Chili will not alter her laws, manners, or practices;

she will maintain the uniformity of her political and religious

opinions." The long stability of the Araucanian nation, the

homogeneity of its population, the lasting nature of its political

charter, the conservative character of its institutions, the slow and

steady development of Chili until the war of the Pacific and the

revolution of 1891, fully realised the prophecies of Bolivar. "Peru

includes two elements inimical to all just and liberal

government--gold and slavery. The first corrupts everything; the

second is corrupt in itself. The soul of a serf rarely succeeds in

taking liberty sanely. It rushes furiously into tumult, or lives

humiliated in chains. Although these rules are applicable to all

America, I believe they apply with most reason to Lima. There the

rich will not tolerate the democracy, and the slaves and the

liberated slaves will not tolerate the aristocracy; the first will

prefer the tyranny of a single person, in order to avoid popular

persecutions and to establish a rule that will at least be pacific."

The evolution of Peru proved the profound truth of this statement.

The oligarchy accepted military dictators, who upheld property and

preserved peace. As early as 1815, when America was still a Spanish

domain, Bolivar, watching the spectacle of social forces in conflict,

announced not merely the immediate struggles, but the secular

development of ten nations. He was a great prophet. To-day, a

century later, the continent is fulfilling his predictions as though

they were a fate strangely laid upon it.

{79}

At Angostura the Liberator placed before the Colombians a draft of a

constitution. The bases of this constitution were republican

government, the sovereignty of the people, the division of powers,

civil liberty, and the abolition of slavery and of privilege. In

this remarkable essay we find the theories of Montesquieu, Rousseau,

and Bentham, the realism of England and the democratic enthusiasm of

France. The legislative power is to be composed of two chambers: the

first popularly elected, and the Senate hereditary, according to the

English tradition, formed by the Liberators who would found the

nobility of America. The president is a kind of constitutional king;

his ministers, who are to be responsible, will govern. The judiciary

will acquire stability and independence. A new authority, the Moral

Power, completes the political structure. This Moral Power of the

Liberator's Republic is an imitation of the Athenian Areopagus and

the Roman censors: it is to be responsible for education and ensure

respect for morality and the law; "it chastises vice by opprobrium

and infamy, and rewards the public virtues by honour and glory."

Bolivar had a tendency towards moral and intellectual despotism: this

tribunal was to compel good behaviour. Later the Liberator condemned

the teachings of Bentham in the Universities of Colombia, and

accepted Catholicism as an instrument of the Government. Article 2

of the Angostura draft states that "ingratitude, disrespect, and

disloyalty toward parents, husbands, the aged, the magistrates, and

citizens recognised and proclaimed as virtuous; the breaking of the

given word, in no matter what connection; insensibility before public

misfortunes or those affecting friends or immediate relations, are

recommended especially to the vigilance of this moral power." This

was paternal tyranny, exercised over the feelings, the conduct, and

the passions.

{80}

Bolivar created a republic--Upper Peru, which was to call itself

Bolivia in memory of its founder. He gave it the constitution he

wished, but in vain, to apply to Peru and Colombia. He developed

there the ideas expounded in the Angostura draft, and thereby defined

his ideal of a republic; it was, in fact, a monarchy in which the

power was hereditary. The president must be irremovable and

irresponsible, "for in systems without hierarchy there must be--more

than in others--a fixed point upon which magistrates and citizens,

men and things, may revolve." Against anarchy, a fixed magistracy;

against tyranny, independent powers; the judiciary elected by

Congress among the citizens nominated by the electoral colleges; the

legislature composed of three chambers: tribunes, senators, and

censors. The first exercise their functions for four years, the

second for eight, and the last are permanent, "and exercise a moral

and political control"; they constitute the "moral power." With this

system the Liberator avoided political anarchy and the destructive

ambition of the _caudillos_, constituting two stable forces in the

midst of shifting democracies--the censors and the permanent

president. He adapted unity and permanence--characteristics of the

constitutional monarchy--to republicanism. The generals quickly

realised that this constitution was a menace to them, and rose

against it in Bolivia, in Peru, and in Colombia.

The founders of the Independence were surrounded by brilliant

leaders, such as O'Higgins, the Carreras, Güemes, La Mar, Santander,

Santa-Cruz, and Sucre, admirable as hero and statesman; but above

them, dominating them all like an oak in the midst of saplings,

according to the classic image, towered Bolivar, Liberator of

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

[Illustration: BOLIVAR. The Liberator of Venezuela, New Granada,

Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. To face p. 80.]

He was the genius of the South American Revolution. {81} He felt

himself dominated by "the dæmon of war." Like all great tormented

spirits since Socrates, he obeyed, in his impetuous campaigns, an

interior divinity. In his acts and his speeches, in his dignity and

his faith, there was a notable grandeur. He worked for eternity,

accumulating dreams and Utopias, dominating the hostile earth and

censorious man; he was the Superman of Nietzsche, the representative

man of Emerson. He belonged to the ideal family of Napoleon and

Cæsar; a sublime creator of nations; greater than San Martin, greater

than Washington.

II. From France, as emissaries of the ideal, came the doctrines of

the Revolution. In the Encyclopædia we find the intellectual origin

of the South American upheavals. The patricians in the archaic

colonial cities smiled upon Voltaire; they adopted the essential

ideals of Rousseau, the social contract, the sovereignty of the

people, and the optimism which conceded supreme rights to the human

spirit untainted by culture. Bolivar had read the _Contrat Social_

in a volume that had formed part of the library of Napoleon; by will

he left this book to an intimate friend. The great, sounding

promises--democracy, sovereignty, human rights, equality,

liberalism--stirred the patriotic tribunes like fragments of a new

gospel. The masonic lodges worked in silence against the power of

Spain and Portugal, and upheld the humanitarian ideas of French

philosophy. In the lodge of Lautaro, San Martin and Alvear received

their initiation as revolutionaries. In Mexico the lodge of York was

transformed into a Jacobin club. In 1794 Antonio Nariño, the

forerunner of Colombian independence, translated the _Rights of Man_.

The Venezuelan Miranda fought in the revolutionary armies of France;

the Peruvian Pablo de Olavide, the friend of Voltaire, took part in

the Convention; {82} Raynal, Condorcet, and Mably had American

disciples. Montesquieu was read in the universities as an antidote

to the absolutism of the viceroys; Beccaria, Filangeri, and Adam

Smith were among the prophets. Not only did French thought

predominate, but the Revolution, the Terror, the Jacobin madness, the

eloquence of the Girondins, the dictatorship of the First Consul, and

the Empire, even, all exercised an immense influence upon the rising

democracies of America. Iturbide, Emperor of Mexico, imitated

Napoleon; in Buenos-Ayres there was a Directoire, as in Paris; there

were consuls in Paraguay, and Rivadavia was a Girondist lost among

the _gauchos_.

To the aid of French theory came the example of North America;

Washington and the federal system served the Iberian statesmen as

models. Belgrano exalted the first President of the United States as

a hero "worthy of the admiration of our own age and of the

generations to come--an example of moderation and true patriotism."

He translated the _Farewell Address_, which was his favourite

reading. Bolivar wished to be the Washington of South America. One

of the forerunners of Brazilian independence, José Joaquin de Maia,

had known Jefferson in Paris, and informed him that "the Brazilians

considered the North American Revolution as the expression of their

desires, and they counted on the assistance of the United States."

The first South American constitutions betrayed this double

influence; they adopted the policy of federalism, copying the

political organisation of the United States, and were inspired by

French ideas. They destroyed the privileges of the nobility, and

established equality of caste. This was the case with the first

Venezuelan constitution, despite the efforts of Miranda and

Bolivar--opponents of federation. The Chilian constitution of 1822

and the Peruvian constitution of {83} 1823 conferred a conservative

function upon the Senate, as in the North American Republic; and the

first Chilian statutes established federation. In Mexico and in

Central America the federal principle dominated the constitutions of

1824 and 1826. The Argentine constitution of 1819 was a copy "for

the united provinces of South America of the Declaration of

Independence of the United States."

To French doctrines and the example of the United States we must add

the influence of English ideas. Miranda and Bolivar admired the

political constitution of Great Britain, and were inspired by it.

Bolivar, in 1818, recommended the study of this constitution: "You

will find therein," he said, "the division of powers, the only means

of creating free and independent spirits, and the liberty of the

press--that incomparable antidote to political abuses." His

enthusiasm for Voltaire and Rousseau was tempered by a study of

English methods. In his Angostura draft he recommended a permanent

Senate, a reproduction of the House of Lords. The British

Executive--the sovereign surrounded by responsible ministers--seemed

to him "the most perfect model, whether for a kingdom, or an

aristocracy, or a democracy." The Colombian Constitution of Cucuta

(1821), in which the political ideas of the Liberator were

predominant, merited the eulogy of the Marquis of Lansdowne. "It has

for its basis," said the English minister, "the two most just and

solid principles"--property and education. Miranda laid before Pitt

a constitutional essay inspired by British ideas, with a House of

Commons, an Upper Chamber composed of hereditary Inca _caciques_ and

censors; in which curious project we find American traditions mingled

with political forms borrowed from the English.

Spain also contributed to the development of the revolutionary ideas.

She united the populations of {84} America under her crushing

authority; she combined in a single body all the disinherited castes

which were later to struggle for independence.

"The despotic rigour of authority," wrote Bauza, "unites all these

heterogeneous elements with a rigid tie, and forms a race of

them."[3] The Napoleonic invasion provoked a reaction in the

peninsula: the _juntas_--provisional representations of

nationality--took the place of the captured king. The central

_junta_ proclaimed in 1808 that "the American provinces are not

colonies, but integral portions of the monarchy, equal in their

rights to the rest of the Spanish provinces." In 1810 the Regency

informed the American colonies: "Your fate depends upon neither

ministers nor viceroys nor governors: it is in your own hands." The

constitution of the Cortes of Cadiz (1812), at which the deputies of

the colonies were present, declared "that the Spanish Union cannot be

the patrimony of a person nor a family--that sovereignty resides

essentially in the nation--and that the right of making law belongs

to the Cortes and the king." In these documents, independence,

national sovereignty, the idea of the native country, and the

functions of the assemblies came overseas from the metropolis. The

struggles against privateers, against the English invasions of

Buenos-Ayres and the Dutch invasions of Brazil, and the influence of

the territory itself, created the sentiment of nationality in

America. French, English, and Spanish ideas fertilised this vague

aspiration. Before imposing themselves upon the universities and

assemblies these ideas became current in the journals and the

meetings of the _cabildo_ and revealed to the Creole oligarchy its

desire for independence.

From 1808 to 1825 all things conspired to help the cause of American

liberty; revolutions in Europe, ministers in England, the

independence of {85} the United States, the excesses of Spanish

absolutism, the constitutional doctrines of Cadiz, the romantic faith

of the Liberators, the political ambition of the oligarchies, the

ideas of Rousseau and the Encyclopædists, the decadence of Spain, and

the hatred which all the classes and castes in America entertained

for the Inquisitors and the viceroys. So many forces united

engendered a sorry and divided world. The genesis of the southern

republics is rude and heroic as a _chanson de geste_. Then history

degenerates until it becomes a comedy of mean and petty interests--a

revolutionary orgy. Such was the evolution of South America during

the nineteenth century.

[1] Gil Fortoul, _Historia Constitucional de Venezuela_, Berlin,

1907, vol. i, p. 465.

[2] _Historia de San Martin_, Buenos-Ayres, 1903, vol. i. p. 3.

[3] _Historia de la Dominacion española en el Uruguay_, vol. ii. p.

647.

{86}

CHAPTER IV

MILITARY ANARCHY AND THE INDUSTRIAL PERIOD

Anarchy and dictatorship--The civil wars: their

significance--Characteristics of the industrial period.

Spencer observed the invariable succession of two periods in the

development of human affairs--the military and the industrial period.

Bagehot contrasted a primitive epoch of authority and a posterior

epoch of discussion. Sumner-Maine discovered a historic law--the

progress from status to contract; from the _régime_ imposed by

despotic governors to a flexible organisation accepted by free wills.

Thus, in three different formulæ, we may express the same principle

of evolution. In the beginning a warlike and theocratic authority

determines ritual, customs, dogma, and laws. The common conscience

is potent; individuality accepts without discussion or scepticism the

essential rules of social life. History is thereafter a struggle

between authority and liberty, a progressive affirmation of

autonomous wills, an assertion of destructive and censorious

individualism.

In America political development presents the same successive phases.

Invariably we find the sequence of the two periods, one military and

one industrial or civil. The Independence realised, the rule of

militarism sets in throughout the republics. After a period of

uncertain duration the military caste is hurled from power, or

abdicates without violence, and economic interests become supreme.

Politics are {87} then ruled by "civilism." The military _régime_ is

not theocratic, as in some European monarchies; the President does

not combine the functions of religion and empire. None the less, the

civil period involves a fatal reaction against the Church--a period

of anti-clericalism or radicalism. The revolution is confined to a

change of oligarchies: the military group gives way to plutocracy.

[Illustration: GENERAL JUAN JOSÉ FLORES. President of Ecuador

(1831-1835 and 1839-1843). To face p. 87.]

As the generals of Alexander disputed, after his death, for the

provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the remains of the imperial

feast, and founded new dynasties in the flood of Oriental decadence,

so the lieutenants of Bolivar dominated American life for a period of

fifty years. Flores in Ecuador, Paez in Venezuela, Santa-Cruz in

Bolivia, and Santander in Colombia, governed as the heirs of the

Liberator. So long as the shadow of the magnificent warrior lay upon

the destinies of America, so long the _caudillos_ triumphed,

consecrated by the choice of Bolivar. The monarchial principle was

thus forced upon unconscious humanity. The Liberator left America in

the hands of a dynasty.

The wars of the peoples were therefore civil conflicts; the quarrels

of generals ambitious of hegemony. United in independence, united

during the colonial period, the new nations were divided, and stood

aside at the suggestion of these warriors; as Ecuador, Peru, and

Bolivia, in the name of Santa-Cruz or Gamarra, Castilla or Flores.

The national conscience was roughly shaped upon the field of battle.

The generals imposed arbitrary limits upon the peoples; they are the

creators in American history; they impress the crowds by their pomp

and pageantry; by military displays as brilliant as the gaudy

processions of the Catholic cult; by magnificent escorts and

decorations and forms of etiquette; they call themselves

Regenerators, Restorers, Protectors.

{88}

This first period is troublous, but full of colour, energy, and

violence. The individual acquires an extraordinary prestige, as in

the time of the Tuscan Renaissance, the French Terror, or the English

Revolution. The rude and bloodstained hand of the _caudillo_ forces

the amorphous masses into durable moulds. South America is ruled by

ignorant soldiers: the evolution of her republics must therefore be

uncertain. There is, therefore, no history properly so called, for

it has no continuity; there is a perpetual _ricorso_ brought about by

successive revolutions; the same men appear with the same promises

and the same methods. The political comedy is repeated periodically:

a revolution, a dictator, a programme of national restoration.

Anarchy and militarism are the universal forms of political

development.

As in European revolutions, anarchy leads to dictatorship; and this

provokes immediate counter-revolution. From spontaneous disorder we

pass to a formidable tutelage. The example of France is repeated on

a new stage; the anarchy of the Convention announces the autocracy of

Bonaparte. The dictators, like the kings of feudalism, defeat the

local _caciques_, the provincial generals; thus did Porfirio Diaz,

Garcia Moreno, Guzman-Blanco, &c. And revolution follows revolution

until the advent of the destined tyrant, who dominates the life of

the nation for twenty or thirty years.

Material progress is the work of the autocracy; as witness the rule

of Rosas, Guzman-Blanco, Portales, and Diaz. The great _caudillos_

will have nothing to do with abstractions; their realistic minds urge

them to encourage commerce and industry, immigration and agriculture.

By imposing long periods of peace they favour the development of

economic forces.

In matters political and economic the dictators profess Americanism.

They represent the new mixed {89} race, tradition, and the soil.

They are hostile to the rule of the Roman Church, of European

capital, and of foreign diplomacy. Their essential function, like

that of the modern kings after feudalism, is to level mankind and

unite the various castes. Tyrants found democracies; they lean on

the support of the people, the half-breeds and negroes, against the

oligarchies; they dominate the colonial nobility, favour the crossing

of races, and free the slaves.

[Illustration: ARTIGAS. Liberator of Uraguay. To face p. 89.]

Anarchy is spontaneous, like that which Taine discovered in the

Jacobin Revolution. There is a movement hostile to organisation, to

civilisation: thus Artigas fought at once against the King of Spain,

the Argentine Revolution, and the Portuguese. He would have no

subjection; he was a patriot to the death. Güemes fought against

Spaniards and Argentines. The _caudillos_ are like chiefs of

barbarian tribes; they uphold local autonomy, division, and chaos.

Sarmiento compares Lopez, Ibarra, and Quiroga, violent chieftains of

the Argentine sierra and pampa, to Genghis Khan or Tamerlane.

"Individualism," he says, "is their essence; the horse their only

arm; the pampa their theatre." The _montoneras_ are Tartar hordes,

burned by the sun--a wild, devastating force. Their leaders

represent the genius of the continent; they have the rudeness, the

fatality of natural forces. Like Igdrasil, the fantastic tree of

Scandinavian mythology, they send their roots deep into the earth,

into the obscure kingdom of the dead.

The general ideas of this period are simple. There is a faith in the

efficacy of political constitutions, and these are multiplied; men

aspire to ideological perfection. They believe in the omnipotence of

congresses, and distrust the Government. Constitutions separate the

powers and enfeeble the executive, rendering it ephemeral; they

divide authority by creating triumvirates, consulates, and

governmental {90} _juntas_. The liberalism of the charters is

notable. They usually establish three powers, according to the

traditional rule of Montesquieu, in order to ensure political

equilibrium; they recognise all the theoretical liberties--liberty of

the press, of assembly, the rights of property, and industrial and

commercial liberty. They accept trial by jury, popular petition,

universal suffrage--in short, the whole republican ideal. They

consecrate a State religion, Catholicism, thus paving the way for

religious revolutions, and all the "Red and Black" revolts and

conspiracies of South American history. Election is in some

republics direct; in others by the second degree, by means of

electoral colleges which appoint the president and the members of the

legislative chambers. From North to South institutions are

democratic; they bestow political rights with a generous profusion.

The judicial power is independent, sometimes elected by the people,

generally by congress. The judges are often dependent on the

executive. Justice and the law are ineffectual. The president

cannot be re-elected.

These constitutions imitate those of France and the United States in

the democratic tendencies of the one and the federalism of the other;

they are charters of a generous and hybrid species. The presidential

_régime_ exists in reality as in the United States; the parliaments

are important in virtue of the constitution, but in actual political

life are powerless in face of the pressure exercised by the military

chiefs. The theory of the social pact and the ideology of the

revolutionary are predominant in public speech.

The motives of the civil wars vary. In Ecuador men fight for the

_caudillos_; in Colombia, for ideas; in Chili, for or against the

oligarchy. All the national forces are involved in these wars.

Revolution is the common heritage of these nations. The races which

peopled America were warrior races, {91} both Indians and Spaniards,

and their warlike spirit explains the disorder of the republics.

Castes and traditions are inimical: the psychological instability

characteristic of primitive peoples wars upon discipline and

authority.

Two social classes--the military class and the intellectual or

university class--had been in opposition since the origin of the

Republic. They disputed the supreme power, or sometimes the

intellectuals sided with the generals. The "doctors," by aid of

reasonings of Byzantine subtlety, justified the dictatorships as well

as the Revolution. A Venezuelan deputy, Coto-Paul, in 1811,

pronounced a lyrical eulogy of anarchy.

The generals distrusted the lawyers, who represented the intellectual

tradition of the colony: Paez hated the juriconsults as Napoleon

hated ideologists. And the "doctors," vanquished by the military

power, became the docile secretaries of generals and _caudillos_;

they drafted laws and constitutions, and expressed in polished

formulæ the rude intentions of the chiefs. To the violence of these

latter they opposed subtlety; to the ignorance of despots, the

scholastic ease and knowledge acquired in the universities of Spain.

To the struggles of classes was added the war of races; the

half-breeds fought against the national oligarchy; the new American

class was hostile to the aristocracy of the capitals. The Indians

lived in the towns of the interior, in which the colonial isolation

was unchanged; the metropolis--Buenos-Ayres, Lima, or Caracas--was

still Spanish and increasingly alien. On the coast, where feeling

was more mobile and will more variable, the ideas of reform took

root; exotic ideas and customs were introduced; while the Sierra,[1]

more American than the coast, remained slow and gloomy, and ignorant

{92} of the brilliant unrest of the capitals. Thus a triple movement

came into being; inferior castes rose against the colonial

aristocracy, the provinces against the all-absorbing metropolis, and

the half-caste Sierra against the cosmopolitan seaboard.

The provinces desired autonomy; the capitals, monopoly and unity; the

metropolis was liberal, the Sierra conservative. The political

conflict might know a change of names, but this antagonism was

universal. The leaders disguised their deep-seated ambitions under a

cloak of general ideas; they supported unity or federation, the

military or the civil _régime_, Catholicism or radicalism. In

Argentina the provinces fought against the capital; in Venezuela the

coloured middle class against the oligarchies; in Chili the liberals

against the _pelucones_, the proprietors of the soil; in Mexico the

federals fought the monarchists; in Ecuador the radicals opposed the

conservatives; in Peru the conflict was between the "civilists" and

military _caudillos_. In the diversity of these quarrels we see one

essential principle: two classes were in conflict--the proprietors of

the _latifundia_ and the poverty-stricken people, the Spaniards and

the half-breeds, or the oligarchs and generals of a barbarous

democracy.

In each republic the soil and the traditions of the country gave a

different colour to the universal warfare. In the Argentine the

provinces, under viceroys and intendants, enjoyed a partial autonomy;

there federalism had remote antecedents. Unity seemed an imposition

on the part of Buenos-Ayres, which possessed the treasury and the

custom-houses of the nation, and monopolised the national credit and

revenue. In Chili, the long, narrow country, with the Cordillera at

the back, like a granite wall, naturally evoked a Unitarian republic.

The disputes between centralisation and federalism were soon over.

{93} Unity was possible in Peru, a brilliant sub-kingdom, the centre

of a long-established and powerful authority. But some aspects of

these violent struggles remain obscure. In Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela,

and Mexico there was enmity between the coast and the Sierra. Lima

and Caracas were capitals near the seaboard; Mexico and Quito were

far removed from it. Yet in Peru the struggle was civil and

military; in Ecuador, conservative and liberal; and in Mexico,

federal and central. Why do we not find the religious struggles,

which lasted so long in Colombia, in Bolivia and the Argentine? To

explain this diversity we must study the psychology of the different

_conquistadors_--Castilian, Biscayan, Andalusian, Portuguese--and of

the different subjected races: the Quechuas, Araucanians, Chibchas,

Aztecs, and the proportion in which they were mingled; for the action

of the territory itself upon the various admixtures of blood would

vary as it was tropical or temperate, coast or Sierra.

The confusion of the struggles in some democracies was extreme. The

oligarchs were not always conservatives, nor the half-breeds always

liberal. There were reactionary autocracies, like that of Portales

in Chili, and liberal autocracies like that of Guzman-Blanco in

Venezuela. The federals were usually democrats and liberals, but

they were occasionally conservative and autocratic. The democrats of

Peru were reactionary in matters of religion; those of Chili were

radical. The civil _régime_ was conservative in Bolivia under

Baptista and in Ecuador under Garcia-Moreno, but liberal in Mexico

under Juarez and Chili under Santa-Maria and Balmaceda. Militarism

was radical under Lopez in Colombia, but conservative under General

Castilla in Peru. When political evolution followed its logical

development, federalism, liberalism, and democracy formed a trilogy,

and oligarchy was conservative and Unitarian.

{94}

Revolutions, in opposing castes and uplifting the half-breed,

prepared the way for a new period. But a democratic society cannot

easily establish itself in the face of the established aristocracies,

and slavery still survived, although softened by liberal

institutions. The military class, accessible to all, replaced the

old nobility. Confusion of races commenced as early as 1850, when

generous laws enfranchised the negroes, and new economic interests

arose to complicate these democratic societies. Revolutions,

dictatorships, and anarchy were the necessary aspects of the

dissolution of the old society.

The age of generals gave way to an industrial period in which wealth

increased, industries became more complex and numerous, and labour

was subdivided, while association became more usual both in commerce

and agriculture. Co-operation, organisation, and solidarity, unknown

during the period of anarchy, were aspects of an intense economic

development. The interests newly created sought for peace, and the

internal order which favoured their expansion.

Politics commenced to eschew and disdain the squabbles of ideology,

and constitutional liberties acquired precision and efficacy.

Plutocracies came into being, and aspired to government in place of

internal revolution and external warfare; immigration, transforming

the social classification, facilitated their advent. National

progress was effected despite the governments; it was an anonymous

and collective task. The energetic individualities of the military

epoch were followed by the laborious crowd. The _caudillo_ receded

to the background of politics; the captains of industry replaced him,

the merchants and the bankers. Courage was once the supreme

criterion of the man; now wealth is the touchstone by which

individuals and peoples are judged. The table of human values

changes; instruction, {95} foresight, and practical common sense

determine success in an industrial democracy. In the social

ascension of the generations which industry and commerce have thrown

forward to the attack upon the old patrician society, the prejudices

of class and religion grow feebler, and after a century of conflict

the nations of the present day emerge.

In the southern republics of America industrialism is supreme in the

Argentine, Uruguay, and Chili; even in tropical Brazil. In Bolivia

and Peru the last leaders are not yet dead, the parties are still

personal, but their influence is not as decisive as it was thirty

years ago. Among the northern peoples, from Mexico to Ecuador,

anarchy and _caudillism_ still survive; there political unrest has

not yet been dominated by the principle of authority. The long

dictatorship of General Castro and certain Central American

presidents proves that the dictatorial _régime_ is the only form of

government that is able to maintain peace in these countries.

It is hardly possible to determine the "historical moment" at which

these republics passed from the military to the industrial system.

The twilight of the _caudillos_ was a long one. Even in the

Argentine, where the economic life is magnificent and complex, their

influence persists. In Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil there exists a

latent militarism which might quickly destroy the work of the civil

presidents. For ten years in Peru and Uruguay and Bolivia government

has followed government without revolutionary violence, but can we

say that the anarchy of fifty years has disappeared for ever? The

political order is slowly becoming assured, and the relation between

wealth and the increase of immigration and of peace is obvious. Even

in the industrial field evolution is the work of a few _caudillos_

who have been pacificators: General Pando in Bolivia, General Roca in

the Argentine, Pierola in Peru, and Battle {96} y Ordonez in Uruguay,

not to speak of the greatest of all, Porfirio Diaz.

Economically speaking this period of development material is superior

to the first period of sterile revolution; it is superior also from

the political point of view, for institutions have been perfected and

their constitutional action has defined itself. The municipalities

and the legislative power have acquired a relative autonomy; they

have been victorious over the executive, which was omnipotent during

the military period. In beauty and intensity, however, the prosaic

age of industrialism has been inferior to the preceding period. Of

old, vigorous personalities rose above the common level, and history

had the vitality of a tragedy; men played with destiny and with death

as in the time of the Italian renaissance. "Tyranny," writes

Burckhardt, "in the ancient Latin republics, commenced by developing

to the highest degree the individuality of the sovereign, of the

condottiere." He then demonstrates the equally personal character of

the statesmen and popular tribunes of Florentine history.[2] This

analysis is applicable to the American leaders. Heroic audacity and

perpetual and virile unrest characterise the struggles of the

_caciques_. The military cycle closed, the republics lose this

dramatic interest. Instead of describing the history of governments

we must study the economic evolution of nations, and their statistics

of industry and commerce. In tragedy the chorus, the crowd, becomes

the essential person; it judges and executes, it is spectator and

creator, while the heroes of old, the conquerors of destiny and

founders of cities, disappear in the mists of the past.

To these political changes correspond changes in manners and customs;

the cities, too, have changed {97} and have lost their archaic

character. The cosmopolitan invasion has resulted in a brilliant

monotony, and interest has become the sole motive of action;

permanent war is followed by peace _à outrance_; the republics have

gained in wealth and mediocrity. It is a period of transition: we

cannot yet distinguish the firm lineaments of the future State.

Will the Argentine and Brazil become great plutocratic States like

the United States? Will Chili, which is copying the social

organisation of England, be subjected, like the Anglo-Saxon Empire,

to the attacks of demagogy? The spectacle of these enriched nations

permits us to affirm only that in revolutionary America four nations,

the Argentine, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chili, will, before the lapse of

a century, be definitively organised as republics.

Yet these States still betray old racial characteristics.

"The dead found the race," writes M. Gustave Le Bon. "The dead

generations impose on us not only their physical constitution but

also their thoughts. Forms of government matter little."[3] In the

democracies of Latin America the "fundamental revolution" of which

politicians boast has been sterile; under the republican mask the

Spanish heredity survives, deep-rooted and secular. The forms vary

but the soul of the race remains the same. President-autocrats

replace the vice-kings; the old struggles between the governors of

the State and the bishops persist, for patronage in ecclesiastical

affairs, the prestige of the "doctors," and academic titles.

The ruling caste, the heir to the prejudices of Spain, despises

industry and commerce, and lives for politics and its futile

agitations. The territorial seigneurs still have the upper hand as

before the {98} Revolution. The ancient _latifundia_ still survive,

the great domains which explain the power of the oligarchy.

Assemblies exercise a secondary function, as the municipal _cabildos_

of old. Catholicism is still the axis of social life. The _picaros_

of Spanish romance, haughty and ingenious parasites, are still

accepted at their own value. The bureaucracy swallows up the wealth

of the exchequer; it was formed a century ago of voracious

Castilians; to-day it consists of Americans devoid of will. Despite

the equality proclaimed by the constitutions the Indian is subjected

to the implacable tyranny of the local authorities, the curé, the

justice of peace, and the _cacique_. Under other names the little

despots of the Spanish period are still alive and active.

The democracies of South America, then, are Spanish, although the

_élite_ has always been inspired by French ideas. Democracies by

proclamation and in their anarchy, equalitarian and of mixed blood,

the individual often acquires a heroic significance like that of the

supermen of Carlyle; mediæval republics divided into irreducible

families and factions, governed by enriched merchants; Greek

republics, hostile to their own leaders, jealous of the virtue of

Aristides and the wisdom of Themistocles, but without the

plebiscitary ardour of the Hellenic community.

[1] The cold region of lofty table-lands.

[2] _La Civilisation en Italie au temps de la Renaissance_, Paris,

1885, vol. i. pp. 165 _et seq_.

[3] _Les lois psychologiques de l'Evolution des peuples_, Paris,

1900, pp. 13 and 71.

{99}

BOOK II

_THE CAUDILLOS AND THE DEMOCRACY_

The history of the South American Republics may be reduced to the

biographies of their representative men. The national spirit is

concentred in the _caudillos_: absolute chieftains, beneficent

tyrants. They rule by virtue of personal valour and repute, and an

aggressive audacity. They resemble the democracies by which they are

deified. Without studying the biographies of Paez, Castilla,

Santa-Cruz, and Lavalleja, it is impossible to understand the

evolution of Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay.

{101}

CHAPTER I

VENEZUELA: PAEZ, GUZMAN-BLANCO

The moral authority of Paez--The Monagas--The tyranny of

Guzman-Blanco--Material progress.

Two central figures, Paez and Guzman-Blanco, dominate the history of

Venezuela. The first founded a republic in spite of the Unitarian

aims of Bolivar; the second established a long autocracy over the

factions and the quarrels of half a century.

Paez was an individualist, a nomadic leader, an impassioned champion

of the district, of the native country, as against any vast political

concentration. As the Argentine pampa gave birth to Quiroga, and the

Arabian desert engendered the mystic adventure of the Khalifs, so the

_llanos_ of Venezuela created Paez.

Among the haughty _llaneros_ of Apure he grew to be a horseman, a

lover of the infinite plains, the leader of a nameless troop, the

hero of a host of adventures, romantic or brutal. He was born in

1790. He was a half-breed, representing the indigenous forces in

conflict with the Spanish oligarchy and the Creole aristocracy. A

democrat of the school of Castilla and Rosas, robust and audacious,

with the perspicacity of the Indian and the pride of a tribal

chieftain, he cared only to lead armies. He detested "literary

people," "judges," and ideologues. A lieutenant of the Liberator's,

he was with him in a hundred battles, but he loathed all discipline,

{102} and his incipient insubordination in 18 18 diminished the

success of Bolivar. His pride revolted against all tutelage, even

when this was just. At times he wished Bolivar to be an absolute

chieftain, an invulnerable monarch; at other times he rebelled

against him. In 1819 he led the patriots of the llanos to victory;

he obtained power and honours but was always notably insubordinate.

In 1821 he opposed the order of enrolment issued by Santander, the

Vice-President of Colombia. The municipality of Caracas shared his

desire for autonomy, and Venezuela followed the leader who

represented the national instincts. Bolivar intervened to enforce

the unity of Colombia and gave way to Paez. In 1826 the latter

counselled the Liberator to assume the crown.

The fusion of the peoples, unity as against discord, was the Bolivian

ideal. At this time the spirit of nationality was working obscurely,

and spontaneous republics were springing up. The race, exhausted by

its long tutelage, uneasily sought subdivision, thinking thereby to

gain autonomy; Paez, profoundly American, followed the stream and

exiled Bolivar. He broke up the Colombian unity, as Santander in New

Granada and Flores in Ecuador, and liberated his country in 1830.

The nomad _guerrillero_ had then to organise the country, to give it

stability and continuity; his supple nature adapted itself to his new

duties. By instinct (writes an eminent historian, Gil Fortoul) he

inclined to play the part of certain constitutional kings, leaving

the government to his ministers. Without denying his democratic

past, he frequented the society of the literate and the oligarchs.

His presidency (1831-1835) resulted in domestic peace, strict order

in matters financial, political conciliation, and economic progress.

Dr. Vargas, an enemy of militarism, succeeded {103} him, but the

brothers José Tadeo and José Gregorio Monagas, who had risen against

Paez in 1831, renewed their attempt in 1835. The weak, irresolute

President appointed Paez commander-in-chief of the army, while the

revolutionists of Caracas proclaimed him supreme ruler. His immense

moral force loomed paternally above the squabbles of the parties; he

became the arbiter of Venezuelan quarrels.

He upheld the constitution and the presidency of Vargas, but the

latter could not retain supreme power and abandon the reins of

government to the hands of the vice-president. The chieftain of the

plains was elected for a second presidential period in 1838.

Militarism declined under his rule, foreign credit increased, the

payment of the debt was assured, and orderly progress was effected.

In 1843 his loyal friend, General Carlos Soublette, a republican of

the antique mould, austere and liberal, was his successor. Once more

the omnipotence of Paez was triumphant.

The political tranquillity of these two periods masked a social

transformation. Venezuela was not a democratic republic; it was,

like Chili, ruled by an oligarchy. The Constitution of 1830

conferred the enjoyment of political rights only upon the

land-owners, property-owners, and government employés; as in the

southern nation the territorial overlords ruled, and slavery

persisted. The "doctors" belonged to the dominant group. The

oligarchs were conservatives; they defended property, order, and

wealth against militarism and demagogy. They recognised no State

religion, nor did they practise intolerance.

In 1840 a liberal reaction set in against the dictatorship of Paez

and the conservative clan; democratic institutions and "new men" were

called for. It was a struggle of classes and races. The obscure

mass--_pardos_ (mulattos), mestizos, proletariats--subjected {104} to

slavery or servitude, oppressed by the privileged, hybrid and

anarchical--attacked the established ruling caste. Thus political

unrest was complicated by social conflict. Antonio Leocadio Guzman,

a brilliant demagogue, comprehending the liberal ambitions of the

crowd, founded a popular party upon the hatred of hierarchies and

traditions. A tribune and journalist, he violently attacked Paez,

Soublette, and their ministers; he offered the people the abolition

of slavery and the repartition of the soil, with the violence of all

the creators of democracies, from Tiberius Gracchus to Lloyd George.

He was presidential candidate in 1846; Paez supported General Tadeo

Monagas, a gloomy personage who represented the oligarchy. The

supporters of Guzman rebelled against the influence of Soublette and

the tutelage of the great _llanero_, and a social revolution

commenced under the mask of a political quarrel. The Liberals wished

to overthrow the "Gothic oligarchy." Guzman was made prisoner. He

was judged as were the tribunes of antiquity who terrified the

patrician class by the tumult of a hungry democracy. Condemned to

death as a conspirator and anarchist, he saw his punishment commuted

to banishment.

[Illustration: GENERAL JOSÉ TADEO MONAGAS. President of Venezuela

(1846-1850 and 1855-1859). To face p. 104.]

The conservatives had won; the evolution of democracy was checked,

thanks to the advent of certain crude demagogues. As in Chili, a

moderate liberalism was germinating in the heart of the conservative

group itself. Until 1861 the oligarchical constitution of 1830 was

maintained, as in Chili the analogous constitution of 1833 persisted,

in all its rigidity, until 1891. The liberals could hardly be

distinguished from the conservatives; the democratic Guzman himself

accepted slavery. There was not, therefore, any violent war of

castes, but rather a slow infiltration of liberal principles in the

substance of the aristocratic class. The man of this {105} period of

transition was President Monagas. He governed with liberals and

conservatives, and founded a personal system. The Congress wished to

impeach him, but the people defended him against the Congress. The

independent Assembly was dissolved, amidst bloodshed and the bodies

of the slain, on the tragic 24th of January, 1848, and the Executive

was triumphant. The rule of oligarchies was followed by personalism

or autocracy. Monagas struggled against Paez; these two predominant

influences could not co-exist. The old _caudillo_ took the head of a

revolution; he was defeated, and, like Guzman, exiled. Curious

analogy between the fate of the chieftain of the oligarchy and that

of the leader of the democrats!

José Tadeo Monagas was replaced by his brother José Gregorio. The

pair formed a strange species of dynasty in which inheritance was

collateral. Guzman having again lost the presidency, his supporters

and those of Paez rebelled against the government in 1853 and 1854;

but the government was victorious, and in 1854 liberated the slaves.

Better than the apostrophes of the popular tribune this radical

measure prepared the way for the advent of the democrats. After José

Gregorio Monagas his brother José Tadeo became President in 1855. A

new Constitution of 1857, centralistic in tendency, permitted the

re-election of presidents, and Monagas remained in power. General

Castro defeated him at the head of a coalition of all parties. The

old political groups were reorganised; the struggles between

federalists and centralists recommenced; and the decline of the

oligarchies saw the advance of democracy. The Convention of Valencia

(1858) promulgated a liberal constitution, which established the

autonomy of the provinces under governors and congresses of their

own; the electoral capacity, restricted by the old statute, was

enlarged; the jury {106} system was established; and the Executive

was weakened, with an eye to the personalism of Monagas. A civil war

in which federals, liberals, centralists, conservatives,

constitutionalists, and ideologists were mingled in motley assemblies

disturbed the country. The battles lacked the simplicity of the old

directorates, the rigidity of the old hierarchies. The democracy

lamentably increased; the liberal factions were seized with an

equalitarian frenzy. Their leaders--Falcon, Zamora--were demagogues

on horseback. At the spectacle of this barbarism Paez, returning in

1861 from the United States, restored reaction and autocracy. On

September 10th he proclaimed himself supreme chief in the face of the

federal power; an octogenarian, he gathered all the powers of the

State into his trembling hand; a melancholy symbol of the oligarchy,

exhausted in its struggle against the invading democracy. In vain

did he issue tyrannical decrees; he could not prevent the triumph of

federation. At Coche, Guzman-Blanco, general of the federal forces,

negotiated with Rojas, the omnipotent secretary of Paez, an agreement

which put an end to the tottering dictatorship. The action of the

founder of Venezuela, "the man of the plains," representing the

conservative aristocracy, was over. He died in 1873, when his work

of a half-century was about to be continued, under another form, by

the great _caudillo_ Antonio Guzman-Blanco.

He was the son of Antonio Leocadio Guzman, leader of the liberal

party. He had travelled in the United States, was a diplomatist, and

had followed a course of study in the law, and on his return to

Venezuela had directed military operations during the revolt against

Paez. He had the gifts of the military leader; he skilfully

organised attack and retreat in that difficult warfare of many

factions amidst the plains; he revealed himself as a heroic leader of

men, dashing and persevering. In 1862 {107} he attained the rank of

General-in-Chief of the Army. The General Assembly elected him

vice-president of the Republic, under the presidency of Falcon, after

the agreement of Coche. Guzman-Blanco then contracted a loan of one

and a half million pounds in London, where Venezuelan credit was

ruined. It was necessary to restore the public finances after the

long crisis of the revolution. The operation was onerous, and the

liberal leader was criticised. However, the Venezuelan Congress

awarded him a prize in the form of an award of money.

In 1865 and 1866, during the absences of President Falcon, he

exercised command with admirable political tact, introducing severe

financial economies, regularising the debt, and suppressing sinecures

and pensions. In the political world, despite the triumph of the

federals, he demanded the reinforcement of the central power, as

against the anarchy of the autonomous provinces. In fact, a new

constitution, extremely liberal, which was promulgated by the

Assembly in 1864, had conceded an excessive degree of independence

upon the provinces.

A revolution overthrew the federal President, and the conservative

malcontents restored José Tadeo Monagas. Anarchy continued, and

Guzman-Blanco intervened to repress partial revolts, to counsel

political tolerance, and to negotiate abroad the unification of the

public debt; he had inherited the moral power from Paez. Monagas

wished to draw him into his party, and offered him the succession of

the presidency. The struggle increased in intensity; the "Blues" of

Monagas, as in Byzantium, defied the "Yellows" of Guzman-Blanco. The

civil war lasted five years. The country seeking stability, even if

it involved autocracy, José Ruperto Monagas succeeded to his father

and the monarchical policy was again attempted. The chief of the

federals was the enemy of the President, who exiled him, after a

{108} nocturnal attack upon his house, on the 14th of August, 1869.

Guzman arrived in Curaçoa, and in September openly commenced to work

for revolution. Monagas was anxious to compromise, and willing to

agree to one of those conventions so frequent in Venezuelan history;

but the _caudillo_ imposed hard conditions. His father, the

demagogue and tribune, accompanied him as journalist. After

indecisive battles the Revolution triumphed in Caracas (April, 1870),

and Guzman-Blanco assumed the dictatorship. The autocratic _régime_

accepted neither conciliation with the vanquished nor legal

artifices; the figure of the Imperator looms above the passive crowd,

a defence against federal disorganisation, economic waste, and

incessant anarchy. The liberal leader attacked his adversaries

energetically, directed battles, performing prodigies of strategy at

Valencia and Apure. The "blues" recoiled, successively losing

Valencia, Trujillo, and Maracaibo. General Matias Salazar, the

seditious liberal chief, a friend of the dictator, was shot. Like

Porfirio Diaz, the Venezuelan autocrat checkmated anarchy by

decapitating its generals. Exile, battles, and confiscation of goods

prepared the way for lasting peace. Two years the civil war lasted,

and in 1872 Guzman-Blanco, a beneficent despot, commenced the

material transformation of the country. He knew men, he had the gift

of command; his decision was irresistible, his character of steel.

He reduced import duties, and abolished export duties, founded a

banking company which issued bonds guaranteed by the Government, and

amortised the public debt. While introducing strict economies he

attacked his political enemies with forced loans and special

contributions. In the political arena he unhesitatingly repressed

the revolts of the Blues and would grant them no amnesty; he exiled

the archbishop because he refused to {109} celebrate the triumph of

the liberal Revolution by a _Te Deum_. The dictator was nationalist

as against foreign pressure and threats; he aspired to the

reconstitution of Venezuela, in matters domestic and foreign, despite

the anarchy of the factions and the manoeuvres of European

stockjobbers. Diplomatic conflicts arose with the United States,

Holland, England, and the Papacy.

Guzman-Blanco favoured education; he wished to see "a school in every

street." He reformed the civil and penal codes, and established

marriage and civil registers. In 1873 he renounced the dictatorship

before Congress, but the latter elected him President, and accorded

him supreme honours. Statues and streets and medals bore his name;

he was given the pompous titles of "Illustrious American" and

"Regenerator of Venezuela"; nothing could be refused him by the

servile and extravagant deputies. His statue, erected in Caracas in

1875, near that of Bolivar, glorified the Regenerator equally with

the Liberator. The popular dictator satisfied the ambitions of all;

he brought the peace desired by the oligarchs, he was the idol of the

crowds, and he attacked the Church like the liberals and free-masons.

From 1870 to 1877 the Government fostered material development by

means of the construction of railways and highways, public buildings

in the large towns, and the transformation and embellishment of

Caracas. It was said that the Dictator wished to imitate Napoleon

III. by opening up promenades and avenues. Credit prospered, the

service of the debt was assured, the public revenues increased,

orderly and economical budgets were established, and statistics

organised. The President reinforced and disciplined the army, and

intervened in the politics of the states, in defiance of federalism.

He endeavoured to found a Venezuelan Church, with {110} a liberal

archbishop and clergy elected by the faithful; he suppressed

religious congregations and converted their goods into national

property. His autocracy did not respect the powers of the outer

world; he stimulated industries by a strict protectionism. An

admirer of French art, he established museums in Venezuela.

In 1877 General Alcantara succeeded him. Guzman-Blanco stated in his

message, reviewing his seven years' work, that he left behind him

peace, administrative and political organisation, external credit,

liberty of the vote, and "the triumph of the dignity and the rights

of the Nation." He was acclaimed to the verge of apotheosis. He

left for Europe, and in his absence the statues of the dictator were

overthrown and his decrees annulled by those who had conferred such

honours upon him. Democracy, unstable and feminine, burned what she

had adored. Guzman-Blanco returned to Venezuela in 1878, devoured

with dictatorial ambitions. He had sought in Paris to found a

company which, like the East Indian and African companies of England,

should transform his country. He longed for the power he had

abandoned to an ungrateful mob. Upon his arrival a favouring

revolution welcomed him, the state of Carabobo proclaimed him

Dictator, and ten other states followed suit. The revolutionaries

triumphed, and those who had overthrown his statues and reversed his

statutes now praised him to the skies. Guzman-Blanco proposed to

reform the Constitution; the Swiss federation was his political

model. He reduced the number of states in Venezuela, and despoiled

the Executive of many attributes, which he confided to a Federal

Council. The Province approved the "Swiss" Constitution of 1882.

The "Illustrious American" then returned to France to realise a

financial plan which was to {111} transform his country, and to

conclude a contract with the great Jew bankers. He formed a

privileged company which was to exploit the country, obtain

concessions of land, and organise what financiers call the _mise en

valeur_ of new territories. The Constitution promulgated,

Guzman-Blanco was elected President of the General Council. In 1882

he expounded to Congress the benefits of his autocracy: material

development, budgetary surpluses, extended cultivation, and political

stability.

Until 1886 Guzman-Blanco was President of the Venezuelan democracy,

or its minister in European capitals. His power was absolute; he

imposed new leaders, left the country, returned; he was the Protector

of the Republic. From the enchanted banks of the Seine he directed

the febrile development of Venezuela. Like Porfirio Diaz in Mexico

and Rosas in the Argentine he conquered all other leaders, imposed

peace, organised and unified, and ruled by terror or by sentiment. A

_caudillo_ without definite political ideas, he loved power and his

native country. State, Church, parties, and national riches, all

were his; they were the domains of this feudal baron. His enemies

accused him of enriching himself at the expense of the national

property, but his work in the material world was fruitful; he built

roads, erected buildings, and stimulated the development of the

national fortune. In matters of policy he affirmed the inviolability

of the country against foreign aggression; he was a democrat as

against the conservatives. He loved pomp and triumph, sumptuous

external shows, sonorous phrases, and the servile adoration of the

crowd.

He had an enormous faith in his own work. In 1883 he stated that

Venezuela, under his authority, "had undertaken an infinite voyage

towards an infinite future." His dictatorship appeared to him as

necessary, providential: "the people insist upon {112} it so that we

may be saved from anarchy." He aimed at "the regeneration of the

country"; and his was the responsibility for this work; but the

greatness also was his. "I have never followed the thought of any

but myself," he said. Indeed, we may apply to him the classic phrase

descriptive of absolutism: "_L'Etat c'est moi_."[1]

[1] _En defensa del Septenio_, Paris, 1878, p. 29.

{113}

CHAPTER II

PERU: GENERAL CASTILLA--MANUEL PARDO--PIEROLA

The political work of General Castilla--Domestic peace--The deposits

of guano and saltpetre--Manuel Pardo, founder of the anti-military

party--The last _caudillo_, Pierola: his reforms.

The gestation of the Republic of Peru was a lengthy process. The

vice-kingdom defended itself against Colombian, Peruvian, and

Argentine troops: against the armies of Bolivar and San Martin. Here

the _penates_ of Spain were preserved: the treasure, the vigilant

aristocracy, the warlike armies. It was not until 1824, when America

was already independent, that the victory of Ayacucho liberated Peru

from the Spanish rule.

Bolivar wished to give Peru the same constitution as Bolivia; to

force the institution of the irremovable President on the anarchy of

these republics; but the municipality of Lima refused the project.

The Peruvians exalted the Liberator; "hero" and "demi-god" the poets

called him; his praise was sung in the churches; the Congress granted

him riches and honours. His generals were struggling for the supreme

command. The Colombian hero returned to his own country, and at once

President followed President and revolution revolution. The history

of the first twenty years of the Republic, as in Mexico and the

Argentine, records only the clash of the forces of society organised

and disciplined {114} by the colonial _régime_. Generals and

"doctors," autocracy and anarchy, the oligarchy of the vice-kingdom

and the advancing democracy, all were at war among themselves.

Byzantine factions struggled to attain the supreme power in the

assemblies and the barracks. Aristocratic Presidents--Riva Aguero,

Orbegoso, Vivanco, and military Presidents--La Mar, La Fuente,

Gamarra, followed one another with bewildering rapidity. In the

south Arequipa, the home of a tenacious race, engendered terrible

revolts. External wars, such as that with Colombia in 1827 and

Bolivia in 1828 and 1835 (to repulse the protectorate of Santa-Cruz),

were really due to the quarrels of ambitious generals who were

disputing the succession of Bolivar. New nations, whose frontiers as

yet were vague, had not yet acquired a national consciousness.

Santa-Cruz, President of Bolivia, unified Peru, founding a

confederation, from Tumez to Tarija, necessary to the equilibrium of

American politics; but he was a foreign President. Amid the host of

provincial chiefs a general presently arose who for twenty years was

the energetic director of the nation's life--Don Ramon Castilla.

[Illustration: GENERAL ANDRES SANTA CRUZ. President of Bolivia

(1829-1839). To face p. 114.]

He recalls Paez rather than Rosas. He was no invulnerable tyrant,

but a _caudillo_ of great influence. Born in Tarapaca in 1796, he

was a mestizo, having in his veins the blood of an Indian

grandmother. This origin perhaps explains his endurance and

astuteness. His father was Asturian, a member of a warlike race.

Castilla passed his youth at Tarapaca, in a region of vast plains and

narrow valleys, and the desert made him a nomad, a chief of

legionaries. A Spanish soldier in Chili, he was made prisoner at

Chacabuco; set at liberty, he travelled through the Argentine and

Brazil, and on his return to Peru he offered his services to San

Martin; in 1821 he fought beside Sucre at Ayacucho, followed General

Gamarra against Bolivia, and retaken prisoner at {115} Ingavi, he

finally became general, then marshal. Short, with virile features

and a penetrating glance, he was a great leader, strong and tenacious

in the field. His bearing was martial; men felt that opposition

irritated him, that he was an autocrat by vocation. Without much

culture, he was astute enough to seem learned. He intuitively knew

the value of men and the manner in which to govern them. His strong

point was the gift of command. Experience made him sceptical and

ironical; his speech was stern and incisive. His ideas were simple;

a conservative in politics, he respected the principle of authority.

Like San Martin, to whom he wrote some suggestive letters, he hated

anarchy. In the midst of the tumult of revolution he understood the

necessity of a strong government. He defeated the dictator Vivanco,

in skirmishes and pitched battles, at Carmen-Alto, and became

President of Peru in 1845. He granted an amnesty to the vanquished

and re-established order. His government marked the commencement,

after twenty years of revolutions, of a new period of administrative

stability, during which commerce developed and the public revenues

increased; new sources of wealth, namely, guano and saltpetre,

transformed the economic life of the country. The telegraph united

Lima to Callao in 1847; the first Peruvian railroad was inaugurated

in 1851. The service of the external debt due to foreign loans

commenced, and the internal debt was consolidated. The first

presidency of General Castilla resulted in peace and economic

progress.

General Echenique succeeded him, and financial scandals, guano

concessions, speculations, and a corrupt thirst for wealth engendered

discontent. The prophecy of Bolivar was accomplished: gold had

corrupted Peru. Castilla hesitated before revolting against a

constitutional government. A lover of order, he respected authority

in others and in {116} himself. But finally a fresh revolution broke

out, and triumphed at La Palma in 1855. In the same year Congress

elected Castilla as President.

In the preceding year the general-President had already proclaimed

the emancipation of the negro slaves, in order to ensure that the

revolution which he now headed should be welcome. Congress declared

the personal tribute demanded of the Indians abolished. A new

constitution, the basis of that of 1860, which is still in force in

Peru, changed the political organism in several essential aspects.

It suppressed the Council of State and replaced it by two

vice-presidents; it organised the municipalities, and set a term of

four years on the duration of the presidency. Vivanco rose against

Castilla in 1857, but was defeated. The government of General

Castilla terminated peacefully: from 1844 to 1860 he directed the

national policies with a hand of iron. None before him had been able

to give the life of the nation such continuity. All the moral and

economic forces of the country were developed; the exports attained

to three millions sterling, which sum was in excess of the imports;

railways and telegraph lines crossed the wilderness, and the credit

of the country permitted of new and important loans. Peru, conscious

of her progressive energy, aspired to extend her domains. Castilla

declared war upon Ecuador in 1859, the pretext being a question of

frontiers; as victor he granted generous terms of peace. He built

ships to oppose the future maritime supremacy of Chili; then,

divining the importance of Eastern Peru, he sent out expeditions to

explore the great unknown watercourses. Like Garcia-Moreno in

Ecuador and Portales in Chili, he established peace, stimulated

wealth, promoted education, created a navy, and imposed a new

constitution on the country. His action was not only political but

social; by freeing the slaves and Indians he prepared the future

{117} of democracy. The journals of the period condemned his

absolutism. "The formula of the General is '_L'Etat c'est moi_,'"

wrote Don José Casimiro-Ulloa in 1862. For fifteen years he was the

dictator necessary to an unstable republic.

After him the national life was personified by a civil President,

Manuel Pardo, who represented the reaction of lawyers and business

men against the militarism of Castilla and his predecessors. He did

not govern for two terms, like the autocratic General, nor did his

personal influence last ten years; yet his reputation increased after

his death, so that his name, like that of Balmaceda in Chili,

presides over the fortunes of a party.

Pardo was born in Lima in 1834. He was the son of a poet, Don Felipe

Pardo; but he soon abandoned dreams for action; to him material

interest seemed superior to all other questions.

He detested "pure politics"; he regarded the Constitution as a "dead

letter in national life." His vocation impelled him to protect the

financial affairs of the country; he was Minister of Finance from

1866 to 1868, fiscal agent in London, and founded a bank in Lima.

His best address deals with the subject of taxation. As President he

decreed a monopoly of saltpetre in 1875, an economic measure often

criticised as having provoked the disastrous war with Chili.

An economist and champion of order, he continued the work of

Castilla, was triumphant over revolution, and organised the country.

In 1862, when he had already been minister and mayor of Lima, a

popular election carried him to power. In four years his

extraordinary activity reformed all the public services: education,

finance, and immigration. He ordered the census to be taken in 1876;

he endeavoured to attract foreigners; founded the Faculty of

Political Sciences and the {118} University of Lima for the education

of diplomatists and administrators, and the School of Arts and Crafts

for the improvement of popular education; he opened new primary

schools, sent for German and Polish professors, and entrusted the

pedagogic direction of the country to them. He promulgated new

regulations dealing with education on the classic European lines. He

re-established the National Guard, as Portales had done in Chili, and

organised departmental _juntas_ with an eye to decentralisation. His

action was restless and universal. He preferred a positive policy,

devoid of doctrinaire quarrels, dreamed of a practical republic, like

Rafael Nuñez in Colombia and Guzman-Blanco in Venezuela, and

preferred the faculty of political sciences, which formed

administrators, to that of letters, which created literary men and

philosophers.

Nevertheless, the country became bankrupt. Loans, the great

undertakings of President Balta, and speculations in guano and

saltpetre had exhausted it. Pardo could not prevent this financial

disaster. He assured the service of the foreign debt and informed

the democracy, intoxicated by the economic orgy, that it was ruined.

He vainly sought the alliance of the Argentine and Bolivia in order

to erect a triple bastion of defence against the ambitions of Chili.

His efforts were fruitless, both at home and abroad. He was

succeeded by a military President. The alliance of Peru and Bolivia

was powerless against the might of Chili, and Pardo himself was

assassinated during a supreme reaction of the demagogy which he hoped

to rule.

[Illustration: MANUEL PARDO. President of Peru (1872-1876). To face

p. 118.]

Death made his influence lasting, as was the case with Garcia-Moreno

and Balmaceda. A strong ruler of men, he had gathered about him

enthusiastic and even fanatical partisans. His work of reformation

became the evangel of a party, the civil party which he had founded.

As early as 1841 the dictator {119} Vivanco had united, in a

conservative group, the leading men of the time: Pando, Andres

Martinez, Felipe Pardo. Ureta, Pardo's rival in the presidential

campaign, united the first elements of a civil party. But it was his

rival who concentrated all these forces, making them lasting and

harmonious. A scion of ancient families, of the Aliagas and

Lavalles, Pardo represented the colonial traditions in a disordered

democracy.

Thanks to the discovery of new sources of wealth --saltpetre and

guano--and to fiscal monopolies, a powerful plutocracy suddenly arose

in Peru, which was soon, by the prestige of its wealth, to overpower

the old Peruvian families. Pardo, not opposing the national

transformation, joined this plutocracy; and his party, reinforced by

the alliance, became the obstinate champion of property, of slow

reform, and of order, against the anarchy of the Creoles. It was

conservative without rigidity, liberal without violence, like the

moderate parties of monarchical governments, or the Progressists of

the third French Republic. Originally an aristocratic power, it

abandoned its old severity, and became the party of the wealthy

classes, taking mulattos and mestizos to its bosom. So, as in other

South American democracies, the ancient oligarchy was replaced by a

plutocracy which included the sons of immigrants, half-breeds, and

bankers.

The influence of Pardo was greater and more lasting than that of

Castilla. It responded to many of the needs of Peru; placed between

militarism and demagogy, the civil element was the only agent of

order and progress. The work of Pardo, interrupted during the war

with Chili (1879-84) and the period of anarchy which followed,

despite the efforts of a military leader who had fought like a hero

in the war against Chili--Colonel Caceres--was by the irony of human

affairs continued by the sworn enemy {120} of Pardo: Pierola, the

last of the great Peruvian _caudillos_; restless, romantic, and

always ready to seize the reins of power by the violent aid of

revolution.

In 1869, at the age of thirty, he was Minister of Finance, following

Garcia Calderon, who had resigned his post rather than authorise the

waste of fiscal resources. Ten years later Pierola proclaimed

himself dictator, and prepared, with unusual energy, to defend Peru

against the invasion of Chili. A reformer after the methods of the

Jacobins, he thought to transform the nation by heaping decree upon

decree and by changing the names of institutions. His noble

enthusiasm makes it easy to overlook his errors.

The Peruvian troops defeated, Pierola did not resign power, and

divided the country. Ten years later, in the full maturity of his

intellectual powers, he was elected President (1895-99); from which

period we may date the Peruvian renaissance. Without raising loans

he transformed an exhausted country into a stable republic. Like all

the great American _caudillos_, he was an excellent administrator of

the fiscal wealth of the country; he established a gold standard as

the basis of the new monetary system, promulgated a military code and

an electoral law, and by means of a French mission endeavoured to

change an army which was the docile servant of ambitious factions

into a force capable of preserving domestic peace. His organising

talent, his patriotism, and his extraordinary ability, surprised

those who had known only the revolutionary leader.

[Illustration: DON NICOLAS DE PIEROLA. President of Peru

(1895-1899). To face p. 120.]

He founded a democratic party, as did Pardo a party inimical to

militarism. But in spite of the denomination of this party it has

lent its aid to the military leaders, and no law in favour of the

workers has emanated from the democrats. Pierola, who called himself

"the protector of the native race," {121} established a tax upon

salt, which was a great hardship to that poverty-stricken race.

[Illustration: DON FRANCISCO GARCIA CALDERON. President of Peru

(1881-1884). To face p. 121.]

The leader of the democrats is himself an aristocrat; not only by

origin, by the somewhat old-fashioned elegance of his style, and by

his patrician tastes; he has always preferred to surround himself

with men of the old noble families: the Orbegosos, Gonzalez, Osmas,

Ortiz de Zevallos, &c. This contrast between his tastes and

tendencies and the party which he founded does not detract from the

great popularity which the old ex-president enjoys in Peru; he is

popular by reason of qualities which are wholly personal, like those

of Manuel Pardo, and his supporters become fanatics. His mannered

phrases, his heroism and his audacity, have a religious significance

in the eyes of his believers; like Facundo in the epic of Sarmiento,

he is the nomadic khalif who brings to a democracy in the throes of

anarchy the promise of a divine message.

{122}

CHAPTER III

BOLIVIA: SANTA-CRUZ

Santa-Cruz and the Confederation of Peru and Bolivia--The tyrants,

Belzu, Molgarejo--The last _caudillos_: Pando, Montes.

Bolivia sprang, armed and full-grown, as in the classic myth, from

the brain of Bolivar. The Liberator gave her a name, a Constitution,

and a President. In 1825 he created by decree an autonomous republic

in the colonial territory of the district of Charcas, and became its

Protector. Sucre, the hero of Ayacucho, succeeded him in 1826.

During the wars of Independence this noble friend of Bolivar resigned

from power, disillusioned; he was the Patroclus of the American Iliad.

From that time onward the young republic was for twenty years ruled

by a great _caudillo_, Andres Santa-Cruz. A lieutenant of the

Liberator, he inherited, like Paez and Flores, a portion of his

legacy of nations: he was President of Bolivia and wished to be

President of Peru.

[Illustration: OPENING OF CONGRESS, LA PAZ, BOLIVIA. (From "Latin

America, the Land of Opportunity," by the Hon. John Barrett.)]

In 1826 he presided over the Council of State at Lima and governed in

the absence of Bolivar. In 1827 he was the head of the Bolivian

Republic, prosecuting a difficult struggle against national anarchy.

His ambition included the vast theatre of the old vice-kingdom; he

wished to unite Bolivia and Peru, and to that end organised

freemasonry as a political force, from La Paz to Lima. President of

the Bolivian Republic for the second time {123} in 1828, he formed a

government sufficiently strong to discourage revolution. Like

Garcia-Moreno and Guzman-Blanco, he was a civilizer. The son of an

Indian woman of noble origin, the _Cacica_ of Guarina, he perhaps

inherited imperial ambitions. He loved power and display, received

the order of the Legion of Honour from Louis-Philippe, and instituted

an analogous order for the Bolivian Confederation. He accumulated

sonorous titles: Captain-General and President of Bolivia, Grand

Marshal, Pacificator of Peru, Supreme Protector of the South and

North Peruvians, &c. In domestic politics he was an organiser who

was capable of cruelty in defence of order; a strict administrator.

He promulgated codes, following the Napoleonic example, disciplined

the army, and restored the national finances. The revenue increased,

credit became more secure, and imperialism saw the light. Santa-Cruz

attracted Europeans and protected his countrymen, for the question of

population preoccupied him; it is, indeed, the great problem of

Bolivia and South America. In 1833 he proposed the exclusion of

celibates from the magistracy, a measure of protection in favour of

numerous families. Like all the _caudillos_, he made great efforts

to develop the public treasury.

Local triumphs did not satisfy him. Distrustful, crafty, frigid,

without the declamatory eloquence of other presidents, ambitious of

wealth and power, he longed to extend his despotic sceptre over new

States. Imitating Napoleon, like Iturbide in Mexico, and remembering

the successes of the First Consul, he prepared expeditions of

conquest, and fostered anarchy in Peru, which he intended to govern

once more as in 1826. Orbegoso, President of the neighbouring

republic, called for his assistance in 1835 in order to overcome

Salaverry, a brilliant officer who had proclaimed himself dictator.

Santa-Cruz thereupon constituted himself the arbiter of Peruvian

{124} disputes, and invaded the country. He defeated Salaverry at

Socabaya and Gamarra, his ally, at Yanacocha. The dictator was shot

in 1836, and the Bolivian president founded a vast confederation as a

bulwark against Peruvian anarchy: he reconstituted the old

vice-kingdom. His ambition then led him so far as to attack Rosas,

the tyrant of Argentina. He had inherited the Unitarian ideals of

Bolivar, and prepared to realise them. Three States, Bolivia, and

North and South Peru, each with its own capital, its president, and

its congress, formed the Confederation, under the imperial authority

of the new Inca. Santa-Cruz organised the three States with amazing

rapidity, imposed codes and constitutions, and expected to rule from

Lima, the fashionable metropolis; it was said that he was the avenger

of the oppressed race of half-breeds, oppressed by the colonial

oligarchy. The Confederation existed from 1837, but Chili, in the

south, envious of the Peruvian-Bolivian hegemony, threatened its

existence. Portales, that omnipotent minister, sought pretexts to

attack this solid political structure. He accused Santa-Cruz of

fostering expeditions against the Chilian conservatives--for

instance, that of Freire--and called him "the unjust violator of the

sovereignty of Peru"; he feared that his power would strike a blow at

the independence of the South American republics. Portales and

Santa-Cruz represented two irreconcilable ambitions; they had the

same love of authority and organic construction, and each professed a

narrow nationalism and a violent patriotism. The Chilian oligarchy,

led by Portales, proceeded to organise the "liberation campaign"

against and on behalf of Peru. The historian Walker Martinez

justifies this policy of interference and intervention in American

affairs, although since the Pacific war the Chilian diplomatists have

always pronounced against it.

{125}

Two successive expeditions were directed against the coast of Peru.

Santa-Cruz defeated the first, which was led by the Chilian general

Blanco Encalada, in 1837. General Bulnes was the leader of another

"army of liberation." Peruvian generals supported him: Gamarra, La

Fuente, Castilla, and Orbegoso himself. The battle of Yungai, in

1838, put an end to the Confederation, and Santa-Cruz lost all power

over the peoples of Bolivia and Peru.

His political work, the Confederation, tended to unite two peoples

which Bolivar had separated in spite of colonial traditions; it

organised, on the shores of the Pacific, a stable power to oppose the

increasing imperialism of Chili. Eminent Peruvians seconded the

unifying efforts of the Bolivian leader: Riva-Aguero, Orbegoso,

Garcia del Rio, and Necochea.

His work shattered, Santa-Cruz retired to Europe in 1845, but

attempted, when urged by excited supporters, to return to his own

country. Chili and Peru both opposed the suggestion. He was a

friend of Napoleon III. in Paris, where he several times represented

Bolivia, and where he died in 1865. The Confederation which he

vainly desired to found would have changed the destiny of the peoples

of the Pacific, by giving the political supremacy to Bolivia and Peru

united. The successors of Santa-Cruz in the Bolivian presidency,

Ballivian and Velasco, were friends of his, and continued his

ambitious policy, although they had revolted against his autocracy.

Since the days of the great mestizo leader no ruler has attained an

equal reputation, nor attempted so great a political mission. Of

later presidents, Baptista and Arce, civilians, and Pando and Montes,

soldiers, exercised a real influence on Bolivian history, but had not

the importance of the first presidents. The last was a remarkable

organiser and a builder of railways which saved his country {126}

from a dangerous isolation. They belonged to a prosaic age of steady

economic development. Bolivia has also had its tyrants, figures of

tragi-comedy, vulgar and gloomy: Belzu, Velasco, Daza, and finally

Melgarejo, the bloody incarnation of Creole barbarity. He was the

Nero of Bolivia; a man capable of every cruelty and every licence;

daring, energetic, he inaugurated a reign of terror, surrounded

himself with a prætorian guard, and represented the instincts of the

mob, exacerbated by alcohol and envy. In vain did well-meaning

dictators like Ballivian in 1841 or Linares in 1857 strive to

continue, in the interval between two episodes of barbarism, the

civilising task of Santa-Cruz. They dreamed of founding a

_Republique Almara_, like Renan in the domains of Caliban, a tyranny

of the intellectual elements. Their effort was fruitless. Down to

1899, the year in which President Pando inaugurated civil government,

the history of Bolivia was a dreary succession of revolutions and

tyrants. A remarkable writer who has studied his "sick people"[1]

writes that "from 1825 to 1898 more than sixty revolutions broke out,

and a series of international wars, and six Presidents were

assassinated: Blanco, Belzu, Cordova, Morales, Melgarejo, and Daza,

without counting those that died in exile."

[Illustration: COLONEL ISMAEL MONTES. President of Bolivia

(1905-1909). To face p. 126.]

[1] _Pueblo enfermo_, by A. Arguedas, Barcelona, 1906.

{127}

CHAPTER IV,

URUGUAY: LAVALLEJA--RIVERA--THE NEW _CAUDILLOS_

The factions: Reds and Whites--The leaders: Artigas, Lavalleja,

Rivera--The modern period.

A small southern republic, situated between an Imperialist state,

Brazil, and a nation ambitious of hegemony, the Argentine, Uruguay,

"the Eastern Province" (Banda Oriental) has struggled for its liberty

since the commencement of the nineteenth century. Artigas

represented the principle of nationality in the long wars against

Buenos-Ayres and the Spanish armies: he was the first _caudillo_, the

forerunner of the Independence. Rivera and Lavalleja inherited his

unconquerable patriotism, and proclaimed the independence of their

country. In 1822, without the constant aid of armies of liberation,

such as those of San Martin and Bolivar, but by the heroic efforts of

its own soldiers, the ancient province of the vice-kingdom of La

Plata constituted itself a new State, governed by a Unitarian

constitution.

Artigas had fought for the liberty of the province of Uruguay, for

its freedom from all tutelage. Rivera and Lavalleja were willing to

compromise at the commencement of the new campaign of liberation. A

Congress held at Montevideo proclaimed the incorporation of the

Eastern Province with Portugal. The two _caudillos_ desired the

union of Uruguay with Brazil. Another leader, Manuel Oribe, was

anxious for the protection of the legions of the Argentine {128} to

conquer the independence of his country. An ambassador from

Buenos-Ayres, Don Valentin Gomez, proposed to Brazil in 1825 that the

rebellious Uruguay should once more become a province of the

Argentine, but the Empire refused to consent. Lavalleja, who had

sought for Brazilian protection, changed his mind; he sought for

Argentine assistance, whether that of the capital or that of the

federal leaders, while Rivera remained faithful to his original

programme of union with Southern Brazil. A piece of heroism worthy

of the Spanish _conquistadors_ set a term to this indecision.

Lavalleja, at the head of the "Thirty-Three," a little band of heroes

comparable to the legendary companions of Pizarro and Cortes, landed

on the Uruguayan coast on the 19th of April, 1825. "Liberty or

death" was their watchword. Rivera joined them, and the struggle for

the independence of the eastern province at once gained an intenser

significance. At Florida a provisional government was installed,

which decreed separation from Brazil and Portugal, proclaimed the

sovereignty of the nation, and decided upon union, under a federal

organisation, with the Argentine provinces. "Eastern Argentines,"

Lavalleja called his compatriots. The rulers of the Argentine did

not decide upon supporting the liberators of Uruguay. With Brazil

hostile, and abandoned by Buenos-Ayres, the indomitable "Orientals"

commenced a bitter warfare which ended in their winning their

independence. Rivera defeated the Brazilian general Abreu at

Rincon-de-Haeda, then at Sarandu, a decisive battle which Zorrilla de

San Martin compares to Chacabuco. The Argentines maintained their

neutrality, but the Congress of 1825, obedient to the suggestions of

Rivadavia, declared to Brazil that it recognised the incorporation of

the Eastern Province "which has by its own efforts restored the

liberty of its territory." War broke out against Brazil;

Buenos-Ayres and Rio de Janeiro both aspired to {129} rule in

Montevideo. The conflict lasted from 1826 to 1828; Argentines and

Uruguayans took part in it, fighting side by side. The campaign was

directed by Lavalleja and General Alvear, who in Buenos-Ayres had

been a fashionable dictator. Rivera withdrew from the army. Brazil

suffered a defeat at Itazango, where 3,000 "Orientals" and 4,000

Argentines fought against 9,000 Brazilian soldiers. All things

pointed to the fact that Uruguay would soon be an independent nation.

The "Orientals" no longer admitted the hegemony of Brazil, nor the

tutelage of Argentina; they decided to pursue the struggle without

the help of Buenos-Ayres. The war would be longer, but even more

certain in its results. Lavalleja replaced Alvear in the government.

Rivera, who had landed at Soriano, fought and won at Misiones (1828),

and continued unaided the campaign against Artigas. He distrusted

Buenos-Ayres and even Lavalleja himself, and, thanks to his continued

efforts, peace with Brazil was finally signed on the 27th of August,

1838. The Empire recognised the independence of the "Province of

Montevideo" and the constitution of a "sovereign State," a necessary

factor in the political equilibrium of La Plata.

[Illustration: JUAN ANTONIO LAVALLEJA. _Caudillo_ of Uruguay in the

struggle for independence. To face p. 128.]

Seven years later, under the tyranny of Rosas, Uruguay saw her

autonomy menaced. The Argentine dictator aspired to conquer the

little republic and to rule as the Spanish viceroys had ruled in all

the provinces of La Plata, from Tarija to Montevideo. The "Oriental"

President Oribe, elected in 1825, was the ally of Rosas against the

Argentine refugees in Montevideo, who were supported by Rivera.

Uruguayans and Argentines were confounded in the two parties, but

Rivera represented a new source of conflict, as in his quarrels with

Lavalleja, the unconquerable spirit of nationality. Defeated in

1837, he continued, upon Brazilian territory, an obstinate warfare

against Oribe. He defeated him, and was {130} proclaimed President

of Uruguay. Oribe then figured in the Argentine army, as a general

of Rosas.

At this stage the conflict between Unitarians and federals around

Montevideo acquired a transcendental significance. Brazil intervened

once more in the affairs of La Plata. Impregnable as Paraguay under

Lopez, the Eastern Province continued the war against Oribe, its

ex-president, and against the legions of the Argentine tyrant. A

noble crusader in the cause of liberty, Garibaldi, at the head of the

Uruguayan squadron which defended Montevideo, gave the struggle a

romantic character. Oribe, a genius of destruction, ravaged the

country, and besieged Montevideo by land in 1843. Foreigners:

French, Italians, Turks, and natives, defended the threatened city.

England, France, and Brazil at first offered their mediation, which

was refused by Oribe; they then sent squadrons to defend the autonomy

of Uruguay and to insure the free navigation of the River Parana in

the interests of European commerce. After a long war of heroic

conflicts Urquiza, the leader of the armies in alliance against the

autocracy of Rosas, put Oribe to flight (1861) and saved Montevideo

from the Argentine peril.

Lavalleja and Rivera, the great _caudillos_ in the struggle for

liberty, were rival claimants for power and moral influence. Rivera,

like Artigas, represented an aggressive patriotism, hostile to all

outside influence; his ideal was national integrity. Generous,

anarchical, of the native type, he was more liberal and more of a

democrat than Lavalleja; he defended all liberties--liberty of

conscience, of industry, of the press. A nomadic _gaucho_, he

organised and led guerilla forces through a campaign of incessant

skirmishes. Lavalleja, imperfectly educated, rude, authoritative,

half a Spaniard in his pride and his colonial methods, was the leader

of the aristocratic and cultivated classes. More conservative and

more politic than Rivera, he opposed the rural democracy, {131} and

desired an orderly independence, a disciplined liberty; in government

he was a tyrant. He alienated the supporters of Rivera, dissolved

the Chamber of Representatives, reformed the administration of

justice, and estranged the authorities of the departments. Rivera,

President from 1830 to 1834 and from 1838 to 1843, was--like the

majority of the American _caudillos_--a zealous protector of commerce

and industry. The national revenues mounted by 27 per cent.; imports

and exports increased; the population was doubled, and schools and

libraries were founded. Rivera exterminated the Charrua Indians, who

pillaged in town and country, fostered the stock-raising industry,

and, in his democratic enthusiasm, prohibited the slave trade in 1839

and freed the slaves in 1842.

In the rivalry of these leaders we may already perceive the elements

of future civil struggles. Two political parties, the Whites and the

Reds, struggled for power, as in other American republics; their

disputes, which were long and violent, revealed an antagonism more

profound than any simple conflict of political opinions. Uruguay,

like Venezuela and Peru, is a country of _caudillos_, but all her

leaders, from Rivera to Battle Ordonez, have effected not merely

works of material progress, but also religious and moral reforms,

which explains the violent mutual hatred of the Reds and Whites. In

matters of local import, or of national convictions and traditions,

there is a clash of formidable instincts, and the political problem

becomes simplified. Two great groups, one conservative and the other

liberal, both represented by tenacious leaders, disputed the supreme

power in the government and in parliament. The Whites were partisans

of absolutism, nationalists and catholics, and intolerant towards

foreign cults; and the old Spanish aristocracy, the clergy, the

"doctors"--all those, in short, who would constitute an intellectual

oligarchy--sympathised with this authoritative {132} and

traditionalist party. The Reds called their adversaries cut-throats

(for in the name of reasons of State and of order they had no respect

for human life), reproached them with opposing due liberties (they

did condemn what they considered excessive liberties) and were

liberals and enemies of the Church. The country districts and the

cabins supported them; they were the popular party. The Whites

called them "the Savages." Although very old families figured in

both clans, the new social classes, the mestizos and children of

foreigners inclined rather to the Reds, while the Whites included the

proprietors of the _latifundia_.

Lavalleja died in 1853, Rivera in 1854. After the death of the two

leaders a barbarous warfare continued between the two parties, which

represented tradition and democracy. In vain did certain of the

Presidents--Garro, Flores, and Berro--attempt to realise the unity of

Uruguay and to form a national party. The conflict still continued,

for the groups were swayed by an inevitable antagonism: the

conservative oligarchy and the half-breed democracy are opposed in

Uruguay as in Mexico and Venezuela. The old families, _beati

possidentes_, defended "_la grande proprieté_" against the foreigners

and mestizos.

With the triumph of Flores (1865) the Whites lost their political

supremacy, and the liberal party regained its old position. Flores

protected commerce, rebuilt the cities destroyed by so many wars, and

built railways; his dictatorship terminated in 1868. The leader of

the Reds returned to the Presidency from 1875 to 1876, and his party

established itself more firmly. Despite fresh revolutions, it did

not yield up the government, and effected great social reforms.

Another _caudillo_, the present President, Don José Battle y Ordoñez,

is, by virtue of his liberal creed, his influence, and the daring of

his political programme, an eminent personage amidst the sordid {133}

quarrels which divide the populations of America; he has inherited

the authority of Rivera, Flores, and Lorenzo Battle.

The modern Uruguay is born of the struggle between the two

traditional parties: a small nation with an intense commercial

vitality, like Belgium and Switzerland. A harmonious republic, it

has not overlooked, in its material conquests, the suggestion of

Ariel. An admirable master, José Enrique Rodo, has established a

chair of idealism at Montevideo. Immigration, a surplus[1] in the

budgets, a strict service of the internal debt, an increasing

population--in short, all the aspects of economic progress--go hand

in hand with the spread of education, the abundance of schools, the

importance of journalism, and the moral vigour of a younger

generation, which is ambitious for its country, and anxious that

Uruguay shall play a noble part upon the American stage. The most

advanced laws--divorce, suppression of the death penalty, a code

protecting workers, separation of Church and State--give the

development of Uruguayan civilisation a markedly liberal aspect.

Miscegenation decreased after the destruction of the Charruas, and

the race is more homogeneous and keenly patriotic. The enthusiasm of

the Uruguayans has baptized Montevideo in the name of New Troy, for

the possession of this impregnable city was, in the _Iliad_ of

America, the ambition of every conqueror: it was the refuge of the

pilgrims of liberty, of ambitious foreigners, of Argentine

Unitarians, and of a romantic soldier, Garibaldi. When the peoples

of America, weary of civil discord, wish to unify their laws and

glorify the heroism of their past conflicts, they proceed to

Montevideo, as to The Hague or Washington, in periodical Peace

Congresses. In a continent divided by fatal ambitions, the capital

of Uruguay preserves the tradition of Americanism.

[1] This surplus amounted to eight millions of piastres between 1906

and 1910.

{134}

CHAPTER V

THE ARGENTINE: RIVADAVIA--QUIROGA--ROSAS

Anarchy in 1820--The _caudillos_: their part in the formation of

nationality--A Girondist, Rivadavia--The despotism of Rosas--Its

duration and its essential aspects.

The Argentine passed through a crisis, a time of anarchy, like the

other American nations. But the struggle between autocracy and

revolution assumed epic proportions in the vast arena of the pampa.

It was the clash of organic forces. Tradition, geography, and race

gave it a rare intensity. The provinces fought against the capital,

the coast against the sierra, the _gauchos_ against the men of the

seaboard, and the various parties represented national instincts.

The anarchy and ambition of the provinces commenced during the first

few years of Argentine life. Governments followed one another at

rapid intervals; constitutions and regulations were legion; political

forms were essayed as experiments, on Roman or French models; there

was the Junta of 1810, the Triumvirate of 1813, and the Directory of

1819. Every two years, with inflexible regularity, from 1811 to

1819, this uneasy republic imposed a new Constitution. The Argentine

troops, like the armies of the French Revolution, gave the gift of

liberty to Chili and Peru; but at home the effort of Buenos-Ayres to

dominate the provinces was less fortunate.

It has been written that in 1820 the confusion and {135} discord in

the Argentine were so intense that the effort of the revolutionaries

of May appeared to have spent itself. In Buenos-Ayres there was a

divorce between the factions, and a struggle between Unitarian and

federal _caudillos_: Alvear, Sarratea, Dorrego and Soler; between the

municipalities and the rebellious troops; in the country as a whole

it was the struggle of the provincial leaders against Buenos-Ayres

and the Directory.

In the midst of this period of disturbance the federal democracy was

born; the provinces concluded treaties, the capital compromised with

the _caciques_, the governors of the provinces; the _cabildo_

retained its representative character, the military and civil

elements entered upon a mutual conflict.

Finally, in 1821, the Directorial party, aristocratic and Unitarian,

was victorious. Bernardino Rivadavia was the representative figure

of the period. Secretary in the government of Rodriguez from 1821 to

1824, President from 1826 to 1827, a civil dictator like Portales in

Chili, a remarkable statesman, a reformer like Moreno and Belgrano,

he presided over a premature realisation of the democratic ideal, and

symbolised the Unitarian principles in all their force: the supremacy

of Buenos-Ayres, constitutionalism, European civilisation, and the

ideal Republic. He was the pupil of Lamartine and Benjamin Constant

in a barbarous democracy. He had every gift--physical arrogance,

oratorical power, honesty, enthusiasm, patriotism. He divined the

elements of Argentine greatness: immigration, the navigability of the

rivers, the stability of the banks, and external trade. But

Buenos-Ayres was then a plebiscitary republic, in which the _cabildo_

and the people resolved all problems of politics, and Rivadavia

suffered ostracism, as he had enjoyed the unstable popularity with

which democracies endow their leaders.

He was, according to the expression of {136} M. Groussac, a vigorous

forger of Utopias. He granted all political rights; he wished to see

a republic with a free suffrage; he 'doubled the number of the

representatives of the people, and suppressed the municipalities

which had prepared the way for the revolution. The executive power

renounced its extraordinary attributes and submitted to the

legislative power. Was this wise, in a revolutionary country, face

to face with the disunited provinces? Rivadavia organised the

judiciary as a supreme and autonomous entity. He declared, in

messages dealing with the doctrine of high politics, that property

and the person were inviolable; he proclaimed the liberty of the

press, and recognised the liberty of the conscience.

He commenced the campaign against the Church, suppressing convents,

seizing their possessions by mortmain, ignoring the ecclesiastic

charter, and secularising the cemeteries. He aspired, like

Guzman-Blanco, to found a national and democratic religion upon the

traditional elements. A great educator, he had faith in the benefits

of popular instruction, erected buildings for the use of schools and

colleges, attracted foreign teachers, and promulgated a plan of study

in which the physical sciences and mathematics, forgotten under the

old system, occupied the first rank. He founded numerous pedagogic

institutions: the Faculty of Medicine, the Museum, the Library,

special technical and agricultural schools, and colleges for young

girls.

He did not overlook material progress. His financial reforms were

radical; the national budget was instituted; a tax upon rent was

imposed, and the customs duties were regularised. The minister

Garcia contributed to this financial reformation. Rivadavia

understood that the whole future of Buenos-Ayres depended upon that

great civiliser, the ocean, and he ordered the construction of four

harbours {137} on the coast. He favoured immigration, protected

agriculture, improved the ways and means of transport, reformed the

police, and contracted the first loan.

It was under the government of Rivadavia that the Constitution of

1826 was promulgated. This was inspired by the doctrines of J. J.

Rousseau, and his _Contrat social_; but it aimed energetically at

centralisation and authority. Senators were to exercise their

functions for twelve years; they were the conservative power. The

mandate of the deputies and the Director was to last only four years.

It was a Unitarian constitution which made Buenos-Ayres, in spite of

the protest of the federals, the capital of the United Provinces of

the Rio de la Plata, the centre which "rules all the peoples, and

upon which all depend."

Rivadavia imposed unity, propagated his ideas, multiplied reforms,

and checkmated the Church; he was the civiliser _par excellence_. He

wished to transform a Spanish province into a European nation, a

barbarous people into a democracy, a sluggish and fanatical society

into a liberal republic. He governed in the interests of

Buenos-Ayres and the seaboard, for the future Latin democracy, and

neglected the desert, the anarchy of the provinces, the indomitable

sierra, the _caciques_, and the Indian tribes. He was vanquished by

feudal barbarism, by a confused democracy, hostile to organisation

and unity; but his work remains, in the shape of a constitutional

programme. Alberdi writes that he gave America the plan of his

progressive improvements and innovations: it is an immense political

structure, a gospel of democracy. Were popular myths to rise in

spontaneous birth in Buenos-Ayres, before the evocative ocean, as in

the Greek cities lovingly bathed by the Mediterranean, then Rivadavia

would be the genius of Argentine culture, the patron of the city, the

creator of its arts and its laws.

{138}

While the magistral President was showering down reforms, the

demagogues triumphed over his efforts toward unity. His

constitutional labours miscarried in the provinces; the governors

would not submit to the haughty supremacy of Buenos-Ayres. They

fought for power in rude civil wars, in the North and on the

seaboard. Some provincial congresses were precariously installed,

and Montevideo renounced its union with the Argentine. A _caudillo_,

who at times rose to the moral greatness of the Liberators, Artigas,

longed to see Uruguay, his country, independent. The Empire of

Brazil and the Argentine democracy were wrangling for its possession.

Rivadavia stoically resigned the Presidency in 1827, having shown

himself a prodigal and sumptuous creator and an eminent prophet; he

left the country, having wearied the populace with his inventive

genius.[1] In his place General Dorrego was elected Governor of

Buenos-Ayres, the federal chief of the city, as Rosas was of the

country. The war with Brazil continued; but in 1828 a treaty was

signed which recognised the autonomy of Uruguay.

[Illustration: RIVADAVIA. President of Argentina (1826-1827). To

face p. 13]

This Brazilian victory aroused the indignation of the Argentine

Unitarians; they overthrew Dorrego and elected General Lavalle to be

Governor. A storm of tragedy broke over the divided city. Dorrego

was shot by order of Lavalle, and then began the terrible war of

hatred between federals and Unitarians--a Jacobin conflict.

The daring revolt of the provinces had coincided with the

promulgation of the Constitution of 1826. {139} Since 1820 the

Argentine provinces had been in a state of revolt against the imposed

or suggested rule of Buenos-Ayres; it was the period of _caudillos_.

To the aristocratic presidency of Rivadavia they opposed the Terror.

They represented the barbarian might of the provinces. They made

federation a reality, cemented it by long quarrels, sanguinary

hatreds, conventions, alliances, and friendships. The provinces

fought within the nation; the cities within the province; within the

city, the families. An inflexible individualism--the fundamental

Spanish tradition--dissolved the provisional crystallisations of

society and politics. It was not a simple federal disaggregation--a

clash of ambitious overlords eager to surround their manors by new

domains; it was a mystic barbarism, the leaders of which recalled the

nomadic and fanatical Tamerlane. They were impelled by a strange,

rude force, disordered and prodigious--the genius of the _pampa_, the

instinct of a vagabond race.

General Quiroga, the "Facundo" of Sarmiento, was the prototype of

these turbulent _gauchos_. By conquest or alliance he extended his

government over several provinces. The paltry Bustos, the Reinafé

family, the crafty Lopez, and Ferré were also among the Argentine

_caudillos_; Lopez extended his rule over Entre-Rios, Santa-Fé, and

Cordoba. Facundo dominated them all by the range of his deeds and

his influence. He came from the Andes to the conquest of the

seaboard and the great rivers; he reigned in Rio, Jujuy, Salta,

Tucuman, Catamarca, San Juan, San Luis, and Mendoza; he grouped vast

provinces together, and paved the way for unity in the future; he was

the forerunner of Rosas. Cruel and loyal, noble and bloodthirsty,

honest, frugal, and aggressive, a product of the _pampa_, he felt

himself actuated by primitive forces, by simple passions and

instincts, by heroism and the love of peril. Powerfully built, {140}

with an abundant shock of hair, bushy eyebrows, and the eyes of a

ruler, he resembled one of those gloomy Khalifs who brought the

mystic terror of the Orient to the West. On the standard which he

raised against the liberalism of Rivadavia was the proclamation:

"Liberty or death!" He was the "bad _gaucho_" the enemy of social

discipline, who lives far from the city and its laws, conscious and

proud of his barbarism. Sarmiento stated that he entertained "a

great aversion for decent persons," and that he hated the lordly city

of Buenos-Ayres. He fought with success against the Unitarian

generals, Paz and La Madrid, and against such secondary leaders as

Lopez and Reinafé. His life was a continual running hunt across the

rugged mountains; his goal the city of Rivadavia and the Directory;

his campaigns were bloody, and worthy of a chaotic period, during

which barbarism changed only in kind from Buenos-Ayres to Rioja. He

pillaged, executed, and triumphed in his rude insurrections at Tala,

at Campana de Cuyo. He wrote to General Paz in 1830, in his

downright manner: "In the advanced state of the provinces it is

impossible to satisfy local pretensions except by the system of

federation. The provinces will be cut to bits, perhaps, but

conquered--never!" Assassinated at Barranco-Yaco by the treacherous

hand of Reinafé, probably with the complicity of Rosas, he left his

heritage to this last of the _caudillos_.

Rosas was one of those hyperborean beings upon whom Gobineau

conferred a perdurable authority over the human herd. He possessed a

coat of arms, blue eyes, and the spirit of a ruler. Sober, astute,

proud, energetic, he combined all the characteristics of a great and

imperious personality. He obeyed neither general conceptions nor

vast political plans. He was a will served by ambitions. His

authoritative character of a Spanish patrician made him the {141}

_paterfamilias_ of the Argentine democracy. The pursuit of power was

an instinct, a physiological need; he governed in the interests of

federation, the concrete, practical idea, which he absorbed by

contact with many regions, of the nomadic _gaucho_, the self-willed

provincial; and he expounded it in 1824 in a famous letter to

Quiroga. He was not content to work for the mere realisation of the

North American ideal; his aim was national federation. He was

persuaded of "the necessity of a general government, the only means

of giving life and respectability" to a republic; but only the

properly constituted states would accept this central authority. Of

a federative republic he writes that nothing more chimerical and

disastrous could be imagined when it is not composed of properly

organised states. The anarchy of the Argentine was not a condition

propitious to the foundation of federation or unity; Rosas affirmed,

recalling the United States, that "the general government in a

federative republic does not unite the federated peoples: it

represents them when united." So he wished to unite the provinces:

"the elements of discord among the peoples must be given time to

destroy themselves, and each government must foster the spirit of

peace and tranquillity."

Amid dogmatic governors and impenitent revolutionaries, this

president who desired a real federation and accepted, as a factor of

human conflicts, time, the creator of stable nations, seems a figure

strangely out of place. Rosas left "the elements of discord time to

destroy themselves"; an invulnerable dictator, he watched over the

obscure process of national gestation, isolating his people,

detesting the foreigner, as though he wished to prepare the way, free

from all perturbing influences, for the fusion of antagonistic races,

the purging of local hatreds, and the harmonious life of men,

traditions, and provinces within a plastic and fruitful organism.

From {142} chaos a spontaneous federation was to spring, of the North

American type; as in the formation of the United States, the

provinces, in possession of their autonomy, concluded pacts of union.

Such was the federal pact of 1831, between the provinces of the

seaboard--Corrientes, Entre-Rios, Buenos-Ayres, and Santa-Fé; such,

twenty years later, was the Constitution of 1853.

Pacts and charters recognised "the sovereignty, liberty, and

independence of each of the provinces."

The work of Rosas was profoundly Argentine. It presents a triple

civilising significance; it overcame the partial _caudillos_,

conquered the wilderness, and founded an organic confederation.

Traditional, for it respected ancient liberties; opportunist, adapted

at the critical moment of national evolution, for it prevented the

disaggregation of the provinces by the labours of unconscious

leaders. Like Porfirio Diaz, Rosas destroyed the provincial

_caudillos_; he was a Machiavelli of the pampas. He dissembled his

unificatory aims; he caused division among the governors, stimulated

their mutual hatred, presided over their quarrels; he grouped or

isolated his disciples, who cut a lively figure on the hustings.

When the power of Quiroga increased, he protected Lopez, and exposed

the former to the hatred of the Reinafé; Quiroga once murdered, he

had the latter accused. He expected the governors to submit to his

_exequatur_; the demi-gods fell before the stroke of his imperial

axe. "Rosas is the Louis XI. of Argentine history," said Ernesto

Quesada, with justice; for over the heads of the feudal barons he

raised a magnificent Unitarian structure; he was the creator of

Argentine nationality.

[Illustration: ROSAS, THE ARGENTINE TYRANT. (1829-1852.) To face p.

142.]

Rosas surrounded himself with chosen men: the Lopez, Anchorenas,

Mansillas, Sarrateas, Riglos. The cultivated classes demanded a

strong government, renounced their liberty with a Dionysiac {143}

delight, and conferred "unlimited power" upon Rosas. The tyrant

governed, in short, above the law and above custom. He enacted laws

to prohibit the carnival, that popular souvenir of the pagan

Bacchanalia, and to establish the rules of mourning; he himself was

the law, was reason, was the _logos_; intoxicated with docility, a

whole nation bowed before his Cæsarian will, without hierarchic

distinctions. His rule was a supreme levelling, a universal

servitude; the Terror. Rosas, impelled and favoured by the supreme

traditions of a race, became the Cæsar of a democracy.

_Gauchos_ and negroes supported him; with the aid of the people he

subjected the ruling classes. He unified; he destroyed social

privileges; he inverted the order of the hierarchies in the

Unitarian, aristocratic city. His political methods were of the

simplest. Instinctively he applied infallible psychological truths.

He knew the power of repetition, of habit, of formulæ; he understood

the enervating effect of panic; the effect of vivid colours and

sounding words upon the half-breed mob. "Federation or death!" he

reiterated, in his proclamations. "Savages, infamous

Unitarians--impious Unitarians," one read day by day in the journals,

and in official documents; that vivid colour, red, was the symbol of

federalism. Rosas wrote to Lopez: "Repeat the word, savage! repeat

it to satiety, to boredom, to exhaustion."

What such influences did not obtain was produced by that effectual

levelling agent, terror. Rosas crushed rebellious wills; he

overpowered his enemies, the impious, infamous, savage Unitarians; he

was the Jacobin of the Federation. A prætorian legion, the

_Mazorca_, chopped off such heads as raised themselves. He was a

fanatical democrat, a lay Inquisitor; if he discovered a political

heresy he condemned it without pity. As national _caudillo_ he {144}

protected religion, attracted the clergy, and attacked the

Unitarians, not only because they were savage, but also because they

were impious. Like Portales, he made a tool of religion. He

defended the "patrons," and condemned the Jesuits as conspirators,

not from religious motives. The clergy saw in him the man chosen by

God "to preside over the destinies of the country which saw his

birth." Rosas governed according to tradition and history by making

use of the hatred of the masses and classes, the fanaticism of the

mob, the servility of the natives; he was therefore a Catholic and a

democrat.

Like all great American dictators, Rosas proved to be an eminent

administrator of the public finances. In a time of national

disturbance and military expenditure he displayed an extraordinary

zeal in organising and publishing the national accounts. His method

was simple rather than scrupulous; he appointed honest men to high

representative posts. The official journals published the fiscal

balance-sheet monthly; receipts and expenditure, the fluctuations of

paper-money, and the state of the national debt. Rosas was vigorous

in assuring the service of the external debt; he accumulated neither

loans nor fresh taxes. His economic policy was orderly and

far-seeing. To him we owe the construction of many of the public

works of Buenos-Ayres, including a magnificent promenade, Palermo,

where he built his autocratic residence. His invulnerable

dictatorship was based upon material progress and fiscal order.

He was also the defender of the continent against European invasion.

Like Juarez and Guzman-Blanco, he professed a jealous individualism;

his work was bound up with race and territory. Continuing the

revolutionary movement of 1810, he desired not merely freedom from

Spain but autonomy against the whole world.

In the twenty-four years, 1829 to 1852, Rosas {145} made federal

unity a reality. He was first of all governor and leader of the

_gauchos_; in 1835 he won the absolute power for five years, which

term was extended by several re-elections. Before him was the

anarchy of 1820 and the Unitarian bankruptcy of 1826; after him, the

powerful unity of 1853 and 1860, and the triumphal progress of the

Argentine democracy. Between this discord and this unity came his

fruitful despotism, a necessary Terror. His dictatorship was more

efficacious than the autocracy of Guzman-Blanco or the ecclesiastic

tyranny of Garcia-Moreno. Porfirio Diaz and Portales, two founders

of political unity, were his disciples. He was the builder of a

practicable federation, because he was a _gaucho_ and could interpret

the inner voices of his race; he governed as an American, without

borrowing anything from European methods. Without him anarchy would

have been perpetuated, and the vice-kingdom of La Plata would have

been irremediably disintegrated. Like the Roman deity Janus, Rosas

had two faces; he closed one epoch and opened another; a past of

warfare and terror and a future of unity, peace, democratic

development, and industrial progress.

He defended the country against the territorial aggression of foreign

coalitions, and his own power against conspiracy and revolt; against

the avenging stanzas of Marmol, the aggressive journalism of Rivera

Indarte, and Varela, the rude pamphlets of Sarmiento, and the

meticulous dialectic of Alberdi. To Unitarian insult he opposed the

bloody campaign of the _Mazorqueros_; to European tutelage, the

individualism of the _gauchos_.

Rivadavia was thesis, Facundo antithesis, Rosas synthesis. The first

represented absolute unity; the second, anarchical multiplicity; the

third, unity in multiplicity, plurality co-ordinated, union without

violent simplification. Rivadavia comprehended the {146} necessity

of the supremacy of Buenos-Ayres, built as it was upon the ocean that

brought men and wealth; he stood for the fundamental unity of La

Plata. Facundo, in the place of this premature unification, erected

the autonomous province, pure and simple, but diverse. Rosas brought

about the final harmony of the forces of Argentine politics. He

united, like Rivadavia; he separated, like Facundo; he dominated the

capital city, and moderated provincialism; he painfully founded the

Confederation. His renown reached Europe; Lord Palmerston was his

friend; great foreign journals, such as the Times, the _Journal des

Débats_, the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_, discussed his policy and his

influence. Alberdi recognised that he contributed to the repute of

the Argentine abroad by his heroic defence of his territory. His

cruelty was effectual, his barbarism patriotic.

"_Como hombre te perdono mi carcel y cadenas;

Pero como Argentine, las de mi patria, no!_"[2]

cried Marmol. They were necessary chains, for they bound the country

together after the feudal dispersion, vanquished the resolvent forces

of provincialism, and gave unity and strength to democracy.

After Rosas, his political work, the confederation, survives in spite

of the ambitions of Buenos-Ayres. A logical development confirms the

ties that unite the provinces, grouping and organising all the

national forces about the capital city. In eighty-six years, from

the anarchy of 1820 to the glory of the Centenary, the Argentine has

seen a transformation of race, of policy, of wealth, of culture, of

history; Argentina is now a great Latin nation, which will soon

possess the moral and intellectual hegemony of South America.

[1] Carlos Octavio Bunge, in his remarkable book, _Nuestra America_,

gives the struggle between the capital and the provinces a racial and

economic character. He distinguishes three periods of evolution:

from 1810 to 1816 the Creole half-breeds contend with the "Goths";

from 1816 to 1825 the rural masses rise against the rich middle

classes of the provinces; from 1825 to 1830 Buenos-Ayres--the capital

city, rich, and Creole--enters upon a conflict with the provincial

cities--Indian or mestizo.

[2] "As man I forgive you my prison and my chains, but as Argentine,

those of my country--no!"

{147}

BOOK III

_THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY IN MEXICO,

CHILI, BRAZIL, AND PARAGUAY_

These republics have stood aside from the normal evolution of

Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia; they have known neither perpetual

revolutions nor lasting anarchy. Social progress has been

accomplished under the pressure of long-continued tutelage; the

principle of authority has been a safeguard against disorder and

licence. These are the more stable and less liberal peoples. In

them liberty is not a spontaneous gift by charter, but something won

from selfish oligarchies or tenacious despots. Such is the case in

Mexico, Chili, Brazil, and Paraguay.

{149}

CHAPTER I

MEXICO: THE TWO EMPIRES--THE DICTATORS

The Emperor Iturbide--The conflicts between Federals and

Unitarians--The Reformation--The foreign Emperor--The dictatorship of

Porfirio Diaz--Material progress and servitude--The Yankee influence.

In Mexico we find an alternation of revolutions and dictators. The

principle of authority is supreme; it even gives rise to two empires

and a permanent presidency; there has always been a well-organised

monarchical party. Modern Mexico demonstrates the excellence of

strong governments in a divided continent.

The Aztec nation was born into freedom in 1821, after the

capitulations of Cordoba. The Viceroy O'Donoju recognised the

triumph of Iturbide, and the rights of Mexico; the Spanish leader and

the patriot _caudillo_ decided upon the creation of an empire which

should conserve the rights of Ferdinand VII., like the _juntas_ of

South America; the creation of a constituent congress, and the

nomination of a provisional government, which should preside over the

destinies of the nation during the indecision of the twilight of the

old _régime_.

Iturbide very shortly came forward as an incarnation of the national

characteristics; he was actuated by an imperious ambition, and

haunted by the triumphs of Napoleon. He had studied the classics,

and was a brilliant and persuasive orator. His courage and activity

and his dominating character {150} won him a sudden popularity.

Bolivar, in a letter to Riva-Agüero, said: "Bonaparte in Europe,

Iturbide in America: these are the two most extraordinary men that

modern history has to offer." The clergy, the Mexican nobility, the

troops, and the lower classes, who regarded him as the liberator of

their country, flocked around him. Congress was in part hostile;

Generals Bustamente and Santa-Ana supported him in the Assembly;

Generals Victoria and Guerrero attacked him. The deputies understood

that he aspired to absolutism, and that he aimed at becoming the heir

to the overlords of Anahouac. A prætorian revolution proclaimed him

"Constitutional Emperor of Mexico" on May 21, 1822. The political

opinion of the country was divided. The monarchists wanted a Spanish

prince; the republicans a federation, a democracy with full

liberties. Of these latter Iturbide said: "They were my enemies

because I was opposed to the establishment of a government which

would not have suited Mexico. Nature has produced nothing suddenly;

she acts by successive stages."[1] The Emperor responded to the

aspirations of the populace, and flattered the imagination of the

crowd by the pomp and pageantry of his coronation, and the splendour

of his Court; he was the national monarch, the creator of his

country, as were the feudal kings in Europe. Convinced of his

prestige and impelled by ambition, he dissolved Congress.

Thenceforward his government was menaced by _caudillos_, who defended

the violated constitution. Iturbide abdicated in May, 1823, and when

he returned to his country the sentence of death pronounced upon him

by contumacy was enforced. He was executed by shooting in 1824.

[Illustration: PASEO DE LA REFORMA, CITY OF MEXICO, ON INDEPENDENCE

DAY. (_From "Latin America, the Land of Opportunity," by the Hon.

John Barrett._)]

Santa-Ana, who had directed the revolution against the Emperor, was

the Mexican _caudillo_, as Facundo was the _caudillo_ of the

Argentine pampas, or Paez {151} of the Venezuelan plains. He

professed no definite political doctrines; he was, first of all, a

radical reformer, but afterwards, with prudent opportunism, he

accepted the ideas of the conservatives. Crafty, ambitious,

ignorant, a democrat by instinct, he finally became the fetish of the

mob, the hero of the civil wars; as president, as general, as supreme

authority, he governed his divided country. Between Iturbide and

Juarez, between emperor and reformer, he was for twenty years a

sombre and overpowering figure. His triumph in 1824 ratified the

policy of federalism; the Constitution recognised two chambers; the

presidential term was four years; the judicial power was irremovable,

and the provincial assemblies elected the national Senate. Under

this system General Victoria became president. It was then that a

fear of Spain and the monarchy resulted in a policy of

_rapprochement_ with the great Northern republic. The _yorkina_

lodges, radical in spirit, acquired considerable influence, and

worked in favour of a North American hegemony; the prestige of the

ancient Scotch lodges, on the other hand, decreased.

Santa-Ana led a new revolution which gave the Presidency to General

Guerrero; General Bustamente was Vice-President. The economic crisis

was accentuated by these successive revolts; the Government was

carried on by means of onerous loans; the increasing debt drained the

Treasury, and discontent evoked another revolution. A supporter of

Iturbide, General Bustamente, autocratic and conservative, was

proclaimed President; he had the previous ruler, Guerrero, shot,

stifled the provincial rebellions, and re-established internal order.

A civil war forced him, in 1832, to compromise with the director of

all these political conflicts, Santa-Ana.

With him the liberals triumphed, and a social transformation

commenced. The liberals were the "new men," as in Venezuela, under

Guzman. The {152} colonial oligarchy, the republican bureaucracy,

the high clergy, and the wealthy classes composed the conservative

group which had founded the Empire with Iturbide, and desired royalty

with Lucas-Alaman. Against them rose the reforming democracy,

liberal or radical; it was a conflict of principles and classes. The

lawyers, the lesser clergy, and the coloured middle classes gained

the upper hand in 1833, and the great economic, social, and religious

reformation commenced; Juarez was presently to give it the dignity of

constitutionalism. In the struggle against the conservative and

monarchical Church the liberals disregarded ecclesiastical

jurisdiction, confiscated by mortmain the goods of the religious

communities, promoted lay education, and secularised the reactionary

University, as Garcia Moreno in Ecuador condemned the liberal

University, and, impelled by a pernicious radicalism, they suppressed

the army of a nation a prey to anarchy.

After Santa-Ana a coloured _caudillo_, Benito Juarez, was the leader

of the reformers (1839), and with him the liberal movement took on a

profoundly racial character. Juarez represented the natives, the

democracy, as against the colonial oligarchy; like Tupuc-Amaru, he

was the redeemer of the Indians; like Las Casas, the protector of the

vanquished. Better than Guzman-Blanco and Rosas he realised the

ideal of those American republics which were oppressed by memories of

colonial days; hatred of all privilege, a dream of absolute liberty,

war upon the tutelary Church, and a strict despotism designed to

create classes and ideals.

He proclaimed the separation of Church and State, and the

confiscation of ecclesiastical property. Lerdo de Tejada was the

economist and ideologist of the Reformation; Juarez was its muscle,

its iron will; he realised without compromise the old liberal

programme. Congress, divided into Juarists and anti-Juarists, {153}

elected him President. All the laws against the Church were applied,

but that did not enrich the country. Stock-jobbing, scandals, waste,

and bankruptcy accumulated and formed a terrible argument against the

"pure" liberals; the latter defended themselves by means of

proscriptions and new and violent laws of reform. Once more the

shadow of the Empire hovered over the turbulent democracy.

It was no longer a question of the national Empire of Montezuma or

Iturbide, but of the foreign eagles. Napoleon III., a conqueror by

family tradition, intervened in Mexican affairs; like Louis-Philippe,

he desired colonies oversea; he defended the Latin civilisation

against the Yankee peril, protected the Church against the

Reformation, and extended over barbarous countries the amiable empire

of the French spirit, the spirit of lucidity, method, and harmony.[2]

In 1861 the Mexican Congress suspended the service of the debt, as a

remedy against financial bankruptcy, and this measure provoked French

intervention; there was a crusade of ambitious creditors against

Mexico. England and Spain signed an agreement in London; both were

enemies of the insolvent democracy. The hatred of Mexico was then

excited against Spain; the Spanish Minister was expelled; the federal

Government refused to treat with the Spanish _chargé d'affaires_.

The Reformation general, Zaragoza, organised the country for defence

against the Spanish invasion; he was victorious at Puebla. The

Mexican resistance was concentrated upon the central plateau, where

dwelt the _penates_ of ancient Mexico. Zaragoza died; Puebla,

attacked by the French, defended itself heroically; the national war

became also a civil war. The monarchists desired a prince, the

restoration of the Catholic Church, and {154} the consolidation of

the conservative oligarchy; the clergy shared their ambitions. The

Archduke Maximilian arrived, to whom the conservatives had offered

the throne of Iturbide, and from 1863 to 1864, after some hardly

contested battles, the invaders ruled the country. Maximilian,

surrounded by the aristocrats, triumphantly entered the Aztec

capital, and the people, overpowered by the splendour of the new

court, accepted the foreign monarch.

This monarch, pompous and ambitious, wished, like Napoleon III., to

found a "liberal empire," a democratic kingdom; he did not condemn

the Reformation, but professed to be anxious to assist it and to

purge it of its Jacobin origin. Heir to the viceroys and dictators,

Maximilian re-established the right of "patronage" and favoured

religious tolerance. A few reformers applauded his liberalism, but

neither liberals nor conservatives were satisfied; the former because

they had dreamed of a secular republic, the latter because they

wished for a clerical monarchy. The revolution continued. The

Emperor, effaced like any Mikado, did not govern; his tycoon, General

Bazaine, at the head of a French army, was the real source of

authority.

[Illustration: BENITO JUAREZ. President of Mexico in the struggle

against the French invasion. To face p. 154.]

His presidential term ending in 1865, Juarez proclaimed himself

Dictator in order to continue his resistance against the Empire,

which, between a monarch and a general, between the discontented

clericals and the aggressive reformers, was tottering to its fall.

The North American Republic condemned the monarchy in the name of the

Monroe doctrine: this was intervention against intervention. The War

of Secession in the United States was over, and the States feared

their Imperial neighbour. From that time fortune abandoned the

Mexican monarch. Napoleon III. had occasion to withdraw his troops;

Prussia, ambitious of hegemony in Europe, and victorious at Sadowa,

was causing him {155} uneasiness. He advised Maximilian to abdicate;

but the Emperor was by no means willing to give way; he had become a

reactionary, and vigorously defended his Imperial dignity. The

tragic hour of desertion and disaster struck, and the Mexican

revolution was prolonged (1866). Porfirio Diaz, escaping from

Puebla, which was besieged by the French, organised the reconquest of

Mexico at Guerrero. Sombre and virile, he took refuge on the high

plateau, as did the Gothic king in the mountains of Asturia. He

captured Puebla after a day's glorious fighting. Surrounded by

Republican troops, Maximilian took refuge at Queretaro; he was taken

prisoner with his army and the best of his generals. He was

condemned to death, and Juarez, inflexible as the Aztec gods, refused

to show mercy. The Emperor was executed at Queretaro on the 19th of

June, 1867. On the following day Mexico yielded to the legions of

Diaz. The Reformation had vanquished two emperors and erected two

scaffolds. In these struggles Juarez, the half-breed _caudillo_, and

Porfirio Diaz, the invincible general, had acquired a lasting

influence, and Juarez, as President and Dictator, proceeded to

organise the country. He strengthened the executive power against

anarchy, endeavoured to found a conservative Senate, maintained order

by means of a disciplined army, and improved the condition of

finances by severe economies. His ministers, better educated and

more intelligent than their leader, realised sweeping reforms while

he gathered the victorious generals about him. The new Government

entrusted the Preparatory School to a great educator, Gabino Barreda;

like Rivadavia in the Argentine, it applied itself to the moral and

material transformation of the country. It protected foreign

capital, established liberty of trade, favoured colonisation,

fostered irrigation, and commenced to build a railway from Vera-Cruz

{156} to Mexico. The ideal of Juarez was the education of the native

race, the nucleus of nationality; like Alberdi, he believed that

Protestantism would be a fruitful moral doctrine for the Indians.

"They need," he told Don Justo Sierra, "a religion which will force

them to read, not to spend their money on candles for the saints."

He established an industrial democracy, a secular State.

But between his political ideas and his dictatorial acts there was a

discrepancy which explains the ultimate sterility of his efforts.

"The only book he had read thoroughly was the _Politics_ of Benjamin

Constant, the apology of the parliamentary system."[3] Juarez relied

upon the democracy, on the governing Chambers; he aspired to a

position like that of a constitutional monarch; that of a glorified

spectator of the quarrels of parties. His ideas urged him toward

parliamentarism; his ambitions, to dictatorship. He professed to

conciliate all the national interests, to be the personification of

the Mexican democracy, but his dislikes were mean and paltry.

Severe, impassive, a great personality in his strength and his silent

tenacity, he had no great ideals; he was no orator, no leader of the

subject crowd. He was merely the supreme _cacique_ of a half-breed

nation.

[Illustration: JOSÉ IVES LIMANTOUR. Minister of Finance during the

Administration of General Diaz in Mexico. To face p. 156.]

Despite his government, anarchy continued in the States. The

soldiers who had conquered in the national war disturbed the domestic

peace of the nation by their ambitions; in Yucutan, Sonora, and

Puebla revolutions broke out, which Juarez energetically suppressed.

His presidential term at an end, he aspired to re-election, and

defeated Lerdo de Tejada, the financier, and the warrior Diaz; but

his victory was not lasting. The great revolution in which Diaz

figured commenced, and Juarez died in the midst of the struggle for

power. Lerdo de Tejada, who continued the reforms already {157}

commenced, was the next President; with him liberal principles

figured definitely in the Mexican constitution. Lerdo strengthened

the central power, and started a campaign against the _cacicazgos_,

the tyrants of the Sierra, and founded a tutelary Senate. He, like

Juarez, aspired to re-election, and a fresh rising at Tuxtepec

prepared the way for his fall. The Supreme Court considered itself

authorised to examine the titles of the presidential candidates, and

invalidated his re-election. By 1877 the Revolution had conquered

the country.

It imposed upon Mexico the hero of the re-conquest, Porfirio Diaz,

who became the new national _caudillo_, inheriting the Imperial

ambitions of Iturbide, the craft of Santa-Ana, and the moral

dictatorship of Juarez.

The country was disorganised, its credit in the European markets was

destroyed; its national finances were in disorder. The blood-stained

soil was divided among petty _caciques_; radicalism led to demagogy

and liberty to anarchy. Jacobinism had triumphed with the

Revolution, and condemned the re-election of presidents and the

conservative Senate; the omnipotence of the popular Chamber was

proclaimed. The result was a feeble and ephemeral government; in the

absence of a moderating power the radical Assembly was supreme. A

man was needed to organise chaos; Porfirio Diaz was the necessary

autocrat, the "representative man" of Emerson.

Stern and gloomy, he was preparing for the priesthood. Born in 1830,

he was brought up in poverty. A half-breed, he combined the courage

of the Iberian with the dissimulation of the native. He knew the

efficacy of work, perseverance, and method; he was extremely

ignorant, but was shrewd and perspicacious. He was six times elected

President, for the last time in 1900, and peace was coterminous {158}

with his rule. A great hunter and a master of manly exercises, his

intensity of will-power was supported by solid physical foundations.

Above all he was a man of action; his character was served by a

robust organisation; a powerful frame and a vast power of resistance

enabled him to rule and to intimidate. His intelligence applied

itself to concrete things; it was unable to examine facts in the

transforming light of an ideal; he had no general ideas, no spacious

plans; he was slow in deliberation and rapid in action. His politics

were an organised Machiavellism; like Louis XL, he divided that he

might reign and dissembled that he might conquer. His ideas of

government were simple: "Not much politics and plenty of

administration," said his deeds and his programmes.

Machiavelli, in _The Prince_, taught the means of ruling in states

which have had autonomous governments; he suggested the implacable

extermination of the reigning families. General Diaz followed this

counsel in part. To overcome anarchy he attacked the obscure tyrants

of the provinces, and had them shot or exiled, or else he attached

them to himself by means of honours and rewards. He imposed peace by

means of terror. He knew that order was the practical basis of

progress, as in the formula of Comte, which the Mexicans are fond of

quoting, and this order he firmly established.

The destruction of the revolutionary instinct constituted the

negative side of his work; Diaz built upon this foundation an

industrial republic, practical and laborious. Weary of barren

ideologies, he put the Reformation and its Jacobin doctrines out of

his mind, accepted and encouraged the Yankee influence which had made

Lerdo de Tejada so uneasy, conquered barbarism and the desert by

means of the railway, and raised a number of loans. He was the

president of an industrial epoch.

{159}

His economic labours were imposing; in twenty-five years Mexico was

transformed from a divided republic into a modern State, from a

bankrupt nation into a prosperous and highly solvent people. Diaz

recalls the gods who built cities and filled the earth with the gold

of fruitful grain, and taught the virtues of the metals and of fire.

"Modern Mexico," writes the _Times_ in 1909, "is the creation of the

genius of General Diaz; he is the greatest statesman the

transatlantic Latin communities have produced since their

foundation." This organiser of peace astonished the old-established

nations, who listened attentively to the fruitful words of light

which fell from the lips of the Aztec demigod.

In 1884 Diaz commenced to reorganise the finances of his country. He

was seconded in his task by eminent secretaries like Limantour and

clever financiers like Romero and Macedo. The gold of the United

States invaded the market; it was employed in the construction of

railways and in industrial undertakings. In 1905 Limantour

established the gold standard as basis of the monetary system. The

service of the debt was regularised by agreement with foreign

creditors; the budgets ceased to present deficits; in ten years the

surplus reached a sum of seven million pesos. By 1894 the exports

were in excess of the imports. Thanks to this favourable commercial

balance, credit increased, and industries were multiplied; the

exuberant national prosperity attracted foreign capital and settled

it in the country. Here are some figures touching this progress. In

1876, at the beginning of Diaz's rule, the Mexican imports amounted

to 28 millions of pesos (silver) and the exports to 32 millions; in

1901 the amount of the former was 143 millions and of the latter 148

millions. The imports, a proof of the wealth of the {160} country,

had increased fivefold; the exports, a sign of agricultural and

mineral production, had increased almost in proportion. In twenty

years (1880-1900) the yield of the mining industry increased from 24

to 60 millions, and in the same period 20 banks were founded. A loan

of 40 million dollars was contracted in 1904, being issued at 94,

bearing 4 per cent interest, on the sole security of the national

credit; that is, the security usual in such transactions in the case

of the great European nations. In ten years the budget has doubled,

increasing from 50 to 100 millions. The surplus of the fiscal

revenue is devoted to decreasing the burden of taxation, and in

providing the country with fine and spacious public edifices. The

service of the foreign debt has been secured with a continuity rare

in America, more than 30 per cent. of certain budgets having been

used for that purpose. The result of the industrial evolution of the

country is proving to the detriment of agriculture, as in the Germany

of Bismarck and the Russia of Count Witte; looms, paper-mills,

hat-factories, &c., have been established. The national requirements

being satisfied, the products of agriculture are exported--tobacco,

rubber, and sugar. The network of railways is being greatly

extended, and irrigation works are being installed. Colonies of

Boers have settled in Mexico. The invasion of capital goes on

unchecked, as does the development of the economic life of the

country, and its political progress, revealed by its external credit.

Thus, the President, by means of sound money, steady finance, and

foreign gold, has founded a practical republic. He has overcome the

traditional revolts--the ardour of the Jacobins and racial

passions--by a utilitarian campaign; he has created a quiet and

peaceful State, in which nothing is to be heard but the sound of its

factories. A great {161} leveller, he has been, according to the

Spanish tradition, a Cæsar at the head of a democracy, the arbiter of

national conflicts, the supreme _caudillo_, obedient to the voices of

tradition.

Sierra, the Athenian minister, and Bulnes, the tempestuous historian,

exalt him in admirable dithyrambics. Sierra states that Diaz created

"the political religion of peace." But in the Aztec nation this cult

demands its sacrifices. Bulnes considers that the Dictator procured

peace by "the system of Augustus as expounded by Machiavelli"; he

gave the _caciques_ "riches and honours," but not the government.

And, in fact, Porfirio Diaz has built up the new Mexico by freeing it

from the sectarian struggles and the foreign invasion which

threatened to destroy it; but his work has been marred by

uncertainty, and a heavy shadow has weighed on uneasy spirits.[4]

The President at last abdicated his powers after a bloody revolution,

and it is not easy to say whether or no his removal will not result

in anarchy or new Dictators. His minister, Sierra, has written that

the political system of the Dictator "is terribly dangerous for the

future, for it imposes customs which are contrary to self-government,

without which there may be great men, but not a great people"; and

Bulnes says: "The personal _régime_ is magnificent as an exception,"

for "under its empire a people grows accustomed to expect everything

as a favour and a grace; to be the slave of the first who strikes it,

or the shameless prostitute of the first to caress it."

These criticisms prove that General Diaz has not applied the British

methods of preparation for self-government by means of a firm

tutelage. Those who condemn his long autocracy say that he enervated

{162} men's minds by means of terror, and has accentuated the Aztec

gloom by a narrow and monotonous absolutism. Dictatorships are not

societies of freemen; they give humanity uniformity and servility.

In abandoning the supreme power after establishing order and peace,

by presiding as moral authority over the free development of

republican institutions, Porfirio Diaz, like Don Pedro in Brazil,

might have been the supreme educator of the democracy.

He governed with the aid of the "scientific" party--a group which

believes in the virtue and power of science, exiles theology and

metaphysics, denies mystery, and confesses utilitarianism as its

practice and positivism as its doctrine. The Mexican politicians, in

renouncing Catholicism after the Reformation and the passing of the

Jacobin laws, have not abandoned dogma and absolutism in doctrine and

in life. As in modern Brazil, positivism in becoming the official

doctrine. The heirs of Juarez are slowly returning to Catholicism;

they aspire to definite certitudes; they have their "Syllabus." In

the President political majesty and the religious pontificate were

united, as in the Muscovite Czars and the Spanish kings.

In the restoration of the colonial order Juarez and Lerdo de Tejada

attracted European capital, for the Yankee supremacy troubled them.

Against this policy, which was based on racial interests, General

Diaz protected North American capital; bankers and adventurers

invaded the country, dominated its industries, and built railways.

How check the fatal current which brings the all-conquering gold from

the North? The national transformation is the work of the magnates

of Wall Street; Mexico is becoming a "zone of influence" for the

United States.

[Illustration: GENERAL PORFIRIO DIAZ. President of Mexico (1876-1880

and 1884-1909). To face p. 162.]

The scientific party, intoxicated by an orgy of utilitarianism, has

not sought to arrest the great {163} plutocracy of the North by means

of European alliances.

Unity, wealth, peace: these are the magnificent features of modern

Mexico, the admirable work of the Dictatorship. The Yankee peril;

lay dogmas which fetter intellectual evolution; a level of

utilitarian mediocrity without ideals of expansion, without culture,

without the true Latin characteristics; popular ignorance and fresh

revolutions: these are the disturbing aspects of this long period of

tutelage. If the country triumphs over the obscure agents of

dissolution, the influence of Porfirio Diaz will be as durable as

that of Pedro II. or Portales or Rosas.

[1] _Memoires autographes_, Paris, 1824, p. 28.

[2] The brilliant Mexican historian Bulnes states that French

intervention was "the revolt of Napoleon III. against the Monroe

doctrine" (_El verdadero Juarez_, Mexico, 1904, p. 816).

[3] Bulnes, ibid., p. 101.

[4] Diaz pacified Mexico by means of the weapon employed by

Rosas--fear. Bandits and revolutionaries were shot. His victims are

said to have numbered 11,000.

{164}

CHAPTER II

CHILI: A REPUBLIC OF THE ANGLO-SAXON TYPE

Portales and the oligarchy--The ten-years Presidency--Montt and his

influence--Balmaceda the Reformer.

In Chili the course of political evolution has been entirely

original. Her first years of republican life were as troublous as

those of the Argentine, Bolivia, and Peru; it was an age of anarchy.

Carrera, the dictator, overthrew four governments; there were

mutinies in the barracks, and quarrels among the generals; the

Dictator O'Higgins fell in 1823; a _junta_ followed him, and after

the _junta_ four governors, Freire, Blanco Encalada, Eyzaguirre, and

Vicuña--ephemeral figures which a turbulent democracy set up and

destroyed. They occupied the centre of the moving scene for some few

months, and were seen no more. During the administration of Pinto,

from 1827 to 1829, there were no less than five revolutions.

Federation was attempted in a country essentially Unitarian; the

Congresses were disruptive assemblies; and in 1828 and 1829 an

obscure demagogy rose in revolt against the guardians of social

order. The national life was chaotic: vandalism in the country,

commerce paralysed, industry at a standstill, finance in disorder,

credit vanished, and politics revolutionary. The parties were

struggling for power; the "old wigs," _pelucones_, or conservatives,

and the "white-beaks," _pipiolos_, or liberals. The latter governed

a people {165} in love with liberty. The political orgy continued

until 1830; the Chilian people went from liberty to licence, and from

licence to barbarism. At last the demagogy was checked by a man of

superior powers, Diego Portales, founder of the Araucanian nation.

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, SANTIAGO, CHILE. (_From "Latin

America, the Land of Opportunity" by the Hon. John Barrett._) To face

p. 164.]

The social constitution of Chili, the contact of the castes, and the

traditions of the country all favoured his work of organisation. A

narrow territory, whose racial action must be unifying, and a long

coast-line, evoking the desire of adventure and expansion; these are

the geographical basis of a homogeneous race. The Araucanians do not

exhibit the gloomy passivity of the Quechuas and Aymaras; they are

rude and warlike. Miscegenation has not, as in Peru and Brazil, been

complicated by Asiatic and African strains; it has been simple,

without the terrible "hybridisms" of other countries. Hence national

unity and historical continuity. Over the servile mass reigns,

haughty and remote, a narrow oligarchy formed of austere and positive

Basques, deliberate Anglo-Saxons, merchants, and sailors.

No slaves, as in the tropics, but _inquilinos_, feudal serfs of

territorial barons. The oligarchy is agricultural, and therefore

stable and profoundly national. In short, we have a copy of

Anglo-Saxon society, or of the first Roman Republic; a false

democracy governed by absolute overlords.

With these strong conservative elements, Portales constructed an

austere nation. He was born in 1793, and was thirty-seven years old

at the time of his first intervention in political life. He was a

"new" man, a merchant, with precise ideas. He had the suggestive

power of the _caudillos_, a concrete intelligence, a moderate

education, a strong will, some power of reflection and authority. He

might well become the leader of a race that knew nothing of lyric

enthusiasms nor enticing dreams--the sensible {166} director of a

practical people. Minister under Ovalle in 1830, he profited by the

victory of General Prieto over the _pipiolos_. His conservative,

authoritative ideas carried him into power. He never wished to be

President, but a powerful minister, like Disraeli or Bismarck. Three

or four simple and concrete ideas guided him in politics; in the

first place, the organisation of Chili against anarchy. Religion is

one of the forces of order, and Portales, like Garcia-Moreno,

utilised it without going so far as theocracy; the principle of

authority is necessary in order to organise a country, and the leader

of the _pelucones_ demanded a strong executive with extraordinary

faculties. Between two excesses--autocracy and demagogy--he inclined

rather toward the former, and became a minister-dictator.

Portales governed against disorder; he dismissed the revolutionary

leaders, and men he divided into good and bad. He surrounded himself

with "good" men: they were, naturally, conservatives. He hated

_sargentadas_ (barrack mutinies); he educated the soldiers, and

founded a national guard as a counter-check to militarism. He

destroyed the bandits who infested the country. Primary and normal

schools were opened, in which he favoured religious instruction. A

severe economy was introduced into the national finances. His work

was given legal and economic form by a Peruvian jurist, Juan Egana,

and a Minister of Finance, Tocornal.

The minister wished his work to share the majesty of things eternal;

his personal and passing influence on life was not enough to satisfy

him. He had thoughts of a statute, an inflexible mould for the

future. The Constitution of 1833, which others promulgated under his

sovereign ægis, so to speak, was his political legacy.

This Constitution created a conservative Senate and a strong

Executive; the first was to defend tradition, {167} the second to

direct the progress of the nation. The provincial assemblies,

vestiges of federalism, were suppressed, and the municipalities were

entrusted with the public services. In case of internal trouble, the

President could declare a state of siege and suspend the

constitutional guarantees; but he could neither judge nor apply

penalties. The departments elected the deputies; a limited suffrage

appointed the senators; their mandate was for nine years. Patronage

was organised, and the Church became a State institution, for it

defended property, order, and the "good ideas" of the _pelucones_: it

consecrated the oligarchy, pure and simple.

This Constitution explains the slow progress of Chili in matters of

liberalism, her long domestic peace, and the lasting hegemony of an

oligarchic group. Alberdi attributed the Chilian peace to "a

vigorous Executive" and the Constitution of 1833.

This statute once a reality, Portales quietly organised the country;

he imposed order "by reason or by force." He retired from power,

and, in consequence, the conservative party passed through a crisis,

during which Rengijo and Tocornal were in conflict; but Portales

reappeared, as Minister of War, under Prieto, and Tocornal, the

eminent financier, was at his side. The _caudillo_ of order resumed

his work of organisation with incomparable activity; his patriotic

ambition was not satisfied by his triumphs over intestine quarrels.

He realised that Chili was a maritime nation, commercial and

oligarchical, like Carthage, and he aspired to the domination of the

ocean.

In the north, under the leadership of Santa-Cruz, Peru and Bolivia

had united. Portales feared this confederation, intervened in the

affairs of Peru, sent two expeditions against Santa-Cruz, and

fomented anarchy in Peru. He destroyed the great work of the great

Bolivian _cacique_, and for half a century {168} his imperialism made

progress. Peru had wealth, brilliance, and tradition; Chili deprived

her of the hegemony of the Pacific in a four-years war (1879-84).

The work of Portales was considerable. He established peace in the

interior, and excited the ambition to rule; he organised the country

under a strong authority, aided by a tutelary Church; he fostered

wealth and material progress; he built highways and railroads. A

Constitution was to establish his moral dictatorship for a period of

fifty years. The liberals themselves--Lastarria, Huneeus

Gana--recognised his masterly action in a time of disorder. A

conservative, Walker Martinez, wrote a brilliant _apologia_ for his

work. Vicuña Mackenna, the historian, wrote that "he was rather a

great mind than a great character," though his life's work, from the

repression of anarchy to the Peruvian war, proves plainly that he was

rather a great character than a great mind. Portales died in 1833 by

the hand of an assassin.

Manuel Montt continued his political work. His minister, Antonio

Varas, assisted him, as Tocornal had assisted the leader of the

_pelucones_. These conservative minds began to govern in 1851, and

the re-election of Montt in 1856 prolonged their term of action; this

was the "Decenniate," a period of bloodstained autocracy. The

Monttvarists became a national party; they defended order to the

death, by violence and dictatorship, first of all against the

radicals, and later against the radicals and the _pelucones_. These

ten years of disastrous organisation divided two periods: the

conservative period of Prieto and Portales, and the liberal period of

Perez and Errazuriz.

A liberalism better defined than that of the _pipiolos_ was causing

the champions of order some uneasiness. The eloquence of a tribune,

Matta, the patriarch of {169} radicalism, the propaganda of Bilbao

and Lastarria, and the work of revolutionary clubs, such as the

"Society of Equality," formed a party of romantic youth eager to

sacrifice itself for its ideals. Montt and Varas opposed it, and

exiled or condemned to death the future liberals--Santa-Maria, Vicuña

Mackenna, &c. They considered that Chili was not yet sufficiently

prepared for the theoretical liberties upheld by Lastarria and

Bilbao; they sought to promote education of the British type, with a

view to liberty and self-government. They were the representative

personages of the Creole oligarchy, a powerful conservative force,

rude and beneficent. Dictatorial repression did not destroy

liberalism; the presidents of the future were to be liberals, and

Montt himself slowly changed the direction of his policy. In 1858,

in the last years of the decenniate, the _pelucones_ attacked him

because he tolerated the Protestant religion in Valparaiso.

Under the Monttvarist government, as under the dictatorship of

Guzman-Blanco and Garcia-Moreno, the country progressed in an

economic sense. Railways, highroads, and telegraph lines were

constructed. Montt fostered agriculture and the colonisation of the

soil in the south by means of credit banks; he opened nearly five

hundred schools, and also founded a national bank. Maritime commerce

increased, and the public revenue was doubled during the Decenniate;

finally, the admirable civil code of Andres Bello, promulgated in

1857, gave discipline and stability to the civil life of the country.

Portales, Bello, Montt, and Varas organised Chili both politically

and socially.

After Montt, the presidencies of Perez, in 1861, of Errazuriz, in

1871, and of Santa Maria, in 1881, modified the conservative

tendencies of the country. All the conquests of the liberals--the

civil register, civil marriage, religious toleration--became laws of

{170} the State. Liberalism has not lessened the presidential

authority. Perez, like Montt, ruled for ten years. Long autocracies

and conservative constitutions explain the strength of Chili amid the

anarchy of South America.

Portales was the organising genius; Montt represented an epoch of

social defence; Balmaceda was the democratic reformer in an

oligarchic country, a liberal president in a time of conservative

traditions. Balmaceda is the greatest Chilian figure after Portales;

his presidency excited a revolution, and transformed the political

life of his people.

José Manuel Balmaceda belonged to the Chilian oligarchy. He was

descended from a very old colonial family. Juan de Balmaceda was

president of the _Real Audienca_, the king's tribunal, towards the

end of the eighteenth century. The name of the family reveals its

Basque origin. Balmaceda was born in Santiago in 1838. His father,

Don Manuel José Balmaceda, was a conservative, the possessor of vast

_latifundia_, as the head of a traditional family.

Balmaceda adopted democratic ideas. "Apostate" the conservatives

called him, forgetting that he had changed his doctrines, but had not

abandoned his original mysticism; he believed in liberty as he had

previously believed in the inflexible dogmas of the conservatives.

He belonged to the Reform Club of Santiago, in which a brilliant

younger generation upheld all the liberal idelas and romantic faiths

of 1848, the antitheses of the ideas of the _pelucones_ and the

Monttvarists. To the despotic executive he opposed electoral

liberty, a single-term presidency, autonomous municipalities, and the

restriction of presidential powers; to the Catholic oligarchy,

religious tolerance; to the traditions of authority, the formal

recognition of the rights of the press and the rights of assembly,

meeting and petition; to the confusion of the powers of the State,

their independence. {171} Balmaceda was the president of the Reform

Club. He did not attack the position of a traditional group with

plebeian fervour, as the avenger of an age of servitude; he left

their ranks, rich and patrician, to condemn their authority and their

privileges. It is the attitude of Winston Churchill in liberal

England.

Balmaceda had powerful tools at his disposal: personal wealth, the

basis of independence, a sympathetic creed, and a party which had

been growing powerful under the governments of Perez and Errazuriz.

We may distinguish three phases in his political action: as a deputy

he championed the laws of reform; as Minister of Foreign Affairs he

prevented the intervention of the United States in the Pacific war;

as President he increased the presidential power against the tyranny

of Congress. From 1870 to 1879 he was an impassioned

parliamentarian, believing in the efficacy of liberty against the

excesses of the conservative _régime_. In the Chamber, as deputy and

as Minister of the Interior and Religions, he supported the legal

measures of the liberals: secular burial, civil register and

marriage, and liberty of worship. In place of an absolute separation

of Church and State--not to be realised in Chili--he proposed the

union of the two powers on the basis of the traditional "patronage"

and religious liberty. He desired no radical reforms. "Let us

renounce," he said, "the idea of accomplishing everything in a short

space of time; let us beware of carrying our solutions, guided by a

spirit of rigorous abstraction, beyond what is required by the actual

needs of the moment for the correct application of liberal doctrine

and for the common happiness." Balmaceda, a radical in 1879,

moderated his ambitions ten years later, when he came to ask the

Chilian Parliament to pass his reforms.

{172}

Minister of Foreign Affairs under Santa-Maria in 1881, he

consolidated the victories of Chili in the war of the Pacific. The

military campaign was over, and Peru was vanquished, but was

defending her territorial integrity against the conquering ambition

of Arauco. What the armies had not been able to do diplomacy hoped

to effect. The intervention of the United States would have

proposed, as the solution of the war, peace without conquest; this

was the policy of Mr. Blaine, who dreamed of an America at lasting

peace under the golden reign of arbitration. A North American

minister, Mr. Trescott, brought the proposals of his government to

Chili. Garcia-Calderon, President of Peru, the champion of

territorial integrity and national union, stimulated the intervention

of the United States, but the mediators were inclined to treat the

victors with docility. President Garfield died, and the North

American policy changed. The Peruvian President was a prisoner of

Chili; from Rancagua to Quillota, from Santiago to Valparaiso, he was

the irreducible symbol of vanquished Peru. The United States

abandoned him; their policy finally became indecisive, turbid,

Machiavellic. Lima and Callao were occupied until 1883, when

Balmaceda succeeded in arranging the terms of peace, and the treaty

was signed which delivered over to Chili the riches of Southern Peru.

[Illustration: JOSE MANUEL BALMACEDA. President of Chile

(1886-1891). To face p. 172.]

The Imperialist minister had conquered; he aspired to the presidency

of his country. Santa-Maria put him forward, and public opinion

accepted him, proud of his diplomatic triumphs. An age of plenty

commenced; the ancient Chilian austerity was at an end. Balmaceda

governed with his energies increased a hundred-fold by the gold of

Peru, the moral power of victory, his ambitions as a statesman, and

the vocation for empire which a victorious war develops in the heart

of an energetic people.

{173}

Materially, he transformed Chili; morally, he presided over her

dissolution, or, at least, her decadence. Neither this degeneration

nor this progress was the exclusive work of the autocratic President.

Wealth enervates a sober people; it permits the erection of

monuments, but it weakens men's characters. Honest and far-sighted,

Balmaceda employed the millions he had drawn from the war in material

enterprises; he built schools throughout the country, special

institutes, mining and agricultural colleges, professional colleges;

he began the construction of new railways, of a breakwater at

Talcahuano, of palaces for the administrative services; he fortified

several ports, bought new ironclads, encouraged immigration, founded

military schools, and re-equipped the army. He suppressed

contributions, assured the service of the foreign debt, amortised

paper money, and demanded guarantees of the banks. When in Chili you

inquire as to the origin of a public works, a school, or a prison,

you will hear of Balmaceda. In finance, in education, and in

colonisation he effected a fundamental renaissance; he was the

master-builder among Presidents.

Balmaceda was raised to the presidency by three parties: the

liberals, the radicals, and the nationals; that is to say, by three

aspects of one central idea, varying from an attenuated liberalism

which verged on conservatism in its ideas (nationalism) to a violent

liberalism, verging on demagogy (radicalism). The Balmacedist

victory stifled all attempts at clerical reaction; Balmaceda was a

reformer. His ambition could not be satisfied by material progress

and practical advance. As ideologist, he applied abstract ideas to

politics. He wished to unite all the liberals in one preponderant

party, to ensure a still greater independence to the public powers,

judicial and municipal, and to despoil the executive of its

traditional attributes; to found an educated, liberal, {174}

military, and virile democracy as a check against the oligarchy, in

which democracy dreamers of every school could find their Utopia.

Between his character and his doctrines there was a grave

discrepancy. An autocrat by vocation and by temperament, because a

patrician, he nevertheless weakened the executive by the Municipal

Law, which established autonomous municipalities, and by the law of

incompatibilities, which conceded to Congress a complete independence

of the other powers. "The mandate of the deputy" declares this law

"is incompatible with the exercise of any paid public function." At

this hour of party confusion Balmaceda despoiled the executive of

efficacious agents in Parliament. He was thus, by a reform which,

ideally speaking, was perfect, preparing the way for serious future

conflicts.

The liberal President condemned the Constitution of 1833, the basis

of Chilian order; he believed that the new period demanded a new

statute. "Neither the desires of the country nor those of the

parties or groups now active," he wrote, "can adapt themselves to the

system of centralisation and authority consecrated by the

Constitution of 1833."[1] He criticised "the attributions which

devolve upon the chief of the Executive Power, the weakening of

initiative and of the local charters by excess of vigour in the

central power; the part played by the Executive in the formation of

the judicial power, its influence upon the elections, the functioning

of the legislative power, the centralisation of the administration,

and the works which foster material progress."

But by abandoning, by a sort of heroic suicide, the forces conferred

upon him by a traditional statute, Balmaceda paved the way for an

omnipotent Congress. _Pelucon_ by heredity, a cultured despot, he

{175} soon disregarded the power which he himself had raised above

the decadent presidency. The contradiction between his life and his

doctrines, his heredity and his ideals, gives his noble and patrician

figure the majesty of a character of Æschylus, ennobled at once and

annihilated by destiny. Balmaceda weakened the executive and put

forward official candidates; established the preponderance of

Congress and wished to have independent ministers; destroyed the

Constitution of 1833 and ruled as an autocrat. Renan compared

himself to the scholastic _hircocerf_, which bears within itself two

hostile natures; this was also the fate of Balmaceda.

His political ideal was that of Benjamin Constant; of Lamartine, of

Laboulaye. He accepted neither the despotism of the President nor

the tyranny of Congress.

Could the perfect equilibrium of the public powers be realised in

Chili, or was it merely the noble dream of an ideologist? Very soon

the omnipotence of a centralised government was replaced by the

dictatorship of anarchical Parliaments. The parties imposed

ministers upon Balmaceda, and presented him with lists of candidates,

among whom the President, powerless to refuse, was to choose his

counsellors.

It was a radical transformation, for from the time of Portales the

government had intervened in elections, had insisted upon presidents

and deputies. Balmaceda disregarded his own work, rebelled against

Congress, governed without a budget, defended the rights of the power

which he had destroyed by short-sighted legislation, and tried to

enforce his wishes as to the Presidency, in the traditional manner,

and Congress refused to accept his candidate. It has been truly said

that the government of Balmaceda was the crisis of electoral

intervention.[2] Parliament refused to pass the President's law of

contributions, {176} overturned his ministries, and protested against

the designation of an official candidate; as in the time of the

French Revolution, a revolutionary committee was formed in the heart

of the Chamber. The two dictatorships clashed. The revolution broke

forth in 1891; the fleet revolted; civil war divided families;

Congress fought for the Constitution, the Government for the

autocracy. From La Moneda Balmaceda directed a terrible war against

the combined forces of the fleet, the banks, and the Parliament. The

factions fought with lamentable ardour; it was a war of hatreds and

reprisals, bitter as a racial conflict. Two battles, Concon and La

Placilla, destroyed the power of the President.

The revolutionaries got the upper hand, invaded Valparaiso and

Santiago, and the Araucanian savages burned the dwellings of the

President's friends, and swept, brutal and drunken, through the

silent cities. Balmaceda took refuge in the Argentine Legation, and

his supporters hid, while a horde of vandals proceeded to reduce the

capital to ruins. The defeated President took on a stoic grandeur;

like a hero of Plutarch, he transformed his fall into an apotheosis;

he purified the local tragedy by catastrophe. Serene as a figure of

antiquity, he committed suicide, after drafting a noble political

testament. "Among those who are to-day my most violent persecutors,"

he wrote, "are the politicians of various parties whom I have heaped

with honours, whom I have exalted and served with enthusiasm. I am

in nowise surprised, neither by this inconsequence, nor by the

inconstancy of mankind.... All the founders of South American

independence have died in dungeons, in prison cells, or have been

assassinated, or have perished in proscription and exile. Such has

been civil war in the ancient as in the modern democracies. It is

only when one has witnessed the fury to which the victors in a civil

{177} war abandon themselves that one comes to understand why, of

old, the vanquished politician, even though he were the most unworthy

servant of the State, made an end by falling upon his own sword."

After these considerations of political philosophy, the firm

protestation of the hidalgo. He cannot submit to "the criterion of

judges whom he dismissed from their posts on account of their

revolutionary ideas." Two ways remained open to him: flight or

death, and he preferred the second, for it might lessen the

persecution and the woes to be endured by his friends. "I might

still escape," he says in his testament, "by leaving Chili, but this

expedient would not be consistent with my antecedents, nor my pride

as a Chilian and a gentleman. I am inevitably delivered over to the

judgment or the pity of my enemies, since the Constitution and the

laws have no longer any virtue. But you know, gentlemen (he is

addressing Claudio Vicuña and Julio Banados-Espinosa) that I am

incapable of imploring favour, or even benevolence, of men whom I

despise for their ambition and their lack of citizenship." He felt

that a great crisis, or a drama, requires a protagonist or a victim,

and he accepted his destiny to the death. Above the half-breed

_caudillos_, above the obscure crowd who swarm in palaces and

parliaments, hungering for power and display, rises this patrician

figure, towering and solitary.

In his political testament he condemns the existing system: "As long

as parliamentary government, as men have wished to practise it, and

as the triumphant revolution will uphold it, shall continue in Chili,

there will be no electoral liberty, no serious and permanent

organisation within the parties, nor peace between the groups in

Congress." His bitter prophecy is accomplished: an excessive and

sterile parliamentarism triumphed with the revolutionaries. From

Portales to Balmaceda the President was the supreme {178} authority;

after Balmaceda Congress governed, and the President, the slave of

the ruling groups, could neither dissolve Parliament nor appeal to a

popular referendum. The liberty of the vote has been won, but it

ratifies the tyranny of the Assemblies. The parties are fractional;

authority, the basis of Chilian greatness, has declined. A President

without initiative, an incoherent ministry, a Parliament divided and

uncertain: there is the political outlook. "The Government of

Congress is the Government of the parties, and these political

entities exist in Chili only in the shape of antipathies or

memories."[3]

The Balmacedist party itself did not escape the universal

dissolution. It still supports the presidential system, but it does

so without the rigidity of its founder; it is liberal, democratic,

and parliamentary; its strength lies in the assemblies. "In

liberalism," Don Julio Zegers can write,[4] "the Balmacedists are

those who prefer Unitarian pacts to doctrines."

In the political world the tradition of the _pelucones_, of a strong

tutelary authority, is dying; in the social world the oligarchy is

losing its ancient privileges before the progress of the middle

classes. Balmaceda, the founder of schools and colleges, the

champion of all liberties, realised this national transformation.

Chili was the scene, after the political revolution of 1891, of a

social revolution, a warfare of castes, a bloody conflict between the

feudal overlords and a Third Estate formed in the schools, liberal

and industrial. Two parties, radicals and democrats, are organising

themselves for the battles of the future. "The radical party,"

writes an observer, "is composed of the fervent enemies of the clergy

and a {179} great part of the youth of the middle class, which

combines with its religious hatreds a certain degree of dislike of

the wealthy and respected classes."[5] Señor Edwards believes that

this socialistic tendency, which is predominant among the radicals,

"constitutes a serious danger for the future." The democratic party,

like the English labour party, and the united socialists of France,

is a working man's party.

The revolution of 1891 was directed by the bankers. After the war of

the Pacific the Chilian oligarchy was dissolved; it formed itself

into a plutocracy, without austere traditions, which is predominant

in the Parliaments and is ambitious to seize the reins of government.

Balmaceda would never give way before the "new men"; as an aristocrat

he was the enemy of the merchants. Portales founded a society of

patricians, but the liberal president could not organise the

democracy he dreamed of. The financiers united with the great

families before the threat of formidable strikes, and the

intellectual elevation of the middle class, bankers and landowners

and property owners grouped themselves in a more accessible

oligarchy, much after the pattern of the oligarchy of the United

States. Balmaceda was the last representative of the great Chilian

tradition, of the tutelary oligarchy which led and educated the

people and distrusted the plutocracy.

[1] See J. Bañados Espinosa, _Balmaceda, su gobierno y la revolucion

de 1891_, vol. i. pp. 455 _et seq_.

[2] Said by Don Juan Enrique Tocornal, a Chilian politician.

[3] Alberto Edwards, _Bosquejo historico de los partidos politicos

chilenos_, Santiago, 1903, p. 116.

[4] Cited by Vicuña-Subercasseaux in his study of Balmaceda. See

_Gobernantes y Literatos_, Santiago, 1907, p. 64.

[5] Edwards, as cited.

{180}

CHAPTER III

BRAZIL: THE EMPIRE--THE REPUBLIC

The influence of the Imperial _régime_--A transatlantic

Marcus-Aurelius, Dom Pedro II.--The Federal Republic.

While the republics of America have passed, without prudent

transition, from colonial dependence to self-government, Brazil, by

means of paternal autocracies, was prepared for the ultimate

realisation of its republican dreams. There liberty was not the

immediate gift of unrealisable constitutions, but the logical end of

a painful conquest. Brazil was successively a tributary colony, an

independent monarchy, an absolutist empire, and a federal and

democratic republic. One principle, that of authority, was dominant

throughout this process of evolution. A rigid despotism gradually

ceded secular prerogatives before the attacks of an ardent

liberalism; progress was definite and order lasting, and revolution

has been powerless to shake the principle of monarchical continuity.

Portugal has not yet been invaded by the French armies. The royal

family, carrying the monarchical _penates_, have fled toward their

distant colony, the idyllic and tropical Brazil. We are in 1807:

Maria, Queen of Portugal, is insane; João de Braganza, the regent,

placid and undecided, hopes for a _bourgeois_ ostracism, without

political convulsions.

In Brazil, the monarch, guided by conservative spirits, transforms

the economic system and decrees {181} the freedom of the ports, and

the metropolitan monopoly is thereby abolished. England, watching

over the exodus of the king, demands protection for her products.

The factories which a policy of lamentable rivalities had closed are

reopened. As early as 1808 the king wishes to found an empire in

this colony, devoid as it is of political personality; in 1815 he

raises it to the category of kingdom, thus laying the foundations of

nationality. Independence, after this, will only be the natural

segregation of an organism already formed.

The government of the Portuguese king develops all the national

forces which were embryonic in the colony--art, law, literature. He

founds the Bank of Brazil, establishes a military academy, a national

library, and a botanic garden; he fosters agriculture and

immigration. His new domain seems to have transformed the mediocre

monarch. Under the influence of his queen, Charlotte, eager for

power and display, he longs to extend his dominion over Uruguay and

Paraguay, perhaps even to reconstitute, to his own profit, the

vice-kingdom of La Plata. He seizes upon French Guiana, which

remains in the power of Brazil until 1817.

But such vast plans as these do not strengthen the hands of the

monarch. The Court, silent and extravagant, does not please the

Brazilians, and the King favours the Portuguese merchants by an

extreme prodigality. He creates a new nobility, that of the "sons of

the King," and its influence in the palace and its insolent display

soon weary the colonists. The old _régime_ is still extant; a

parasitical bureaucracy, recruited among the Portuguese, weighs

heavily on the destinies of Brazil.

A revolution in Portugal in 1820 invites the King to return to Europe

to accept the Constitution put forward by the revolutionary _junta_

of Lisbon. The monarch leaves his son, Dom Pedro de Alcantara, {182}

in Brazil, and quits the country. It is said that on bidding Dom

Pedro farewell he cried: "Before long Brazil will separate from

Portugal; if it is so, crown yourself before some adventurer gets

hold of the sceptre."

The Lisbon Parliament wished to destroy the reforms of João VI. in

Brazil, and to transform a monarchical nation into a feudal colony,

but the Brazilian deputies then in Portugal protested and emigrated

to England. A revolution at Pernambuco in 1817 had raised the

standard of nationalism. The manifesto or _Preciso_ of the

revolutionaries formulated the complaints of the colony. "There is

no longer any distinction," said the victorious patriots, "between

Brazilians and Europeans; all consider themselves brothers; as

descendants of the same origin, as inhabitants of the same country,

as believers of the same religion."

Journalism, in its infancy, was propagating constitutional ideas both

in the north and in the south. Jacobin declamation and romantic

ideology created a powerful movement in the taciturn colony.

Governmental _juntas_ were appointed in the provinces. Portuguese

and Brazilians struggled for political and social domination, but a

Lusitanian army, in spite of popular protest, imposed the oath of

fidelity to the Constitution which had been promulgated for the

metropolis by the distant Cortes.

The prince prevented a federal disaggregation and founded the unity

of Brazil. He united the representatives of the rebellious

provinces, convoked, in 1822, a Constituent Assembly, visited the

country districts, and became the "perpetual defender of Brazil."

Like the Gothic kings at the time of the Moorish invasion, or the

French princes who were faced with feudal anarchy, he founded a

national dynasty, and bound the unity and independence of Brazil with

the destinies of the monarchy. Dom {183} João VI. had raised Brazil

to the rank of a kingdom; Pedro I. rendered it independent of

Portugal. "Independence or death!" he cried, in his triumphant

Odyssey across the rebellious provinces. At Ipiranga floated the new

flag, gold and green, of the new-born Empire. Pedro I. was crowned

Constitutional Emperor in December, 1822.

José Bonifacio Andrade e Silva, naturalist, philosopher, and soldier,

an encyclopædist according to the French tradition, was the minister

of this national transformation; he condemned the revolution, having

previously supported natural rights and excessive liberties. He

suppressed the journals, and the monarch dissolved the Constituent

Assembly, whose violence and lyrical propensities were not a help to

the political action of a conservative minister.

Extreme groups were formed which the Emperor endeavoured to

conciliate: reactionaries who wanted an absolute government,

idealists who wished for a republic, moderates, and conciliatory

monarchists who sought a gradual progress under a stable government.

Weary of revolutions the Emperor inaugurated a despotic _régime_; he

withdrew from the Assembly, exiled the rebels, among others Andrade,

now radical but formerly a reactionary, and always greedy for power.

He surrounded himself with Portuguese troops, and the new nobility,

the _filhos do reinho_, and the press attacked him in the name of

nationalism. It demanded the persecution of favourites, as in the

Spanish colonies the expulsion of the old ruling classes was decreed.

The Emperor once again united the moderate parties, and demanded a

Constitution, to which the country swore allegiance in 1824; it was a

constitutional charter, an imitation of the liberal European

charters. In 1826 he convoked a new National Assembly. Revolutions

were still disturbing the country; some provinces wished to secede

{184} from the new kingdom; Pernambuco was always the centre of

liberalism. An old patriot, Paez de Andrade, hoped to unite the

Northern States of Brazil in the "Confederation of the Equator." The

monarch sent troops to the north to intimidate the country, and the

Lower Chamber condemned this act of despotism; a radical priest,

Diego Antonio Feijó, led the radical opposition. He was a

revolutionary in Parliament, demanding a responsible government, and

condemning the ministers who forced peace upon the provinces by means

of foreign legions, German and Irish mercenaries.

The Chambers were invaded by republicans and federals, and Pedro I.

by no means abandoned his reactionary ministers. These latter

succeeded one another in a series of perpetual crises. The external

warfare complicated the political situation; Uruguay had revolted,

counting on the aid of Argentine regiments. The Brazilians were

defeated, and recognised the independence of Uruguay by the treaty of

1828.

King João died in 1826, and the Emperor remained undecided between

the traditional kingdom and the new Empire. He formed a liberal

Cabinet to satisfy radicals and federalists, who had triumphed at the

elections of 1830. A useless transaction: ministries fell, and the

financial muddle increased. The people of Rio de Janeiro revolted,

and the Emperor abdicated. José Bonifacio, creator of the political

_régime_, was to be the tutor of the infant prince.

The Regency was a moderate government which steered clear of

reactionaries and exaltés both, of absolutism and republicanism.

Father Feijó, minister of the Regency, became, like many radicals, a

conservative; he organised the National Guard, suppressed military

meetings and enforced peace in the interior. Subversive movements

continued, and the invulnerable minister repressed them. The

administration {185} of the country progressed, schools were founded,

the Assembly issued wise codes of laws. The Regent, Andrade,

imprisoned and deposed, Diego Feijó was elected tutor of the prince

in 1835; the old radical politician was now dictator. He represented

the moderates as against the revolutionists; in extreme cases he

abandoned liberalism for autocracy. As early as 1836 his political

autocracy began to decline and the liberal campaign gathered force.

Feijó passed over the regency to his friend, Aranjo Lima, and left

the Government. This representative of authority in a country which

was a prey to anarchy was autocratic by virtue of his patriotism;

like all American dictators he stifled revolution in its blood.

The liberals of yesterday are often the moderates or conservatives of

to-day in monarchical Brazil. Andrade, Feijó, and Pereira de

Vasconcellos are examples of this inevitable transformation. Liberty

was the creed of these politicians when they were oppressed by

colonial absolutism, by the servitude anterior to the monarchy and

the Empire; they realised their creed, and the reign of liberal

principles resulted in disorder. The excess of authority or the

excess of anarchy stood in the way of peace and progress. The

political leaders of Brazil swayed from side to side; they were

liberals against despotism and autocrats against demagogy.

In 1840 the infant prince attained his majority; the liberals,

powerful in Parliament, demanded that the Regency should be

terminated. The country longed for internal peace, but discord

between the parties continued. Numerous revolutions disturbed the

country. Minas and Pernambuco, where sedition had passed into a

chronic condition, rose in 1842 and 1848 respectively.

Pedro II. governed with the liberals, but the dangers of excessive

liberalism, of premature democracy, {186} forced him toward

autocracy. He was a learned and sceptical Marcus Aurelius, a stoic

who had read Voltaire. "A simple and modest democrat, losing nothing

of his personal distinction," wrote the historian Ribeiro, "generous

and disinterested, an example of all the domestic virtues, he courted

the respectful sympathy of the crowd rather than popularity."[1] He

was the first republican of Brazil; he presided over a nation in

process of transformation. Before the clash of races, the

revolutionary unrest, and Utopian radicalism his Government

maintained the traditions, reacted against violent reforms, and

favoured the gradual formation of a new world.

In 1841 he confided the ministry to the Marquis de Paranagua, who

exiled the revolutionaries, reinforced the political unity of the

country, and re-established the Council of State. New ministries

continued the conservative reaction. Without freeing the slaves,

Brazil prohibited the traffic in this black merchandise, at the

suggestion of England. The Empire, faithful to its traditions,

intervened in the affairs of La Plata.

The Viscount de Itaborahy, once the external conflict was at an end,

presided over an administrative ministry. Immigrants were attracted,

and founded German colonies in the south; the navigation of the

interior was protected, and the higher regions of the Sertaõ were

conquered. A new commercial code, an administrative organisation,

agrarian laws, and the reform of the treasury: such were the various

forms of the Imperial activity. Itaborahy was followed by an

authoritative minister, the Marquis de Parana, a political figure of

lasting national significance.

A great administrator, he organised public education, and extended

the railways and the navigation {187} of the rivers of the interior.

He was assisted in his labours by distinguished statesmen: a jurist,

Nabuco de Araujo, and a diplomatist, Baron de Rio Branco. His

activities were not merely administrative, but political and social

as well. He wished to reconcile the parties; he absorbed the liberal

element in the conservative group, and by this fusion of the old

parties prepared the way for the appearance of new groups, dominated

by a definite intention of liberation or conservation. The

reactionary cabinets and the philosopher-Emperor had founded order in

the place of revolutionary dispersion. But this order, the victory

of narrow traditionalism, could not be lasting. Multiple racial

elements--Portuguese, Indian, and African--were seething in the new

society; democracy would prove to be the protest of redeemed slaves

against a powerful oligarchy. The Marquis de Parana, who, having

attracted the liberals, transformed his own conservative group, and

consolidated order by reuniting the factions, understood that

reaction could not be permanent in an incoherent democracy. He was

the last of the conservatives and the first of the liberals.

The reactionary cabinets of Caxias, Olinda, and Ferraz followed his,

and other parties were formed: authoritative conservatives,

uncompromising liberals, and a party of conciliation. The elections

of 1860 were a democratic triumph. Great orators came to the fore

with a truly tropical eloquence; these "new men," like Antonio

Leocadio Guzman in Venezuela, stirred the passions of the people. To

oppose their liberal programme conservatives and moderate liberals

united in Congress. The reactionaries governed from 1848 to 1862;

now the radicals sought for power. The last conservative cabinets

fell to pieces before the opposition of Parliament and the protests

of the crowd. Despotic monarchy was condemned; constitutional

monarchy had many {188} supporters; new elections, in 1863, increased

the strength of the liberals and democrats. The Paraguayan war

against the dictatorship of Lopez gave unusual prominence to the

external life of the country, and political agitation died down.

Pedro II., representing the conservative interests of historical and

national continuity, was opposed to an unruly liberalism. After one

liberal ministry he chose two moderate cabinets, under Olinda and

Vasconcellos, which were inclined to conservatism, and finally

Itaborahy dissolved the Lower Chamber. The Emperor had gone back ten

years; the ministry that in 1852 had marked the triumph of the

conservatives was now to rule in the face of a rising tide of

democracy. A constitutional monarch by law, he was none the less an

autocrat, for he forced his ministries upon a hostile Chamber, and

gave politics a direction contrary to the will of the people, and

those their suffrage had newly elected.

The liberals rose against the reactionary Emperor and demanded reform

or revolution. A transformation of the electoral system, of the

Draconian code of justice, and of the army, which was really a

Prætorian legion supporting an absolute power, and, in the social

department, the liberation of the slaves: such was the programme of

1869. A dissident group of conservatives united with the liberals,

and a patrician, Nabuco de Araujo, signed the manifesto of the

reformers.

It was the crisis of the monarchy. Its historical function was

nearly at an end; it had organised peace, created unity and

nationality, and laid the orderly foundations of the new Brazilian

race. Autocracy, necessary in the dawn of the century, was now

contrary to democratic development; after 1870 the liberals openly

aspired to found a republic.

The ministry of Viscount Rio Branco, from 1871 to 1876, maintained

the _status quo_. A great administrator, {189} like the Marquis de

Parana, he effected a reform in public education by founding special

schools; he took a census of the country, and extended the network of

railways. Immigration increased under his government and exchange

was bettered. A great social reform changed the face of the Empire;

in 1871 slavery was abolished. The separated classes were about to

mingle with the nation; the result was the rise of a mestizo

democracy. Slavery abolished, castes confounded, liberals

discontented, the reactionaries growing old--on the doubtful horizon

one supreme hope was visible: the republic. It was now the

collective ideal, as the Empire had been in the last days of the

colonial period. It was proclaimed, without violence, in 1889.

The Emperor, who abdicated, a symbol of the majestic past, had

prepared the advent of the Republic that ostracised him. His ideas

were liberal; he was the protector of the sciences; a smiling

philosopher; and in fostering the intellectual transformation of

Brazil he exposed his own autocracy to the criticism of the liberals.

By abolishing slavery he weakened the power of the reigning

oligarchy; by destroying privileges and uniting hostile classes he

created a democracy.

The Empire, in America, represents tutelary authority. Between the

feudal colony and the Republic--two extreme points of political

development--arose the Brazilian monarchy, as a moderative power. It

brought a necessary equilibrium, and, with that, progress. First of

all it established autonomy; then a national order, a national

dynasty; it preserved traditions, and organised the forces of

society. Beside it arose a conservative oligarchy, bound to the

soil; castes and permanent interests were created. The territorial

overlords upheld the stability of the Empire, and an admirable

political system imposed peace upon a heterogeneous people, {190}

shaken by the clash of races and the opposition of seaboard and

province. Between 1848 and 1862 the monarchy created the Brazilian

nation.

In the South American republics anarchy destroys national unity and

prevents the crystallisation of the social classes. In Brazil there

were frequent revolutions under the Regency; military leaders were

eager for power, but there was a permanent and inviolable bulwark

against disorder. The Emperor was the _caudillo_ of _caudillos_, the

leader of leaders; the Constitution partially justified his

despotism. Without violating it, he imposed, by means of

conservative ministries, lasting peace and gradual reforms. Against

this inflexible Cæsar struggled a seething democracy; it snatched

certain privileges and won limited liberties, and eventually saw the

birth of the Republic, the appointed term of political and social

evolution. The rigour of the principle of authority has spared

Brazil the perpetual revolutionary crises endured by other American

nations.

[1] Work already cited, p. 516.

{191}

CHAPTER IV

PARAGUAY: PERPETUAL DICTATORSHIP

Dr. Francia--The opinion of Carlyle--The two Lopez--Tyranny and the

military spirit in Paraguay.

Paraguay, a child of the old _régime_, has preserved seclusion and

absolutism. In other republics independence was a violent

condemnation of the colonial methods. Freed from Spanish tutelage,

the Paraguayan democracy none the less maintained its retired life

under paternal monarchs. Its evolution is original; showing neither

continual anarchy, as in the tropics, nor the perpetual quarrels of

_caudillos_, disputing territory and wealth. Dictators and tyrants

imposed their inviolable will on the inland nation. Autocracy

levelled classes and races, and prepared the way for the appearance,

in isolated Paraguay, of a new caste, formed of the fusion of Guarani

Indians and Spaniards. The dictators of Paraguay professed a rigid

Americanism; they expelled strangers, and with arrogant patriotism

wished the republic to be self-sufficing. Their ideal was

essentially Spanish; a democracy governed by Cæsar.

Dr. Francia was the first dictator in the Republic founded by the

Jesuits. A gloomy personality, of an intense inner life, like

Garcia-Moreno, he seemed one of Cromwell's Puritans. Taciturn and

solitary, truthful and punctual, methodical, like the Anglo-Saxons,

and ambitious, but without passion or exaltation, he admired

Bonaparte, and like him became consul and emperor.

{192}

He was born in 1758. He was the son of a Portuguese or Brazilian,

Garcia Rodriguez Francia. He studied theology in the colonial

university of silent, austere Cordoba. When General Belgrano

fomented the rebellion of the Paraguayans against the Spanish rule,

and a governmental _junta_ was installed, Caspar Rodriguez Francia

was a member of the latter. The little republic elected triumvirs

and consuls in the Roman manner. A Congress assembled in the same

year decreed the independence of Paraguay. The country freed itself

not only from Spain but also from Buenos-Ayres. No longer

recognising the limits of the ancient vice-kingdom, the _junta_

refused to treat with Belgrano unless he recognised the autonomy of

Paraguay.

The Congress of 1813, at which a thousand deputies were present,

continued to parody Rome; it appointed Francia and Fulgencio Yegros

consuls, and promulgated a political system. Cæsar and Pompey became

the names of the new magistrates, who were alternately in power. The

liberty of Paraguay was consolidated, and the consuls refused to send

delegates to the Congress of La Plata, which the haughty metropolis

convoked at Buenos-Ayres. These magistrates condemned Argentines and

Spaniards to civil death, and forbade them to marry Paraguayan women

of white race. In a third Congress (1814) Francia and Yegros

demanded a temporary dictatorship.

Yegros was ignorant and popular. Francia, energetic, learned, and a

born dissembler, was obedient to classic memories and to the

Napoleonic tradition; he aspired to absolute power. He was appointed

dictator for three years, and soon obtained supreme power. He

improvised his policy upon reading the ancient history of Rollin; the

republicans of Rome served him as constant models, whose energy and

austerity he imitated.

{193}

Educated for the priesthood, he became an advocate. He knew the law

and theology like a lettered colonial, subtle and dogmatic. Before

becoming consul he had filled various municipal offices; first he was

secretary to the municipality, then mayor. He studied local needs,

and prepared to govern as a nationalist.

He made use of religion, as did Garcia-Moreno and Portales, in order

to render his political actions more efficacious. He was tolerant in

respect of beliefs, but condemned atheism; he felt that the Church

was the only moral force in a disturbed democracy.

He would accept no international religion; he wanted a Paraguayan,

American cult, in which also he resembled Guzman-Blanco. He declared

himself head of the national Church, and disregarded the authority of

the Holy See; he suppressed the seminary and the monastic orders of

the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Sisters of Mercy, and

proceeded to appoint vicars and curates himself. The Inquisition was

abolished, processions were forbidden, and the number of holidays was

reduced to a minimum. Francia ordered the payment of tithes,

protected religion, and extended the rights conferred by patronage on

the Spanish kings; he sold the goods of the Church to build schools

and barracks. In short, he aspired to govern a Christian republic

freed from clericalism.

Religion consecrated his authority; the Paraguayan Church taught that

all power, even tyranny, was in its essence divine. When moral

activity did not suffice, Francia, like Rosas, appealed to terror.

Conspiracies against his tyranny were numerous; the Dictator shot the

rebels. His punishments revealed an Oriental cruelty. In 1821 he

executed the representatives of the Paraguayan nobility. He levelled

his subjects, and governed without ministers, {194} surrounded only

by informers and prætorian guards. In 1860 a Congress conferred

perpetual dictatorship upon him, and he dissolved the Congress. He

suppressed the _cabildos_, or municipalities, and replaced them by

_juntas_ selected by himself; he annihilated all hierarchy and all

privilege, and assassinated Yegros, his companion in the Consulate.

His enemies he imprisoned, exiled, or killed. His ambition was to

cut off every head that raised itself above the level of the uniform,

anonymous, and laborious crowd.

He established internal order under his autocracy. "Quarrels," he

said, "paralyse industry, and injure the prosperity of the nation."

He created a Church and a Fatherland. To ensure his work, he

expelled the Spaniards and isolated his country. He protected all

foreigners who did not come from Spain, closed the ports to trade,

and barred the rivers to free navigation.

His efforts were contradictory. He hated Spain; he wished to abolish

the privileges of the nobility and clergy, and he restored the

colonial system; he even aggravated it, giving it an unheard-of

severity. He restored absolutism, commercial monopoly, and the

communism of the Jesuits; there were estancias known as "the

Country's," whose products satisfied the requirements of the budget.

He unwillingly conceded licences to trade or navigate on the rivers;

he opened great magazines, which recalled the colonial fairs, for the

sale of merchandise. Paraguay existed in a condition of prodigious

isolation; commercial transactions declined, and money went out of

circulation.

During this time the population increased. The Dictator favoured

Creoles, stimulated the crossing of Indian and foreign blood by

severe measures, and carefully chose foreigners for the improvement

of the Paraguayan population by means of forced unions; {195} in this

way he continued the work of the Jesuits. A homogeneous democracy, a

national conscience, was gradually formed.

Like all the great American dictators, he stimulated material

progress, and rebuilt Assomption, the capital city. He constructed

public works, and forts to stop the encroachments of Indians,

protected agriculture, and created industries. His ideal was full

autonomy in an isolation possibly barbarous. By successive

regulations he forced proprietors to sow their lands, to extend the

cultivated area; like the Peruvian Incas, he would have none idle in

his kingdom; he distributed tasks and enforced their execution.

He ruled from 1811 to 1840, a long thirty years, a period attained by

no other American dictator but Rosas. His work was rude and

imposing; he created a race, and freed his threatened country in

every sense, political, economic, and religious. A priest said once

in an ardent panegyric: "The Lord, having cast a pitying glance upon

our country, sent us Dr. Francia to save it." The tyrant thus became

a redeemer, and is not without his strange legend. At seventy years

of age he was regarded as a remote and divine personage. From a

secret palace he governed a disciplined people. He had militarised

the country and exalted patriotism, the strong national feeling of

small nations, from Uruguay and Paraguay in America and Servia, to

Bulgaria and Montenegro in Europe.

His long tyranny in no way debased the race. When he died Francia

was mourned by his people, a people about to reveal in warfare a

Spartan tenacity, a tranquil heroism. Paraguay was unconquerable; it

was dispeopled, the masculine population disappeared, but the

Republic remained erect and aggressive. Francia had formed a proud

and warlike race. He was the most extraordinary man the world had

seen {196} for a hundred years, said Carlyle in one of his Essays--a

Dominican ripe for canonisation, an excellent superior of Jesuits, a

rude and atrabilious Grand Inquisitor. The Scottish historian

praises the grim silences of Francia--"the grim

unspeakabilities"--that mute solitude in which remarkable men commune

with the mystery of things.

After thirty years of uniform dictatorship the Guaranian people might

have revolted against autocracy. But here, contrary to that which

passed in other republics, the monarchy was not the term of

absolutism. Francia was replaced by new tyrants, the two Lopez, and

Paraguay accepted perpetual dictatorship.

A "ricorso" exhibited the old round of evolution: the triumvirate,

then the consulate, then dictatorship.

The last of the Lopez was better educated and more moderate than the

previous tyrants; he militarised the country, created an army of

thirty thousand men, and developed the fleet. Brazil and the

Argentine had difficulties with Paraguay; these two countries were

quarrelling for supremacy in La Plata. Paraguay and Uruguay, States

rebellious to every yoke, provoked conflicts between these ambitious

powers. Brazil demanded reparation for the attacks directed by

Uruguay against Brazilians, and Lopez intervened as meditator in this

conflict. He assisted Uruguay to maintain "the equilibrium of La

Plata." The Empire refused his good offices, and the haughty tyrant

declared war. He asked General Mitre, President of the Argentine

Republic, permission to send his troops across the territory of

Corrientes. The President refused permission, and protested against

the accumulation of Paraguayan troops on the frontier. The

belligerents were now three. Paraguay attacked two powerful States,

the Argentine and Brazil. The war lasted five years (1865-70).

{197}

The war had all the grandeur of an ancient epic. The heroism of

Paraguay overcame numbers, destiny, and death; she defeated the

allies, and, hemmed in by superior forces, still held out under the

leadership of Lopez, now transformed into a stern apostle of

nationalism. He performed prodigies; he attacked without reserves,

and, in a bellicose delirium, shot down those who criticised his

actions, and continued the war on a territory dispeopled and steeped

in blood. The allies seized Assomption, and Lopez himself fell in

battle: the tragic personification of an irreducible people. The

first of the Lopez had written to Rosas in 1845, "Paraguay cannot be

conquered." The war confirmed this prophecy. In 1870 the Brazilian

and Argentine victors found only a decimated country; the cities were

deserted, and foreigners had taken possession of the soil; the solemn

silence which Francia had dreamed of for his country reigned

throughout. The women were accomplishing their funeral rites above

unnumbered and innumerable tombs; they dug trenches, and, like

Antigone in the Æschylean tragedy, carried in the folds of their

mantles the maternal soil that was to cover the dead.

After this war nothing could be more monotonous than Paraguayan life;

military presidents and civil presidents have succeeded one another

with intervals of anarchy. The spirit of dictatorship is not dead.

The intellectuals--Dominguez, Gondra, Baez--deny Lopez and Francia;

but new tyrants reign over the midland Republic.

The principle of authority, exacerbated and tenacious, has created

modern Paraguay. This nation confirms a law of American history.

Dictatorship is the proper government to create internal order, to

develop wealth, and to unite inimical castes.

{199}

BOOK IV

FORMS OF POLITICAL ANARCHY

Revolution is general in Latin America. There the most civilised

nations have been rent by civil wars. But there are a few republics

in which these conflicts have been perpetual: such is the case in

Central America and the Antilles. It seems as though the tropical

climate must favour these disturbances. Assassinations of

presidents, battles in the cities, collisions between factions and

castes, inflammatory and deceptive rhetoric, all lead one to suppose

that these equatorial regions are inimical to peace and organisation.

There are two South American peoples in which Jacobinism has become a

national malady, in which men of every creed are involved: they are

Colombia and Ecuador. Their tragic history shows us a curious form

of Ibero-American anarchy: namely, religious anarchy.

{201}

CHAPTER I

COLOMBIA

Conservatives and radicals--General Mosquera: his influence--A

statesman: Rafael Nuñez, his doctrines political.

A certain writer of New Granada, Rafael Nuñez, a President and a

party-leader, writes that "there is not in South America a country

more iconoclastic, politically speaking, than Colombia." Republican

evolution there has been peculiar: it has witnessed perpetual

anarchy, like other American democracies, and civil wars as long and

as sanguinary as those of the Argentine, but no long succession of

tenacious _caudillo_, personifications of local discord, whose

ambitions determine the intention of political conflict.

In Colombia men have fought for ideas; anarchy there has had a

religious character. The parties had definite programmes, and in the

conflict of incompatible convictions they soon arrived at the

Byzantine method of destruction. Public and private wealth was

exhausted, the land was dispeopled, and inquisitors of religion or

free thought condemned their enemies to exile. "With us," Rafael

Nuñez admits "there has been an excess of political dogmatism." A

Jacobin ardour divides mankind; the fiery Colombian race is

impassioned by vague and abstract ideas. The champions of liberty

and the supporters of absolutism apply their principles to an

unstable republic; they legislate for a {202} democracy devoid of

passions and inimical castes; they build the future state by means of

syllogisms.

These sanguinary struggles have a certain rude grandeur. On the

continent men fight for crafty _caudillos_, for the conquest of power

and fiscal treasure; the oligarchy which occupies the seat of

government defends its bureaucratic well-being from the parties in

opposition. In Colombia exalted convictions are the motives of

political enmities; men abandon fortune and family, as in the great

religious periods of history, to hasten to the defence of a

principle. These hidalgos waste the country and fall nobly, with the

Semitic ardour of Spanish crusaders. Heroes abound in the fervour of

these battles. Obedient to the logic of Jacobinism, Colombia

perishes, but the truth is saved.[1]

The liberal party, victorious in 1849, promoted a vast democratic

programme: the romantic liberalism of the French thinkers, the

socialistic ideas of the Revolution of 1848, had reached Colombia.

The Colombians desired not only the liberation of the slaves, the

abolition of industrial monopolies, and the autonomy of the communes,

but also the realisation of the needs of democracy; all the political

liberties, subject to prudent reserves; direct and universal

suffrage, trial by jury, the suppression of the army, the abolition

of capital punishment, the institution of universities and scientific

diplomas, and the expulsion of the Jesuits, who in America were the

obstinate supporters of the old colonial system. Federation, a weak

executive, a secular State, and powerful communes: such was the

aspiration of the liberals. A fraction of the party bore a symbolic

name: it was known as _Golgotha_. In their civil wars the Catholics

chose Jesus of Nazareth for their {203} patron. Radicalism even

aspired to religious consecration; it founded a Christian anarchy,

like that of the primitive evangelical communities. It preached

fraternity and liberty, condemning political power.

Nothing could be more disastrous to a disorganised republic than

rationalism of this type. It applied the principles formulated by

the extremest idealists in highly cultivated countries. Colombia,

shaken by revolutions, had need of a strong government; radicalism

destroyed it. There was no provincial life, yet it created the

omnipotent commune; it suppressed the army in a democracy threatened

by civil and external war, established trial by jury in a country

swarming with illiterates, and granted liberties wholesale to a

revolutionary people; it accorded political rights to the negro and

the Indian, servile and ignorant as they were, and demanded

federation, which is to say that it multiplied political disorder.

Foreseeing the errors of the future, Bolivar told the Colombians: "I

can plainly see our work destroyed and the maledictions of the

centuries falling upon our heads."

From 1849 to 1853 the liberal party struggled to impose its

doctrines. The Constitution of 1853, celebrated in Colombian annals,

was doctrinaire and radical; it proclaimed the liberty of the press,

of thought, and of suffrage. By separating Church and State it

provoked a religious war and accepted a moderated political

centralisation. Thus the excesses of unity and of federation were

avoided.

The liberal charter gave rise to lengthy quarrels. The States gave

themselves conflicting and opposite constitutions; some were

conservative and reinforced authority; some were radical and founded

an anarchical democracy; some were liberal and extended the suffrage;

some were moderate and conciliatory, uniting the ideas of all parties

in unstable equilibrium. {204} In a country already divided by

religious questions this variety of _status_ created a perpetual

disorder.

A new Constitution, more precise than that of 1853, established the

federal system without restrictions; it was the triumph of the

"Golgothas" over the "Draconians," the radicals over the classic

liberals. The battle was renewed with fresh vigour. The religious

communities lost their legal character, and could no longer acquire

property; the State usurped their wealth and ruined them as in

Mexico. The impetuous radicals sapped not only the ecclesiastical

power, but the political power also. They reduced the presidential

period to two years, granted the provinces full sovereignty,

prohibited the death penalty without exception, conceded the absolute

liberty of the press, and authorised the buying and selling of arms.

Excessive liberalism disorganised the country. Colombia suffered

much from this vain idealism; she became the social laboratory of

professors of Utopianism. The radicals created fresh elements of

discord; they attacked authority, religion, and national unity. In

1870, in the face of bankruptcy, the party abandoned its original

extremeness; it no longer professed anti-militarism, nor desired the

complete separation of Church and State. Sceptical as to the

benefits of the suffrage, it re-enforced the executive, in spite of

its original federal creed.

The conservatives governed the country from the dissolution of

Greater Colombia, in 1829, until 1849; they performed the work of

organisation. Without forming an oligarchy, as in Venezuela and

Chili, they represented permanent interests and effective powers;

religion, the colonial nobility, and the patricians who won autonomy

for their country. They were conservatives in so far as they opposed

the radicals, but in 1832 they granted a political charter in which

they accepted liberal principles; they respected municipal {205}

liberties and the liberty of the press, surrounded all the powers of

the State with prestige and authority, as also the senate and the

magistrature, created a Council of State, so necessary in an

improvised democracy, protected Catholicism, and limited the

suffrage. To be a citizen a man required "an assured subsistence

without subjection to any one whatever in the quality of servant or

workman." In the social world they accepted the old division of

castes. They did not free the slaves, and they tolerated the

exportation of human merchandise. The radicals protested against

this shameful traffic; in 1842 regulations were passed affecting

black immigration, and 1849 marked the fall of the conservative

party. Then arose eloquent demagogues, who preached a social gospel

much like that of the French revolutionists of 1848.

Political life was less imperfect in Colombia than in other Latin

democracies. The opposition did sometimes triumph in the electoral

struggle; thus in 1837 Dr. Marques was elected president against the

will of General Santander, the government leader. I have spoken of

the solid organisation of the parties: however, there was no lack of

_caudillos_, whose influence in neo-Granzdan history was a lasting

one.

The first President, General Santander, was one of Bolivar's

lieutenants, as was Flores in Ecuador and Paez in Venezuela. He

inherited the moral authority of the Liberator, and governed

pacifically from 1831. He aspired to absolutism, founded schools,

and organised the public finances; in London he commenced the

negotiation of the Colombian debt, declared Panama a free port, and

endeavoured to enforce unity and peace; conspirators and

revolutionaries he shot.

After the founder of the nation came two strong personalities who

hold a prominent place in the history of Colombia: General Mosquera

and {206} Dr. Rafael Nuñez.[2] Their long rule is comparable to that

of Garcia-Moreno in Ecuador, or of Paez and Guzman-Blanco in

Venezuela.

General Mosquera was at first a conservative leader; his education,

his origin, and his travels in Europe all divided him from the

democracy. He had the gift of command, which had been developed by

the direction of armies in his youth. President in 1845, he

developed the national wealth. His government, which lasted from

1845 to 1849, was distinguished by an intense material progress:

railways were constructed, steam navigation commenced on the River

Magdalena, the teaching in the universities was improved, the

finances were organised, the service of the debt was assured, and the

moral prestige of the country improved.

This conservative President had liberal leanings. He presented laws

to Congress which made his old supporters uneasy; the abolition of

the "tenth" or tithe paid to the Church, and the diminution of fiscal

protection. It is difficult to believe that this lucky soldier

conceived the wise ambition to transform his government into a

liberal _régime_ without violence. Mosquera knew that after 1848 and

its echoes in Colombia the basis of his future popularity must be a

violent liberalism, and he became a federal and a democratic leader.

As military dictator he placed himself at the head of the revolution

of 1860, seized the capital, Bogota, and was elected President in

1861. He imposed his variable will, changed his ideas and his party

in order to retain power, and attempted to govern above the law and

above mankind.

[Illustration: GENERAL MOSQUERA. President of Colombia (1845-1849,

1861-1864, 1865-1867). To face p. 206.]

Mosquera declared a _Kulturkampf_, separated Church and State, exiled

the bishops, confiscated the goods of the convents, and, like

Guzman-Blanco, {207} created a national Church. Without the

authorisation of the supreme power no priest could exercise his

religious functions. The civil power was the supreme power; the

Church and her ministers were subject thereto.

The President shot or suppressed his enemies, and imposed his policy

by terror; he enthroned militarism. Faithful armies followed him,

accustomed to victory. The domestic policy of New Granada did not

satisfy his ambition; he aspired to restore the Greater Colombia, and

dreamed the dream of Rosas and Santa-Cruz; the hegemony of his

country to be forced upon other peoples. He declared war upon

Ecuador, and was victorious. In 1864 he was followed by another

liberal, Dr. Murillo-Torro. In 1865 the military _caudillo_ resumed

the reins of government. He was hostile to Congress, and proclaimed

himself dictator; he violated the Constitution and the law,

intervened in the struggles of other States, and sought an absolute

and irresponsible authority. His own supporters conspired against

him, and sent him into exile. In Colombia he was the indisputable

authority, as Paez in Venezuela, from 1845 to 1867.

After this long empire came a period of civil Presidents and military

Presidents, who moderated the ambitions of the liberals. Presently a

new _caudillo_ arose: Dr. Rafael Nuñez. Mosquera was first a

conservative, then a liberal. Nuñez, a liberal, fomented a

conservative reaction and dominated Colombian politics for twenty

years.

At one time secretary to Mosquera, he had made a study of the

evolution of great States. He was not only a leader, but also a

diplomatist, and a philosopher in his political disinterestedness,

his lasting moral influence, and the width of his views. A theorist

like Balmaceda and Sarmiento, he none the less did not forget the

inevitable imperfections of {208} Colombia. He became President of

the Senate in 1878, and a minister of the Reformation and head of the

Republic in 1880. Democracy looked to him for a renaissance.

In the heart of the liberal party Dr. Nuñez directed a new

independent group. He had been a radical in 1850, but he departed

from the rigidity of his original beliefs before the persistent

suggestions of experience. Why weaken the executive in an anarchical

nation--why increase the national troubles by the bitterness of

religious warfare? Nuñez became a liberal-conservative; he forgot

his original socialistic principles, the theories of Louis Blanc and

Saint-Simon, and applied a British common-sense to Colombian

politics.[3]

His political ideas (expounded in various articles) were prudent and

conciliatory; no sterile idealism dominated Dr. Nuñez. He believed,

with many English statesmen, that "in politics there are no absolute

truths, and all things may be good or evil according to opportunity

and extent." This was the policy he opposed to Colombian dogmatism.

He believed that "politics is indissolubly bound up with the economic

problem."

A conservative in religion, tolerant in the art of governing, he

taught the Jacobins of America some admirable lessons. "Our

population," he wrote, "does not exceed three millions of

inhabitants, the majority of whom are but slightly civilised. If the

social fraction called upon by its aptitudes to the functions of

government divides and subdivides itself and occupies itself in

weakening itself we shall never succeed in doing anything of

importance as legatees of the Peninsular domination." His ideal was

a free oligarchy, coherent in intention, and in action persistent.

Equally lamentable were the division of the best {209} class of the

nation and the intolerance of the governing parties. Rafael Nuñez

preached respect for minorities. "The absolute exclusion from the

government of the parties in a minority," he said, "weakens the

national spirit, envenoms discussion, and creates extraordinary

dangers." Majorities have need of discussion and opposition. "The

myopia of party spirit," adds the _caudillo_, "fails to perceive the

virile vigour which a political group obtains by the mere fact of

giving proofs of tolerance, justice, and respect for its defenceless

adversary." "When for some extraordinary reason one of the great

parties disappears, the surviving party splits up into fractions, and

these fractions fight among themselves as bitterly as when they have

to face a common enemy: even more bitterly."

The leader of the independents had studied political science not only

in foreign books, but also in practice, in public life; he had a

profound acquaintance with the country which he governed, and with

the Latin American vices which are the incurable weakness of these

new democracies. "We have no viceroy in Colombia," he said, "but

anonymous rulers. We have a written liberty, but no practical

liberty. We have a Republic, but only in name, for opinion is not

expressed by the only legitimate means, which is the suffrage." "It

is a grave error, generally accepted by us, that the sole object of a

political party and all its efforts should tend toward the possession

of the public power, represented by the leadership of the national

army."

He defends the principle of authority as against anarchy. "The best

of instruments, destined for the long and arduous task of civilising

the human species."

Respect for the constituted powers is unknown in Colombia. All

"dynamic mechanism" should have a governor, that is, a counterpoise

to the predominant {210} impulse. Nuñez writes: "Monarchies need

liberal accessory institutions, and republics restrictive or

conservative institutions, without which the former degenerate into

autocracies and the latter into anarchies, which announce the

approach of despotism." In default of the principle of authority, so

necessary and generally so feeble in democracies, Rafael Nuñez sought

for "elements of order in the moral domain."

He became a conservator; he protected religion, like Portales, in

order to give a disorganised nation the firm unity of a law. The

ex-radical ordered the teaching of religion in the schools.

"Traitor!" cried his former supporters, but if he renounced his

former dogmas it was in his intellectual prime, before the lamentable

spectacle of an unstable republic. "Fanaticism," he wrote, "is not

religion any more than demagogy is liberty; but between religion and

morality there is an indissoluble bond."

Colombia had need of a stable internal law, of a morality. To obtain

order Dr. Nuñez desired a Catholic unity; he abandoned his radical

convictions, and put his trust in authority, religion, and moderate

centralisation. But were not the articles of his new programme the

result of a free examination of reality and of history? The leaders

of the independents were inaugurating an experimental politics.

He accepted neither abstract principles nor theories imported from

other continents. Free trade obtained in Colombia: it is the English

economic dogma. "With us," explained the statesman, "free mercantile

exchange simply transforms the artisan into a mere proletarian

working man, into food for powder or a demagogue, for free trade

practically leaves only two industries vigorous--commerce and

agriculture--to which those who lack capital and credit cannot as a

rule devote themselves." This _caudillo_ wished to see a real

autonomy based on a moderate protectionism: {211} as President he

fostered industries and condemned the bureaucracy; he knew that the

latter favoured revolutions, and that men seldom fight in civil

conflicts except to obtain public employment. "The motives for

disturbing the peace," said he, "will be less and less powerful as

the official system ceases to monopolise the opportunities of work."

Dr. Nuñez was a sociologist; he had studied Comte and Spencer; he

wrote of society and its laws, starting from the liberalism of

Lamartine to arrive at the British prudence of Guizot. An eminent

Colombian, Don Miguel Antonio Caro, called him "the providential and

necessary man," and demanded recognition of his political

infallibility.

When he came into power in 1880 he was supported by the independents

and the conservatives; men hoped for reform and peace as the result

of his political action. Under his government public order was

untroubled. He introduced economies in the finances, and realised,

like Mosquera, many works of material progress; he founded a national

bank, reformed the university, and convoked, like Bolivar, a Congress

of plenipotentiaries at Panama.

Dr. Zaldua followed him in 1882. But the influence of the great

_caudillo_ was not yet at an end; he was re-elected in 1884 for a

period of two years, and exercised a moral dictatorship. He proposed

to a friendly Congress the revision of the Constitution of 1863.

He then applied his political ideas, condemning the two years'

presidency, excessive federalism, and the licence and demagogy of the

country; he organised a strong executive, conceded liberty to the

Church, increased the duration of the presidential term, and

initiated a prudent measure of concentration. The Constitution of

1885 ratified the triumph of the conservatives.

From that time forward the President was {212} _imperator_; elected

for six years in 1886, re-elected in 1892, he continued to exercise

the supreme power at intervals. He lived at Carthagena, and

Vice-Presidents (designated by himself) replaced him. He became the

tutor of the Republic; the governors were his pro-consuls. He was

the last great man produced by Colombia, that fruitful soil for

politicians and men of letters.

Mosquera represented federalism and radicalism; Nuñez unity and

tolerance. Fresh revolutions, conflicts between conservatives and

liberals, have retarded the national development; new chiefs have

arisen, demigods of the world of politics. The conservative work of

Nuñez has proved sterile: Colombia is always the land of eloquence

and Jacobinism, extravagant and excessive as the tropics themselves.

She still awaits fresh dictators who shall organise the democracy of

the future.

[1] In his book _Desde Cerca_ (Paris, 1908) General Holguin writes

that Colombia has known 27 civil wars. In that of 1879 she lost

80,000 men. She has spent 37 million pesos (gold) in revolutions.

[2] There was one demagogue President in this State who, when the

slaves were freed, excited a conflict of castes: General Obaudo.

[3] Rafael Nuñez, _La Reforma politica en Colombia_, Bogota, 1885.

{213}

CHAPTER II

ECUADOR

Religious conflicts--General Flores and his political

labours--Garcia-Moreno--The Republic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Ecuador constituted itself a free democracy after a long period of

indecision. Guayaquil aspired to be an independent state; it

listened to the melodious aspirations of its poet, Olmedo, and at

other times sought to unite itself to Peru. Bolivar and La Mar both

sought to claim this city, which a proud provincialism called "the

pearl of the Guayas." The vast ambitions of Bolivar won the day, and

Ecuador became a province of Greater Colombia, under the hegemony of

Venezuela or New Granada.

General Juan José Flores, a Venezuelan, and a friend and lieutenant

of the Liberator's, founded the Ecuadorian Republic in 1830. He was

the "Father of the Country," and teacher and guardian of this

precocious nation, as was Paez in Venezuela and Sucre in Bolivia. He

governed the country for fifteen years, being elected President in

1831, in 1839, and in 1843. The unity of Colombia, maintained by the

autocracy of Bolivar, was an obstacle in the way of Flores' ambitions

for Ecuador; he therefore sought to destroy the federal organisation.

Sucre, too, whose young and glorious shoulders were soon to sustain

the authority of a liberator, was opposed to the ambitions of the

Venezuelan _caudillo_. {214} The latter convoked a Constituent

Assembly at Riobamba. The first national statute of the equatorial

republic was then promulgated: it established a representative

government with two Chambers, an executive independent of these

Chambers, and Catholicism as the sole State religion: these were the

bases of the Constitution. Ecuador once independent, an era of

incessant disturbances set in; men fought for their leaders and for

ideas. Flores symbolised the principles of the conservatives,

inimical to radicalism and democracy; he dreamed of a strong

executive, a national religion, and a limited suffrage. His ideal

was a presidency of eight years, and a senate of twelve, an echo of

the Bolivian Constitution. He accepted monarchy as the necessary

solution of Ecuadorian anarchy; he fell because he attempted the

restoration of a superannuated system.

He and Rocafuerte, a liberal _caudillo_, the leader of a party of

cultivated youth, shared the public functions between them. When

Flores was President, Rocafuerte was governor of Guayaquil; when

Rocafuerte ruled, Flores was commander-in-chief of the army. Both

were sent into exile; they were successively enemies and allies.

Flores played the tyrant, suppressed liberties, and aspired to the

dictatorship; when he fell from power he prepared filibustering

expeditions in Europe to be launched against his country. Spain

offered him her aid in 1846. "Treason!" cried the Ecuadorian

patriots. The chimera of a monarchist, the scepticism of an

ambitious foreigner who had fruitlessly created a new country on the

ruins of Greater Colombia, say we, after half a century has elapsed.

America was stirred by the campaign of reconquest which he headed; in

1851 his temerarious plan had entirely miscarried, and he sought the

aid of Peru in order to invade his country, then a prey to anarchy.

He was not successful in the field, and after a long period {215} of

ostracism he joined Garcia-Moreno, the leader of the conservative

forces; under the authority of the latter his influence decayed and

his history ended. His disciple Rocafuerte was an excellent

administrator, who founded schools, organised the National Guard,

established military colonies in the east, partially secularised

education, proved a liberal patron of arts and letters, and commenced

the codification of the civil and penal laws.

In 1851 General Urbina forced a radical government upon Ecuador; he

was the genius of destruction, an intriguer, an ambitious man whose

excesses provoked a conservative reaction. He attempted in vain to

establish a military _régime_. Garcia-Moreno denounced the treason

of Flores and the radicalism of Urbina, and his moral influence

overcame the prevailing anarchy. This remarkable statesman was born

at Guayaquil in 1821; he came of a Castilian family. His mother

trained him strictly in poverty; a priest, Father Bethencourt,

directed his later education. In 1836 he entered the University of

Quito, and soon became the supervisor of his own companions--an

undergraduate autocrat. Tall, of a severe aspect, the forehead wide,

and the eyes forceful, he was already revealed as a leader of men.

He devoted himself with ardour to mathematics and philosophy; he

acquired general ideas and an analytical turn of mind. Endowed with

a prodigious memory and a vigorous dialectic, always master of

himself, he had every desirable gift. Towards his nineteenth year

his chaste youth passed through a moral crisis. He issued therefrom,

according to his biographer, less the devotee but not less of a

believer. Like Goethe, he made up his mind abruptly. He would not

be guilty of timidity; he liberated himself from the tutelage of the

world by dint of heroism; he was Mucius Scævola before he was Cæsar.

His fiery spirit and irreducible will {216} made him a leader whom

all respected, a mystic whom the conservatives acclaimed.

Garcia-Moreno intervened in politics as a journalist; he was a

satiric poet, and founded various polemical sheets: _El Zurriago_,

_El Vengador_, and _El Diablo_. He drafted pamphlets, accused and

condemned in prose and in verse, and wrote his classic _Epistle to

Fabius_ concerning the poverty of the times. His style was steely,

energetic, rarely declamatory; he wrote apostrophes in the manner of

Juvenal; he brought into politics a rude indignation, the rebellious

anger of a Hebrew prophet, announcing the final catastrophe of

democracy; as a journalist he represented the national interests. In

1846, when the threat of a Spanish invasion hung over Ecuador,

Garcia-Moreno roused America by his writings. He was the pacificator

of Guayaquil, where the partisans of Flores had risen in insurrection.

A voyage to Europe brought the young writer into contact with the

social revolution of 1848. The spectacle of triumphant anarchy

re-enforced his conservative opinions. In Ecuador radicalism

triumphed in 1850; on his return the conservative leader protected

the Jesuits expelled from Colombia, demanded the return of their

property, and authorised them to found colleges. He published a

pamphlet, _Defence of the Jesuits_, in which he called them "the

creators of peace and order," and stated with fearless candour that

he was a Catholic and was proud of the fact.

The military-radical dictatorship of Urbina devastated the country;

the "Tauras," a prætorian guard, as brutal as the "Mazorqueros" of

Rosas, killed and pillaged, and were the docile servants of tyranny.

Garcia-Moreno then founded the journal _La Nación_, and preached the

doctrine that there can be no social progress in a country which does

not foster material progress, and in which a devouring poverty is

{217} triumphant. He was arrested and exiled. He reached Europe

once more in 1854, and there gave much time to the study of European

politics. He had been something of a Gallican on the subject of the

relations of Church and State, believing in the supremacy of the

civil power. His opinions changed. Subscribing to the tradition of

those Popes who aspired to empire, he considered that the Church

should be absolute sovereign above all earthly powers. But a

triumphant radicalism was secularising ecclesiastical foundations,

and convents were being invaded by the troops. The conservative

_caudillo_ returned from exile in 1856, and was met with every

species of homage; he was elected Mayor of Quito, and rector of the

University. He founded a political party--that of national union.

Elected senator, he called, with the authority of an avenging

tribune, for honest finances, the suppression of the masonic lodges,

a law of public education, and the abolition of the poll tax, which

burdened the native, and represented all the forces of social

conservation under the tutelage of the Church.

The Convention of 1860 made him provisional President, then

constitutional President. Garcia-Moreno inaugurated a clerical

semi-dictatorship after thirty years of revolutions. He did not

limit the suffrage; he depended on the democracy to defeat unpopular

demagogues. He believed that "to moralise a country one must give it

a Catholic Constitution, and, to ensure the necessary cohesion, a

statute of unity." He organised the finances, the army, the schools;

he reduced the fiscal expenditure; founded at Quito a Tribunal of

Accounts, which he supervised himself; he waged a pitiless war upon

smuggling, peculation, and bureaucracy; he built roads connecting the

capital with the coast, ruined militarism, and founded a civil

_régime_.

He was a Catholic President. As in the Colonial {218} period,

politics centred upon the Church. The clergy taught and legislated.

"The Church," said Garcia-Moreno, "must march side by side with the

civil power under conditions of true independence." He entrusted

public education to the religious congregations, and prepared to sign

a _concordat_ with the Church; Catholicism was to be recognised as

the State religion, to the exclusion of all foreign sects and cults,

and the bishops would supervise the colleges and universities; they

would choose the textbooks to be used, and the government, like the

Spanish Inquisition, would see that no forbidden works were

introduced. The ecclesiastical charter would be renewed, and as a

set-off the government would annul the _exequatur_, the authorisation

which the American governments accorded to the pontifical bulls, that

these might be obeyed. More Catholic than the Sacred College,

Garcia-Moreno insisted upon the reform of the clergy, despite the

hesitation of the Pope. Once the Concordat was signed; Pius IX.

created new dioceses, and ecclesiastical courts, which tried all

causes relating to the faith--to religious matters in general, and to

marriage and divorce. The conservative leader aspired to a Catholic

Imperialism. He intervened in the domestic affairs of Colombia,

where a radical President was in power; he eulogised the Mexican

Empire, which was to deliver the country from the "excesses of a

rapacious, immoral and turbulent demagogy." He dreamed of an America

enfeoffed to the Papacy.

Presidents followed him who were weak in the face of anarchy:

Borrero, Carrion, Espinosa. The great _caudillo_ did not lose his

influence; many times he was forced to leave his retreat in order to

pacify a province or direct a political party. In 1860 he returned

to power, to lay the foundations of a stable theocracy. His

governmental programme read like an episcopal address. As essential

articles appeared {219} "the respect and protection of the Catholic

Church, unshakable attachment to the Holy See, education based on

morality and faith, and liberty for all and in everything, excepting

crime and criminals." He declared that civilisation, "the fruit of

Catholicism, degenerates and becomes impure in proportion as it

departs from Catholic principles"; that "religion is the sole bond

which is left to us in this country, divided as it is by the

interests of parties, races, and beliefs." The new Constitution was

to conform to the principles of the Syllabus; in Ecuador no one was

to be elected or eligible who did not profess the Catholic religion,

and whosoever should belong to a sect condemned by the Church would

lose his civil rights. In his mystic ardour, he consecrated his

country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in 1873 he protested, in a

note addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the King of

Italy, against the taking of Rome and the confiscation of the Papal

States. His ideal was the monarchy of Philip II.; the Jesuit Empire

of Paraguay; the return of the Middle Ages, and a conventual peace.

Like Rafael Nuñez and Portales, he believed that "religion is the

only national tradition in these democracies at the mercy of

anarchy--the creative agent, the instrument of political unity."

Religion is the foundation of morality, and "the absence of morality

is the ruin of the Republic; there are no good manners and morals

without a pure clergy, and a Church free of all official tutelage."

A moralising despot, he repressed concubinage, and imposed Catholic

marriage or chastity upon his subjects. Virtue, faith, and order:

there was his ideal.

The authoritative Constitution which he promulgated is analogous to

the Chilian statute of 1883. The President was re-eligible; his

mandate was for ten years; he could govern for a third period after

his immediate successor. The government was at {220} the head of the

army, and appointed all provincial authorities; political rebellion

was punished as high treason. The legislative term was six years for

deputies and nine for senators. Garcia-Moreno strictly observed this

new law; he made war upon revolutionaries, and condemned the leaders

of revolts and conspiracies to death. Internal order re-established,

he commenced a series of vast reforms in the national finances, in

public education, and in legislation; he opened schools,

re-established the death penalty, sent officers to Prussia to follow

the military manoeuvres, reorganised the school of medicine, founded

an astronomical observatory, and attracted German Jesuits who were to

teach physics and chemistry. He proved himself a potent organiser:

"Twenty-five years are needed," he said, "to establish my system."

Re-elected in 1875, he was quickly overthrown by his enemies. He

resisted to the death; the dagger of an enemy struck him down in the

mournful solitude of the _plaza_ of Quito, and he fell near the

cathedral in which he had worshipped. A long silence, a time of deep

mourning, followed the death of the _caudillo_; he was named a second

Gregory the Great, the regenerator of his country, the martyr of

Catholic civilisation.

Indefatigable, stoical, just, strong in decision, admirably logical

in his life, Garcia-Moreno was one of the greatest personalities of

American history. He was no tyrant without doctrines, like

Guzman-Blanco or Porfirio Diaz. In fifteen years (1859-74) he

completely transformed his little country according to a vast

political system which only death prevented him from realising. A

mystic of the Spanish type, he was not content with sterile

contemplation; he needed action; he was an organiser and a creator.

He felt the aid and the continual presence of God; he asked his

friends for their prayers, and read daily in _The Imitation of

Christ_. He was even too much {221} of a Catholic for the

conservatives; he was often to be seen carrying the daïs in

procession. "A Christian Hercules, a disciple of Charlemagne and St.

Louis," writes Father Berthe, his ingenuous and enthusiastic

biographer. "A hero of Jesus Christ, not of Plutarch," said Louis

Veuillot in a dithyramb; while his enemies, Montalvo and Moncayo,

accused him of treason, Jesuitism, and cruelty. Montalvo recognised,

however, in the conservative President, "a sublime intelligence, a

superiority to every trial, a strong, imperious, invincible will."

Superior to exaggerated eulogy and acerbated criticism, Garcia-Moreno

represented the great civilising principles in the Ecuadorian

democracy; unity, the struggle against a militarism of thirty years'

standing, material progress, religion, morality, and strong

government against licence and demagogy. As an autocrat he resembled

all great American leaders; but he surpassed them in idealism, by the

logic of his actions and the originality of his essay in theocracy.

With Philip II. and the Paraguayan Jesuits, he believed Catholicism

to be an instrument of culture, and his policy was for fifteen years

the exaltation of that religion. Only Nuñez and Balmaceda brought

equally coherent ideas to the task of government. No one in Ecuador,

neither Veintemilla, nor Borrero, nor Alfaro, could gather up the

inheritance of this admirable despot. Carlyle, had he known him,

would have set him in his gallery of heroes.

{222}

CHAPTER III

THE ANARCHY OF THE TROPICS--CENTRAL

AMERICA--HAYTI--SAN DOMINGO

Tyrannies and revolutions--The action of climate and miscegenation--A

republic of negroes: Hayti.

In Central America and the islands of the Antilles civil wars are the

result not merely of racial conflict, but also of the enervating

action of the Tropics. Precocious, sensual, impressionable, the

Americans of these vast territories devote their energies to local

politics. Industry, commerce, and agriculture are in a state of

decay, and the unruly imagination of the Creole expends itself in

constitutions, programmes, and lyrical discourse; in these regions

anarchy is sovereign mistress.

Five republics came into being here, which have lived in a continual

state of conflict, their aim being political domination. Internal

disorders and international wars are continual. Ambitious generals

have sometimes forced a provisional unity upon the continent, but it

is soon divided by the anarchy and dictatorships which continually

overwhelm the soil of the Tropics.

It is impossible to distinguish a military period and an industrial

period in the history of Central America. Intellectuals and generals

govern alternately, it is true, but thanks to identical methods; they

all exercise the same sanguinary tutelage. A few dictators whose

rule has been slightly more {223} prolonged have at times contrived

to increase the number of schools or develop the national finances,

but personal initiative and the importation of foreign capital are

equally out of the question under the rule of autocracies which

govern solely by grace of the military element. Liberty, wealth, and

human rights are the appanage of inhuman dictators.

The Republic was proclaimed and the political Constitution adopted in

Central America on the 10th of April, 1825. It was then that the

autonomous life of the five united provinces commenced. General

Manuel Joseph was the first President of Central America. The

Federal Statute of 1824 attributed all powers to Congress: it

initiated a parliamentary dictatorship. As against the popular

assembly the Executive was powerless, and the Senate, to which the

Constitution confided the final sanction of the laws promulgated by

Congress, was weak in point of numbers. As in all republics, the

government was popular, representative, and federal. The equality of

all citizens and the abolition of slavery being decreed, it was a new

era that opened, liberal and romantic.

In the Lower Chamber Guatemala had the majority, and from this

superiority ensued a tendency to political domination which provoked

a long series of internal wars. Here was no conflict of nations, but

of the interests of rival provinces or the quarrels of individual

generals. Salvador wished to realise its autonomy; a virile and

well-peopled republic, she could not readily accept the hegemony of

Guatemala. Here is one aspect of this monotonous history: the

frequent wars which divided Guatemala and Salvador. They struggled

for supremacy, for moral tutelage. The federal tie survived, and the

Assemblies multiplied; there were General Assemblies and Provisional

Assemblies. Suddenly one of the States declared void the pact which

united it to the {224} other republics: Congress was dissolved, and

at once re-elected. There was a perpetual confusion of powers.

During the first twenty years of liberty the anarchical instinct

which sought to separate the republics and the calm reason which

sought to unite them under the pressure of powerful traditions were

in mutual conflict. It was the conflict of nationalism and unity.

As in Chili the Carreras opposed the authority of San Martin, as in

Venezuela Paez rebelled against the unification of Bolivar, so

Carrera the Guatemalan general warred against Morazan, the _caudillo_

of the Unitarian party, during twelve years of a struggle of province

with province.

However, the States separated one from another, and united anew under

the domination of a theoretical federation; men still legislated in

Congresses, and built the future nation with the ardour of Jacobins:

eleven Assemblies of the Confederation prepared codes and statutes.

One essential trait of the new laws was their secular spirit, and

their tendency to aggressive action against the clergy. Even sooner

than Mexico these assemblies promulgated the laws of the Reformation;

even before the era of religious quarrels opened in Colombia the

radical fervour which was contemporary with the liberalism of

Rivadavia was at work in Central America. For that matter, it

appeared to be a remnant of the old "regalism." In 1829 the Assembly

suppressed all convents of monks; in 1830 Honduras declared that

secular priests might marry; in Guatemala it was enacted that the

sons of members of the clergy ordained _in sacris_ were necessarily

their heirs. In 1832 toleration was proclaimed, but, on the other

hand, the States were continually fighting over the question of

patronage, and the antagonism between the State, which wished to

impose its tutelage, and the rebellious Church was perpetual.

{225}

Two influences dominated the minds of the new law-makers: English

utilitarianism and Yankee federalism. Here French ideas were not

predominant. But the tropical republics could not assimilate the

severe English doctrine. In vain, in 1832, did Congress go into

mourning on the occasion of the death of Bentham; in vain was

absolute liberty of testimony proclaimed in Guatemala. The double

and inevitable influence of tradition and race cannot be destroyed by

means of improvised laws.

Central America borrowed from the United States their mode of

suffrage, the federal system, the organisation of the jury, and the

codes of Louisiana. But popular agitation condemned the institution

of the jury; the codes borrowed from the United States did not

annihilate barbarism, and the federal system was powerless to enforce

unity.

In 1842 this troublous Confederation of sister nations was dissolved.

Once these nations were definitely separated, what we may call the

period of provincial history commenced; it was confused, yet

identical in the case of the various States. Above the anarchical

multitude rose energetic _caudillos_; necessary tyrants, who

endeavoured to enforce order in the interior, and to organise the

national finances.

The history of Costa Rica forms the only exception among these

republics oscillating between tyranny and demagogy. In this country

were no clearly divided social castes, no great capitalists, and no

crowds of proletariats. A small homogeneous State, in which men were

always known as _hermanicos_ ("brotherlies") because their interests

and their ideas were identical, Costa Rica seemed to justify the

classic idea which associated the success of the republican system

with limited territories and small human groups. Work, unity, and

lasting peace have been the characteristics of social evolution in

{226} Costa Rica. While neighbouring States were at war this tiny

republic was progressing peacefully.

Salvador also developed normally without the discords of Nicaragua or

Guatemala. Race explains the differences to be observed in these

great theatres of political experience; in Salvador and Costa Rica

the Spanish element was predominant, the castes were confounded, the

population was dense, and the birth-rate high. In Honduras mulattos

abounded, and in Nicaragua and Guatemala the races were mixed, and

the Indians were superior in point of numbers. Among these five

tropical republics those which progressed were those in which the

race was homogeneous, or in which the Iberian conquerors outnumbered

the Indians, negroes, and mulattos.

The very tropical anarchy which has turned Central America into a

perpetual theatre of civil wars has also continually divided the two

zones of the ancient Hispaniola: San Domingo and Hayti. In the one

the Spaniards ruled, in the other the French, and the antagonism of

these two Powers was of long duration. Hayti is a negro State, and

San Domingo refused to submit to the tyranny of ex-slaves. Conflicts

of a political origin were supplemented by the warfare of castes.

Caudillos and tyrants have succeeded one another in the government;

revolutions and domestic wars have continually troubled these two

small States, over which the United States have gradually extended

their tutelage.

As early as the seventeenth century the French were established in

Hispaniola, on the northern coast; bold Normans, herdsmen and

shepherds, the celebrated buccaneers, had founded a kind of forest

republic ruled by special laws. In 1691 this territory was a French

colony, and in 1726 it contained 30,000 free inhabitants and 100,000

slaves, black or mulatto. The Creoles, according to the chroniclers

of the time, were proud and inconstant, idle and {227} sceptical as

to religion. The negroes, chiefly occupied in servile labour,

superstitious and imprudent, formed the bulk of the slaves. A

Jesuit, Father Charlevoix, who had observed them, wrote in 1725:

"Properly speaking we may say that the negroes between Cap Blanc and

Cap Noir have been born only for slavery."[1] It was said that the

negroes were wont to celebrate the rites of a secret worship in the

forest, and were preparing to fight for their liberty. They hated

the other castes, the whites, the free negroes, and the mulattos; and

the Hayti of the future was born of this racial hatred. Ex-slaves

governed the isle, and found in bloody hecatombs revenge for their

long servitude. These formed the oligarchy, an intolerable and

intolerant aristocracy, inimical to whites and mulattos. Like the

revolts of slaves in the ancient world, these rebellions of American

serfs were the occasion of wars of extermination. The French

Revolution provoked them by its Utopian liberalism: Mirabeau and

Lafayette were friends of the negro, and the Convention decreed the

abolition of slavery in the colonies in 1794. The slaves had risen

already, in 1791, at the first rumours of the risings in France,

burning property and killing their rulers.

They therefore attained political and civil liberty suddenly, with no

prudent transitions. A _caudillo_, Toussaint Louverture, was the

hero of the war of liberation. The metropolis made this ex-coachman

a general. Sober and active, crafty and patriotic, he aspired to

seize the reins of government; he expelled the English and fought

against the people of colour who were led by General Rigaud; he was

the indomitable defender of his race. The slaves regarded him as a

tutelary deity; they thought him inspired; he gradually became the

fetish of a superstitious caste. In 1801 an Assembly elected him

governor for life; but he did not renounce the protection of {228}

France. In vain did his adulators call him the Napoleon of the

negroes; he did not aspire to absolute rule. He organised an army

and set the finances in order; he proved a vigilant administrator.

Like the dictator Francia in Paraguay, he forced his people to work

by strict regulations; he prosecuted vagabonds, won the esteem of the

whites, and introduced a severe morality into matters of finance.

Napoleon wished to reconquer the emancipated colony, and sent a

strong army against it. The negroes rallied round their chief, and

offered a heroic resistance; finally the French withdrew, and

abandoned the island to the ex-slaves. In 1825 the metropolis

recognised the independence of Hayti.

The Constitution of the new republic was promulgated in 1801.

Without disdaining the suzerainty of France, which had prematurely

abolished slavery, the negroes made laws intended to establish a

democracy; they organised municipalities, and recognised Catholicism

as the State religion. They recognised that labour, painful as it is

to an indolent nation, is yet obligatory. From this time forward the

history of Hayti is a perpetual succession of civil wars and

dictatorships. Liberal laws were given to a caste habituated to

slavery. Pétion, who was honoured by the friendship of Bolivar, was

President in 1807; he applied himself more especially to the

education of his people, and was called the father of his country;

his government was a period of peace between two crises of vandalism.

Before him the successor of Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines, had

ordered the killing of all the whites, and had commenced a disastrous

racial war. Nothing could be more hateful to the ex-slaves than the

aristocracy of the skin; neither whites nor mulattos escaped the fury

of the rulers. The integrity of the negro race was the ideal of

these ferocious dictators.

{229}

No South American republic had to suffer such ill-augured tyrannies

as those of Hayti; no autocracy was so formidable as that of these

ex-slaves, whose leaders were notable amateurs of pageantry and

bloodshed. Soulouque, the sworn enemy of the mulattos, proclaimed

himself Emperor in 1849, taking the name of Faustinus I., and

surrounding himself with a grotesquely ambitious court: he was the

most execrable of despots. The Republic was re-established in 1859,

and the monotonous sequence of servile coxcombs who made use of their

power to gratify their passion for extermination recommenced: civil

wars, international wars, assassinations, and massacres filled the

bloodstained chronicles of the isle. The Haytian rulers exercised a

harsh domination over San Domingo, where mulattos abounded and the

Spanish tradition was not extinct; the negro invasion exiled the

Dominican writers, destroyed the culture of the university, and swept

like a wave of barbarism into the brilliant colony.

The Dominicans abhorred their long servitude, and, despite the

terrible reprisals of their rulers, they prepared in silence for

liberation. In 1821 Nuñez de Caceres declared San Domingo to be

separated from Spain, and demanded protection of Colombia; the

President of Hayti, Boyer, could not permit this unexpected autonomy,

and sent an army to occupy the capital of the new republic. After a

long period of secret preparation another group of patriots again

proclaimed the independence of San Domingo, and in 1844 a movement

which coincided with the revolt of the Haytian liberals against the

tyranny of Boyer. This campaign, known as "the Revolt," was directed

by an impassioned ideologist, Juan-Pablo Duarte, who was surrounded

by intellectuals and men of action. The traditional oppressors were

vanquished, and the victors proclaimed that "the peoples of the

ancient Spanish portion, in vindication of their rights {230} and

desiring to provide for their own welfare and future happiness in a

just and legal manner, have formed themselves into a free,

independent, and sovereign State."

In winning her autonomy San Domingo did not realise the dream of the

strict republicans. Her history is less troubled than that of Hayti,

and education and literature have attained an astonishing development

in the old Spanish colony, but political life has been indecisive and

full of revolutionary upheavals, as in the other democracies of South

America. Perhaps we must attribute to the great number of mulattos,

always incapable of self-government, or to the long duration of the

Haytian domination, the anarchy of this, one of the youngest of the

overseas republics. After 1844, the year of liberation, Santana, a

half-breed dictator, cunning, uncultured, and implacable in hatred,

retained the supreme power. The Februarists were at the head of the

revolution known as the Reformation--Duarte, Mella, Sanchez--noble

idealists in love with the idea of democracy. However, a _caudillo_

profited by this movement of regeneration, overruling the ideologists

in the name of practical despotism. "Februarism," said a remarkable

Dominican thinker, "that is to say, the constitution of a free

government founded upon equity, without _caciquism_ and without the

shameful fetters which sometimes limit the exercise of sovereignty,

has predominated for too short a time on two or three occasions of

our national life. On the contrary, Santanism--that is, personal

autocracy, rigid and stifling, such as characterised the entire

policy of Santana, and which has been practised since his time by

nearly all our rulers, attenuated in some cases and in others

exasperated--Santanism seems to have deep and inextricable roots."[2]

But is it not the fact that despotism is the necessary {231} form of

all government in these republics, where the division of castes

opposes unity and the normal development of nationality? The future

of Haytians and Dominicans both is full of grave problems: among the

first we find poetry, imagination, a high state of culture, but

political evolution is very slow. The peoples of the Tropics seem

incapable of order, laborious patience, and method; so that the

prodigal literature of San Domingo forms a striking contrast to the

archaic quality of its political life. "Its geographical situation,"

says Señor Garcia Godoy, "places it almost at the mercy of North

American imperialism." Hayti is still a barbarous democracy. It is

not easy to turn a colony of negro slaves into an orderly and

prosperous republic merely by virtue of political charters of foreign

origin; and it has not been proved that parliamentarism, municipal

life, and the classic division of powers, the creation of the East,

form an adequate system of government for negroes and mulattos. In

vain did General Légitime, once President of Hayti, affirm that had

they been properly encouraged and directed, his people would already

have arrived at "the highest degree of prosperity and civilisation";

in vain did he pretend that the decadence of his country was due not

to a question of race but to a problem of social economy: excess of

taxation and paper money. Hayti possesses immense natural wealth,

yet the taxes are crushing, the railways go bankrupt, labourers

emigrate, and agriculture and industry are dwindling, as the General

recognised; all because the indolence of the race does not permit it

to take advantage of the fertility of the soil nor to govern itself.

[1] _Histoire de l'Isle cspagnole_, Amsterdam, 1733, vol. iv. p. 362.

[2] _Rufinito_, by F. Garcia Godoy, Santo Domingo, 1908, pp. 53, 54.

{233}

BOOK V

_INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION_

Spain founded universities in America, where she exercised a true

monopoly of ideas. The Revolution in her colonies was inspired by

the doctrines of the French Encyclopædists. Since then--that is,

during the whole of the nineteenth century--the metropolis has been

losing the greater portion of her ancient intellectual privileges.

Political and literary ideas, romanticism and liberalism, faith in

reason and poetic enthusiasm, all these have been imported from

France. It is interesting to study the results of this lasting

influence in philosophy and letters.

{235}

CHAPTER I

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

Conservatives and

liberals--Lastarria--Bilbao--Echeverria--Montalvo--Vigil--The

Revolution of 1848 and its influence in America--English ideas:

Bello, Alberdi--The educationists.

The revolutionists of America hastily sought for an ideology which

should ratify their victory. By virtue of French ideas they had

demolished an ancient organisation, had thrown off the Spanish

tyranny, and had exalted anarchy in speech and in verse. To raise

future cities in the wilderness they had need of a political gospel.

They founded the Republic, imported institutions from abroad, and

granted all the political liberties to an amorphous crowd. The first

disputes were already audible between the defenders of the old order

and the radicals who sought to destroy it; conservatives and liberals

appeared at an identical moment of republican life. Militarism,

revolutions, and the warfare of _caudillos_ were in part explained by

the profound differences between the champions of tradition and the

soldiers of liberty.

Dominated by the need to live, these nations created a political

philosophy. They disregarded criticism and analysis; they affirmed

and constructed; they required a faith as intolerant as the archaic

dogmas. Democracy and liberalism were the essential articles of this

secular religion. To the eyes of the new orthodoxy the convictions

of the {236} monarchists and absolutists were dangerous heresies:

royalists were prosecuted as free-thinkers had been of old. Thought

was not divorced from action. It reflected the political unrest; it

prepared or justified political transformations. A species of

pragmatism was characteristic of American thought. Poetry was rhymed

oratory, lyrical declamation; the poet condemned any form of civil

autocracy; he execrated tyrants, or evoked ingenuous liberties; he

could not conceive of pure thought as divorced from life. Alberdi,

an Argentine thinker, wrote: "Philosophy is meant for politics,

morality, industry, and history, and if it does not serve them it is

a puerile and a trifling science." He condemned the analysis of the

eighteenth century, which "dissolves and corrupts everything"; to

vain ideology, to the question whether "ideas and sensations, memory

and reminiscence are distinct faculties," he preferred "an Argentine

philosophy in which are distilled the social and moral needs of our

country; a clear, democratic, progressive, and popular philosophy,

with ideas like those of Condorcet; human perfectibility, continual

progress of the human species; a philosophy which inspires men with

the love of country and the love of humanity."

The champions of liberalism defined the principles of the new social

state; they were brilliant commentators, their subject being the

ideas of French and Spanish philosophy. Their action in a society in

which the old colonial prejudices were still triumphant was

categorical and magistral. They created institutions and laws, and

applied foreign doctrines to the troubles of the time. Sometimes

they seemed inspired in the Biblical sense; they prophesied and

condemned, as did Bilbao and Echeverria.

Lastarria, Bilbao, Montalvo, Vigil, and Sarmiento were the leading

figures of this romantic period; {237} with them intellectual

activity was inseparable from politics. Lastarria and Bilbao opposed

the authoritarianism of Chili; Montalvo and Vigil respectively, the

clericalism of Ecuador and Peru; Sarmiento, the tyranny of Rosas.

Their works were pamphlets, their theories were always practical:

criticisms of contemporary reality, or constructive sketches of the

State of the future.

Lastarria and Bilbao were the professors of liberalism in Chili. The

liberalism of the first was tempered by the influence of Comte, and

the study of philosophy and history; that of the second,

indisciplined and prophetic, was eventually the bitter protest of a

misunderstood evangelist.

Lastarria was the great Chilian reformer, as Bello was the prudent

master who disciplined youth and defended tradition and the classic

ideology. He was, like Bilbao, a pupil of Bello's, but to the

conservative doctrines of the latter he opposed a generous

liberalism. He was professor of legislation at the National

Institute of Santiago from 1841, and from his professorial chair he

criticised Chilian laws and prejudices. At first he followed Bentham

in his lectures on constitutional law, and then the French liberals.

He was influenced by Herder, by Edgar Quinet, a jurist and a disciple

of Krause, and by Ahrens. Finally he accepted certain ideas of

Comte's--for instance, the theory of the Three Estates--and

endeavoured to reconcile his teaching with that of John Stuart Mill,

Toqueville, and Laboulaye.

He believed, as did the romantics, in indefinite progress, liberty,

universal harmony, and the power of man as against the inevitability

of physical laws; in 1846 his political studies won the eulogy of

Edgar Quinet. From a liberal standpoint he studied the evolution of

Chili from the Conquest to the Republic.

In the defence of his political faith the professor intervened in the

struggles of his country; academic {238} dissertations did not

satisfy him; he felt the need of action, of parliamentary agitation.

As deputy and publicist he opposed the influence of Portales, the

representative of the Chilian oligarchy, and the Constitution of

1833, that admirable piece of conservative legislation. "The State,"

said Lastarria, "has for its object the respect of the rights of the

individual: there is the limit of its action." Portales, on the

other hand, considered a strong central authority, a stern tutelage,

to be a necessity in the South American republics, subject as they

were to crises of anarchy. Liberty seemed to him a premature gift

where the crowd was concerned. Lastarria opposed the positive work

of the dictator by a vague idealism: liberty of conscience, of work,

of association; an executive powerless to limit these liberties;

municipal government, federation--such were the fundamental items of

his propaganda. In the generality of American constitutions he

disapproved of the vague definition of individual rights, the

attributions of the public powers, the irresponsibility of these

latter, and the amalgamation of colonial political forms with the

administrative centralisation of the French _régime_.

Two Presidents, Bulnes and Montt, from 1841 to 1861, continued the

despotic system founded by Portales; against them the liberal

professor commenced his magnificent campaign. He was exiled in 1850.

He travelled, and continued to publish his political writings. He

had studied Comte, Mill, and Toqueville, and he now completed his

education in certain directions. His next book, _Lessons in

Positivist Politics_ (1874), applied the principles of the Positivist

school to the evolution of South America and to Chilian history in

particular. He studied the organisation of the powers of the State,

of society, and government, and abandoned his former radicalism. He

recognised the fact that where Catholicism is the religion of the

majority (as in Chili) the State may {239} protect the national

Church while exercising the moderate supervision that is known as

"patronage."

Lastarria influenced the destinies of Chili. At his death the

liberals came into power, and politicians like Santa-Maria and

Balmaceda, who supported liberal legislation, may be regarded as

disciples of the author of _Positivist Politics_.

Lastarria was a politician, Bilbao an apocalyptic dreamer. He

founded the "Society of Equality," which was a democratic club. A

generous and radical nature, he criticised, in a celebrated article

on _Chilian Sociability_ (1844), "the tradition, the ancient

authority, the faith, the servile customs, the national apathy, the

dogma of blind obedience, the respect for the established order, the

hatred of innovation, and the persecution of the innovator," which he

deplored in his native country. He gave a pitiless analysis of

Chilian prejudices, and studied the national problems--commerce,

education, marriage, taxation, the functions of Church and State--and

answered them in a democratic sense. He was accused of immorality,

blasphemy, and sedition. He also attacked the Constitution of 1833,

and the minister Montt could not forgive him for this liberal

campaign. Ten years later Bilbao was exiled for his leanings toward

anarchy, and in Paris he became acquainted with Quinet and Lamennais,

the evangelists of his democratic faith. In 1880, on his return to

Chili, he resumed his inflammatory courses.

Montalvo in Ecuador represented the same liberal effort as Bilbao and

Lastarria. But this democrat had read Montaigne and Voltaire; he was

a master of satire, irony, and sarcasm. His contradictory nature

united Lamartine's faith in democracy with the scepticism of the

eighteenth century. He was not a politician merely, but a man of

letters. His wide culture was revealed by the multiple forms in

which his intellectual activity found an outlet. As an {240}

essayist, by his lyrical disorder, he recalled Carlyle. His harsh

criticism of the national clergy in _La Mercurial Eclesiastica_ is as

lively as an Italian _conte_. He imitated Cervantes with perfection;

he could make a clever pastiche of _Don Quixote_. He knew his Byron,

Milton, Lamartine, Racine, and the Latin and Spanish classics, and

would have been the completest type of the humanist which the Latin

New World has produced had not his restless spirit yielded too

readily to the solicitations of politics.

In contrast to Garcia-Moreno, the Catholic dictator, Montalvo was the

liberal free-lance; he could not forgive the _caudillo_ his long

tyranny, his intolerant faith, his submission to the Pope as a

supreme monarch. The Ecuadorian polemist believed in liberty and the

republic; he detested the theocracy implanted by the Christian

President.

But his activities were not destructive; Montalvo was a believer in

the manner of the revolutionists of 1848. "A sane and pure democracy

has need of Jesus Christ," he wrote in his liberal enthusiasm; he

loved Christianity because it was the religion of the democracy.

Democracy would be the law of the nations "if some day the spirit of

the Gospel were to prevail." He eulogised the stoicism and virtue of

the Roman Republic, in the image of which he wished to construct the

Chilian democracy, and in a magnificent essay he exalted the nobility

of these qualities. He was not a radical like Bilbao; a forerunner

of pragmatism, he accepted all useful ideas, even Catholicism, so

that it did not become a political tyranny. "There is nothing to be

gained by attacking certain beliefs," he wrote, "which by virtue of

being general and useful to all will eventually become verities, even

if the curious and courageous investigation of bygone things could

constitute a motive for doubting them."

An American thinker, he applied Latin ideas to {241} the affairs of

the continent. In his _Seven Treaties_, his capital work, are some

superb passages upon the heroes of South American emancipation. His

cult was that of Carlyle, religious and full of lyrical passion. "In

what is he inferior to the great men of antiquity?" he asks of

Bolivar. "Only in this, that no long centuries flow between us, for

only time, the great master, can distil in his magic laboratory the

chrism with which the princes of nature are anointed." He traces a

parallel between Bolivar and Napoleon, between Bolivar and

Washington. "In Napoleon there is something more than in other men;

a sense, a wheel in the mechanism of understanding, a fibre in the

heart. He looks across the world from the Apennines to the Pillars

of Hercules, from the pyramids of Egypt to the snows of Russia.

Kings tremble, pallid, and half-lifeless; thrones crack and crumble;

the nations look up and regard him and are afraid, and bend the knee

before the giant." Montalvo admires Napoleon, but he judges Bolivar

the superior, because the work of the former was destroyed by

mankind, while the work of the latter still prospers. "He who

realises great and lasting undertakings is greater than he who

realises only great and ephemeral things."

Montalvo believed in the American race, in the mestizos, "in the

high, lofty spirit and the stout heart which make the aristocracy of

South America." His prophetic enthusiasm exalts the future

inhabitants of America, "who will be our descendants when the

traveller shall sadly seat himself to meditate upon the ruins of the

Louvre, the Vatican, or St. Paul's." To his work of criticism of

Garcia-Moreno and the clericals we must add this religious

Americanism, this tenacious faith in the destinies of the democracy.

Without the lyric fervour of Montalvo, heavy and dusty as an ancient

palimpsest, Vigil represents the struggle of Peruvian liberalism

against the power of {242} the Church. Born in 1792, he was a

priest, and abandoned his calling, but without retaining, like Renan,

the unction of the seminarist. A stoic in his life, the champion of

liberty in several Congresses, he devoted his riper years to a long

campaign against ecclesiastical privilege. His admirable erudition

served him in this propaganda. He defended the State against the

encroachments of the clergy. An idealist, he preached universal

peace, the union of all American nations, and expounded the

excellencies of the democracy, in whose Christian virtues he, like

Montalvo, firmly believed. He won respect, as did Bilbao, by the

austerity of his life and the sincerity of his exhortations: a

Socratic master whose life was harmonious as a poem.

An Argentine thinker, genial and tumultuous, Sarmiento represented a

liberalism less coherent than that of Echeverria, but as a champion

of the ideal and the intellectual life in the democracy tyrannised

over by Rosas he deserves to be placed beside Lastarria and Montalvo.

Menendez Pelayo called him the _gaucho_ of the Republic of Letters;

for his pugnacious individuality, his barbaric impetuosity, and his

semi-culture, which was mitigated by admirable intuition, were

inimical to all classic order or discipline. Sarmiento was a

romantic by temperament; he attacked Spanish culture in the name of

French liberalism, and condemned tradition, which led to slavery; he

believed in the virtuality of ideas, the mission of education, and

the greatness of democracy. He applied to the United States for

models of popular education, and for political examples of federal

life. He was a teacher, a journalist, a pamphleteer, and a President.

He analysed Argentine life and the American revolutions; in 1845 he

published _El Facundo_, an evocation of the Argentine civil wars,

with all the passion and lyrical fervour of a Michelet. Sarmiento

{243} was the enemy of Rosas, as Montalvo was the eloquent rival of

Garcia-Moreno. In _El Facundo_ are pages of pitiless criticism of

the tyranny of the federal _caudillo_. Exiled, he founded a review

in Chili, in 1842, in which he still attacked Rosas, but he did not

confine himself to ephemeral journalism. He discovered eternal

elements in the battles of the time; he studied the American man and

the American soil, as in the prologue to _El Facundo_. He then

studied the racial problem, and in another book described the ideal

republic of which he dreamed. His work is profoundly American.

American liberalism, between 1830 and 1860, was inspired by French

ideas. One revolution, that of 1789, explained in part the movement

for the conquest of political liberty. Another, that of 1848, found

echoes even in these distant democracies, and disturbed them by the

insinuating eloquence of a new gospel. A curious parallelism may be

observed between the claims of French socialism and American

radicalism.

In France the Revolution of 1848 had not only a political tendency,

but also a social aspect. An extension of electoral capacity was

desired, and the right to work was proclaimed; men fought for the

sovereignty of the people, and workshops were founded in which the

State assured the subsistence of the working-classes. While the

republican parties were fighting against the monarchy of Louis

Philippe, Icarians and Communists were preparing for the social

revolution; the proletariat was rising against the _bourgeoisie_, as

the Third Estate rose against the nobility of old. A note of

equalitarian fervour was noticeable in the protest of the crowd. The

leaders of the movement against Guizot and his oligarchy of

property-owners were socialists: Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, Blanqui,

and Ledru-Rollin; they supplemented their democratic victories by a

programme of social reform.

{244}

In Latin America the Revolution was chiefly political; it demanded

the suffrage, equality before the law, and respect for political

rights, and it condemned the excesses of authority. It did not

forget to make a social protest, but the conflict of classes was not

as yet very violent.

"The Revolution of 1848 was loudly echoed in Chili," wrote the

historian Vicuña-Mackenna. To combat the oligarchy the young

Lastarria brothers, Bilbao, the Amunategui, the three Mattas, the

three Blests, Santiago Arcos, and Diego Barros-Arana founded the

"Society of Equality," a secret club, "to save the people from the

shameful tutelage to which it has been subjected."[1]

This tutelage was more especially political; for this reason the club

proclaimed democratic principles: the sovereignty of reason, the

sovereignty of the people, and universal love and brotherhood. These

young men opened schools for the people. Lillo published a

translation of _The Words of a Believer_, by Lamennais, which served

the radical circle for their Bible.

But the real master of the new generation in Chili and in the other

democracies was Lamartine. "From 1848 to 1858 he was a demi-god, a

second Moses," wrote a historian. The "young men" formed a

commentary upon the _History of the Girondists_. They imitated the

great figures of the French Revolution: Bilbao was Vergniaud;

Santiago Arcos, Marat; Lastarria, Brissot. Societies were formed,

congresses were held; one exalted group called itself _The Mountain_.

In Venezuela, in 1846, a demagogue by the name of Antonio Leocadio

Guzman offered the people the abolition of slavery and the

repartition of the soil; he led a revolution against society and the

Government. In Colombia the liberal Constitution of 1853 was an

{245} echo of the French Revolution of 1848, and democratic clubs

were formed as in Chili. They ruled the country by means of terror,

were predominant in the journals, and propagated socialism and hatred

of the oligarchy of property-owners and the omnipotent clergy. The

liberals evoked Christ as the first democrat, whence the faction

known as _Golgotha_. Anarchy increased in the provinces. Bishops

and conservative notabilities were pursued, the Jesuits were

expelled, and in 1851 the slaves were freed. A discontent of long

standing was revealed by the activities of these eloquent

revolutionaries, who imitated, like the Chilian Girondists, the

French politicians of the Revolution.

"Democracy," Lamartine had said in 1848, "is, in principle, the

direct reign of God." His ideal was an equalitarian Republic. His

political ideas were drawn from the New Testament; he saw in the

French Revolution "a Divine and holy thought." Charity, the

protection of the disinherited, equality, and fraternity--in short

the whole democratic creed--was merely the application of Christian

ideas to the world of politics. Lamartine wrote in defence of all

the liberties, and wished the Government to be "an instrument of

God." We can understand what enthusiasm this eloquence, impregnated

as it was with idealism and the love of humanity, must have produced

in America; we find the accents of Lamartine echoed in the words of

Montalvo as well as Bilbao. Anarchy presently became a sort of

mystic rebellion against tyrants. Throughout all South America

Lamartine and the Revolution of 1848 inspired men's speech or

writings, and engendered revolutions or fresh tyrannies.

The influence of France was sovereign. The influence of Guizot and

the doctrinaires must be added to that of Lamartine. English ideas

also were prevalent; Bentham was the great authority on {246}

political science from the earliest years of the Republic; at his

death the Central American Congress, which had followed his teaching,

proclaimed a period of mourning. In Colombia General Santander

quoted against Bolivar phrases inspired by English radicalism and by

Destutt de Tracy. Bentham harshly criticised the _Contrat Social_ of

Rousseau, and his pretended "natural rights"; policy he based upon

the happiness of the greatest number. Tracy professed a moderate

relativism, and utilitarian ideas, like Bentham. Bolivar, unlike

these professors of individualism, believed in the benefits of a

moral dictatorship.

Bello again represented English thought, not only in his

philosophical work, but also in his writings as jurist. He was, like

the classic legislators, the creator of the written law. His civil

code, promulgated in Chili in 1855, served other nations as a model,

and his _Law of Nations_ became the international law of South

America. He was born into the world for the purpose of pouring

language as well as law into logical moulds. In his legislative work

he displayed a severe analysis, a British prudence, and a constant

recognition of social realities. He hated the vague and the

nebulous, and liked to express his ideas in clear, concrete formulæ;

he brought to the solution of social problems a solid common sense.

Alberdi also adopted British methods and ideas. In France he

especially admired Guizot, and distrusted Lamartine. He attacked the

sterile intellectualism of his fellow-Americans, and wrote in defence

of Protestantism, a religion peculiarly appropriate to republics on a

Catholic continent. He believed in the English constitutional

monarchy, in the benefits of technical schools, and in the disastrous

effects of a parasitical scholarship; he preferred strong

governments, like that of Chili, and detested demagogues. "The

Republic," he wrote, "has been {247} and is still the bread of

Presidents, the trade of soldiers, the industry of lawyers without

causes, and journalists without talent; the refuge of the second-rate

of every species, and the machine for the amalgamation of all the

dross of society." Such was his verdict on the political system of

South America.

He called for a monarchy as the only salvation of the country: "thus

the Republics might unite themselves to Europe, whence their riches

and their civilisation derive, and resist the monopoly of North

America." From European influence he hoped to obtain not only

culture, but also the consecration of political independence. He

begged the Old World for emigrants, for capital, and for princes. In

an admirable volume published in 1858 he analysed the "bases" of the

Argentine organisation. This book was no Latin gospel; with the

"relativity" of an Anglo-Saxon he proposed practical solutions; he

ascribed supremacy to population, strong governments, laborious

immigrants, and industrial wealth; he disdained the ideology of the

revolutionists, and their implacable Jacobinism. His effort may be

compared to that of Burke in his criticism of the French Revolution.

Amid the sterile enthusiasm of romantic politicians his book stands

out, in its gravity, sobriety, common sense, and realism, like a

lesson for all time.

Other American conservatives were Lucas Alaman, leader of the Mexican

conservatives and author of a fine history of his country; Bartolome

Herrera, a follower of Guizot, in Peru; Cecilio Acosta, in Venezuela:

these were in agreement with Alberdi upon certain points of his ample

doctrine. Like the Argentine, Acosta wished to see more elementary

and secondary schools and fewer universities, to find "practical

knowledge replacing a parchment scholarship; free speech and thought

the fetters of the peripatetic school; and generalisation,

casuistry." The jurists obeyed the same tendency; they were {248}

positive and analytic spirits; they brought clarity and discipline to

an incoherent politics. Among them we may cite, after Bello, Calvo,

Garcia Calderon, Velez Sarsfield, and Ambrosio Montt. They opposed

the ineffectual Constitutions of the precisians.

Liberal idealism vanquished conservative good sense. Lastarria

attracted impetuous youth more than Bello and Alberdi; Guizot had few

readers; Lamartine and Benjamin-Constant were popular. Liberalism,

radicalism, Jacobinism: these were the various disguises of South

American anarchy.

[1] Za piola, _La Sociedad de la Igualdad_, Santiago, 1902, p. 8.

{249}

CHAPTER II

THE LITERATURE OF THE YOUNG DEMOCRACIES

Spanish classicism and French romanticism--Their influence in

America--Modernism--The work of Ruben Dario--The novel--The _conte_

or short story

The ancient Spanish colonies, freed from the political authority of

Spain, still followed her in the matter of literature; republican

autonomy and intellectual subjection were not incompatible. Towards

1825 writers in prose and verse were by no means imitating France,

although she gave them her declamatory politics and her revolutionary

code. Educated in Spain, the best minds were seeking their

inspiration in the Spanish literature of the eighteenth century: the

works of the classic Quintana, of Moratin, Gallego, Lista, and

Jovellanos dominated the American schools.

A lasting divorce, this of a romantic politics and a classic

literature. When letters were invaded by romanticism, with its lyric

lamentations, a sane realism--the realism of men preoccupied with

finances or laborious codifications--struggled against the swamping

waves of all this rhetoric. Literary forms, long out of fashion in

France and even in Spain, still aroused enthusiasm in America; the

American author adopted the realism of the naturalistic novel when

the French schools were already given over to symbolism, and at a

later date he became first {250} a modernist and then a decadent,

while in France a classic restoration had set in. To the real

current of European literature South America has preferred ephemeral

excesses, and the work of coteries, which she has imitated with

enthusiasm. It is barely ten years since South American letters

began to reflect--curiously behind the times--the direction taken by

French poetry. The literature of the new continent, to-day invaded

by books and ideas, follows a path parallel to that followed by

French and Spanish letters. Every novelty finds an echo, and the

very diversity of imitation ought before long to give rise to a final

originality.

Poets, both romantic and classic, threw themselves into the social

conflicts of the time; whence that kinship between poetry and

eloquence, already recognised by Brunetière in France.[1] In

American poetry we find the civic accent, eulogies of liberty, odes

to civilisation and the mother-country, rather than elegies or

"states of soul." Tyrtæus would be popular there rather than

Anacreon; Béranger would be imitated rather than De Musset.

Classicism thus takes the form of a civic poetry; calm and mannered,

it sings of political subjects, of progress, independence, and the

victories of liberty over theocracy.

In Mexico, Ecuador, and the Argentine, the first generation of

republican poets were incontestably disciples of the master of the

Spanish masters--Quintana, whose grave and virile odes exalted the

printing-press, philanthropy, and progress: new deities erected by

the French Revolution upon the ancient altars. His emphasis, the

movement of his verse, and the breath of oratory which enlivens his

stanzas, charmed and subjugated the writers oversea. Liberty, so

barely conquered, gave birth to a poetry {251} which sang of heroes

and of battles. Ideas and forms were inspired by Quintana; their

best eulogy is comparison with their model. Thus Olmedo, the second

poet of this classic age, is known as the American Quintana.

Those who acclaimed the Revolution in Mexico also were disciples of

the Spanish poet; republican orators in verse, Quintana Roo or

Sanchez del Tagle, who describe the heroes of the War of

Independence. An eminent poetess, Salome Ureña de Henriquez, of San

Domingo, sang of civilisation and the native land with a most austere

and noble eloquence.

A political poet again, Juan Cruz, of Argentina, gracefully

proclaimed the glory of the Unitarian party and that of the reformer

Rivadavia.

The contemporary writers of the Revolution did not forget the

instruction received in Spain, in the universities of the eighteenth

century, where they studied in Latin and commented upon the classics

of Greece and Rome. They read and imitated Horace and Virgil, and

were inspired by the ancient democracies, and the heroes of Plutarch;

the Isthmus of Panama was compared to that of Corinth. At their

birth the Republics appointed consuls and triumvirs. In speeches and

proclamations of the time we find numerous classical reminiscences;

politicians and poets borrowed their images from Pindar, Horace,

Homer, and Virgil.

The influence of the classics and of Quintana is especially to be

remarked in Olmedo, the poet of Ecuador, who chanted the victory of

Junin and the genius of Bolivar. The movement of his verses is that

of a Latin ode, while the eloquence, sonority, and graceful

progression of his stanzas recalls the Spanish classics.

The Venezuelan lyrist Bello, a true humanist, was inspired by Virgil,

and attained a truly classic perfection.

{252}

But Quintana was not alone in serving as model to the lost colonies;

others, the fiery Gallego, and Moratin, the author of delightful

comedies; a critic, Alberto Lista; Melendez, Cienfugos, and Martinez

de la Rosa, cultivators of a correct, elegant, and frigid form, were

also imitated, and the imitators could not free themselves from their

impoverished classicism. Olmedo (1780) and Bello (1781) were both

masters of metre, taste, and harmony. It is not easy in their case

to separate the politician from the artist, they themselves

considering their art to be a high republican function; Olmedo

counsels federation in his _Canto à Junin_, and José Eusebio Caro

attacks the tyrant Lopez in a poem upon liberty, while Felipe Pardo

writes political satires. Of the American democracies he says:

"Zar de tres tintas, indio, bianco y negro,

Que rige el continente americano

Y que se llama Pueblo Soberano."[2]

Towards 1840 classicism gave way to romanticism. The Revolution, the

protest of individualism against the Spanish rule, disdained the old

literary canons, having first condemned the old political system.

The poets, still numerous, sought models in Spain. Arolas,

Espronceda; Zorilla, the Duke de Rivas; and in France, Victor Hugo,

de Musset, and Lamartine. Byron, too, had his disciples. All were

romantic in life and work, pilgrims _à la_ Childe Harold, who

described _Châtiments_ and were persecuted for liberty. Disorderly,

imperfect, dominated by an inward dæmon who produced a continual

exaltation, they portrayed the constant restlessness of their

spirits. {253} Romanticism in Europe was the triumph of the

individual, of liberty, the lyrical poetry of confessions--the

melancholy of René or the satanic pride of Manfred--the revenge, in

short, of sentiment against reason. In art this stood for liberty,

the cult of the exotic, the return to nature, the Gothic restoration,

and war upon classic conventions.

Which among these elements could give the new generation in South

America that enthusiasm which might evoke a romantic state of mind?

Certainly not the national antiquities, remote and misunderstood.

Although a few poets wrote _Orientales_ without much sincerity, none

sought to renew his lyrical gifts in the Aztec or Quechua traditions.

But this imitation of the tendencies of French and Spanish letters

was assisted by the lack of discipline found in the American

character, which was more attracted by idealism and sentiment than by

classic rigidity or reason. All things favoured romanticism; the

political conflicts and the anarchy of the time formed Byronic

heroes; tropical passion found its food in the sentimentalism of

Lamartine and the ardour of De Musset, while the individual was

developed by struggling against the tyrants. In the uncertain and

barbaric life of these young democracies there was a confusion of

_rôles_; the poet became the _vates_, the leader of the crowd, only

to feel himself exiled among mediocrities, the victim of illiterates.

Melancholy, exasperated individualism, the high mission of the poet,

and solitude--these are romantic elements which are reflected in

American literature.

The Colombian Caro believed in the "consoling mission" of the poet,

and this mission, for the Argentine Andrade, was a priesthood and a

prophetic gift. The poet appears "when the human caravan changes its

route in the desert." But as a result of this mission Nemesis

inflicts solitude and suffering. {254} The South American poets

abandon the world as a result of their despair:--

"Sufrirás el martirio

Que al nació poeta

Reserva el hado impío,"[3]

sings the Argentine Echeverria.

And Marmol:--

"Yo vivo solamente cuando feliz deliro

Que los terrenos lazos mi corazón rompió.

. . . . .

Venid porque yo gozo yo vivo solamente

Si pienso que he dejado la humanidad detras."[4]

The Peruvian Salaverry contemplates his heart:--

"Cual la ruina de un templo silencioso

Vacío, abandonado, pavoroso,

Sin luz y sin rumor."[5]

José Eusebio Caro, who has sung of liberty in admirable strophe,

would hide himself in the forest:--

"Que los hombres ya me niegan

Una tumba en sus ciudades

En mi patria me expulsaron

De la casa de mis padres."[6]

These romantics were not, like Rousseau, inclined toward the simple

life by an excess of artificial civilisation. Their melancholy, when

it is not an echo of exotic griefs, is the cry of anguish of a noble

mind lost in a barbarous republic. This contrast between the man and

his surroundings very clearly explains the strong hold obtained by

the {255} romantic ideal; the literature of passion, pride, and

revolt, it expresses a social condition of inner conflict and

solitude.

The Argentine, Marmol, imitates Byron in his _Pilgrim_.

Grandiloquent, passionate, and mournful, he curses the tyranny of

Rosas. Echeverria, under a classic mantle, barely hides his romantic

subjectivity, full of passion and a vague melancholy. In Venezuela

Heriberto Garcia de Quevedo left a legacy of prodigiously long poems.

In Cuba Gertrudis Gomez de Avellanada, wearied and lyrical, exalted

love in the accents of De Musset; the mulatto Placido wrote musical

descriptive verse; Juan Clemente Zenea, translator of Leopardi and

Longfellow, confessed, in musical elegiac verse, his disabused

outlook upon life; and greater than any, Hérédia, the singer of

Niagara, a fiery, suffering spirit, full of contrasts as his art,

tells us of his sorrow and his faith; he sings of love and nature in

beautiful imagery, admiring both the divine might and the

intoxicating sensuality of the tropics.

In Mexico Espronceda and Lamartine inspired Fernando Calderon and

Ignacio Rodriguez Galvan; Zorilla found a disciple in Manuel Flores,

the poet of burning sensuality and savage nature. Brazil, as

fruitful of romantics as Cuba, produced Gongalvez Diaz, who sang of

the melancholy and nostalgia so well expressed by a word in his own

tongue--_saudades_;--of sorrow, deliverance by knowledge, and the

consolation of tears:--

"Men Deus, senhor men Deus, o que ha no mundo

Que não seja soffrir?

O homen nasce, e vive um so instante

E soffre até morrir!"[7]

{256}

In his love poetry there is a very, beautiful sincerity, although we

may recognise the influence of many masters--Byron, Zorilla, and the

French romantics. Cited by him, this line of Saint-Beuve's:--

"Mon Dieu, fais que je puisse aimer!"[8]

enables us to understand his plaints.

Casimiro de Abrou also essayed romantic subjects: solitude, misery,

and exile. Alvares de Azevedo imitated Byron and De Musset, while a

poet who did not versify, José de Alencar, expounded in his tales and

novels a romantic conception of the Indian, simple and virtuous as

one of Rousseau's characters.

We find this conception again in the work of a great poet of Uruguay,

Zorilla de San Martin, who in _Tabaré_ sang the struggles of the

greedy conquerors and the ingenuous Americans.

Romanticism was not with these men merely a matter of art; their

lives were no less troublous and lyrical than their poetry. Rebels

and nomads, thirsting for democratic liberty, they were wasted in the

struggle with tyrants, or sent early to the scaffold or into exile,

as though fate respected the unity of their troubled career. Thus

these disciples of Lamartine, imaginative and sensual, vehement and

melancholy in their art, gave a sombre yet vivid colouring to a

period of American history, the years between 1840 and 1860.

Andrade was conspicuous among all for his sonorous eloquence; he was

the greatest by virtue of the oratory, wealth, and ambitious grandeur

of his poems, vast compositions which recall the _Légende des

siècles_, the _Prometheus_ of Shelley, or the _Ahasuerus_ of Edgar

Quinet. Doubtless he is not the equal of his masters. But devoid of

melancholy and restless passion, his rhetoric, his verbal wealth, and

his {257} sybilline accents exercised a powerful influence.

Repeating the grandiloquent excesses of Hugo, he was the poet of

democracy and the Latin race.

His _Atlantide_ is the Latin future; _Prometheus_ the eternal battle

of thought and fanaticism. He is full of Spanish arrogance.

Marvellously sonorous, his stanzas proclaim, with pomp and majesty, a

romantic faith in America and liberty. The soul of Rome "destined to

inaugurate history and embrace space," lives again beyond the ocean;

Spain was the heir at first, until she choked beneath the "enervating

shadow of the Papacy." France,

"Montana en cuya cumbre

Anida el genio humano,"[9]

was now the leading Latin nation, and Napoleon the instrument of the

ancient imperial spirit. His sword

"Que sobre el mapa de la Europa absorta

Trazó fronteras, suprimió desiertos

Y que quizás de recibir cansada

El homenaje de los reyes vivos,

Fuá á demandar en el confin remote,

El homenaje de los reyos muertos."[10]

Andrade believed in the sacred _rôle_ of the poet: Hugo, his admired

master,

"La voz de trueno del gran profeto hebreo

La cuerda de agrios tonos

De Juvenal

Y el rumor de los cantos

Del viejo Gibelino,"[11]

{258} seemed to him prophet and forerunner, martyr and exile. The

poet, seer, and leader of men, is thus

"Hermano de las águilas del Cáucaso

Que secaron piadosas con sus alas

La ensangrentada faz de Prometeo."[12]

Lyric scholars in these troublous republics, the romantics sought to

ennoble politics by a generous idealism, to overthrow the tyrants,

and realise an impossible democracy.

French naturalism and the Parnassian school had little influence in

Latin America. Although Zola enjoyed a strange popularity--which

corresponds, in the literary world, to the enthusiasm of the

Trans-atlantic universities for materialism and positivism--we meet

with few imitations of _Germinal_ or _La Terre_. The American

writers have not assimilated the naturalistic methods, their brutal

and minute observation, their study of the crowd, and their

intentional pessimism; they have hardly read the masters of the

realistic school, Balzac and Flaubert. Only during the last twenty

years have Maupassant, the Portuguese novelist Eça de Queiros,

d'Annunzio, and the great Russian writers interested and disturbed

the American reader. The love of the novel is but gradually

dislodging the old lyric enthusiasm.

[Illustration: CLÉMENTE PALMA. Peruvian essayist and novelist.

RICARDO PALMER.]

The Parnassian movement, in America, produced the Argentine poet

Leopoldo Diaz. He adapted to Spanish verse the sonority, the relief,

and the plastic beauty of the French masters. One of his poems is

dedicated in homage to the poet of the _Sonnets_, to his incomparable

model, José-Maria de Hérédia. Diaz sought to give his native

Spanish, the language of eloquence, a Parnassian inevitability, and

to mould its rhetorical abundance to the narrow limits of the sonnet.

_Les sombras de Hellas_ invokes the Greek {259} life, sensual and

luminous; _Les conquistadores_ the thunderous epic; and all his

optimistic songs speak of a Latin renaissance in the overseas

democracies.

An absorbing taste for symbolism and the decadents, for

"deliquescent" poetry and the work of the small Parisian cliques, has

produced an intensely vital intellectual movement--modernism--which,

by its wealth of language and ideas and the renewed vitality of its

language, signifies a true renaissance. Beside it the old classic

and romantic movements seem lukewarm imitations which pale before the

exuberance of more modern work.

Modernism is undoubtedly an adequate diet for Transatlantic Latins.

But is this decadent renaissance better inspired than the passion and

the eloquence of yesterday? Is it also an indication of servitude?

By no means; the great poets have retained a robust belief in life,

and their master, Ruben Dario, followed his _Prosas profanas_ by his

_Songs of life and hope_.

The younger generation was drawn to this art by purely psychological

motives. The Spanish character had become refined by its new

environment; weakened, perhaps, but it had gained a keener

intelligence and a greater wealth of fantasy. Chiaroscuro and subtle

shades, such as the French delight in, delighted the Creole also,

partial as he was to _finesse_, to a delicate Byzantism, and

gracefully sceptical of the robust Spanish faith. Then there were

hosts of half-castes, in whom the inimical heredities of two races

were in painful conflict. The strangest characteristics--the

sensuality of the negro and the melancholy of the Indian--gave the

new race a spiritual personality full of contradictory

characteristics; melancholy but not without optimism; the desires of

a faun or a satyr, violent or languid; and a love of the rare and

unusual, of verbal music, of complication in the matter of feeling,

of {260} carefully chosen language and unfamiliar rhythms. Reading

Verlaine, Samain, Laforgue, Moréas, Henri de Régnier, and not as yet

forgetting Gautier and Banville; mingling all cults and asking

intoxication from every flagon, the poets of America have struck the

national chord. Symbolism has been of little assistance; it calls

for a lofty conception of the world and a profound sense of mystery.

They much prefer decadence in art, because of its musical lyric

quality, its exotic images, and its melancholy rhythms. An elective

affinity, to use Goethe's phrase, has enabled them to draw an

individual music from the foreign instrument.

So new metres and old fashions refurbished, modern images in sonorous

and tortuous measures, all that in Europe was the voice of ennui, the

tardy fruit of a world grown old, a Baudelairian art, the art of

refined scepticism, was made to serve a young generation in love with

life for the expression of its ambitions. This reform has reached

Spain; the initiate has captivated the initiator, as in the drama of

Renan. The recent voices of Spanish poetry follow that of the

pontiff of the new school, Ruben Dario. Similarly Brazil has

influenced Portuguese poetry, and, according to Theophilo Braga,

surpasses it.

German and French romanticism revived the old forgotten _chansons de

geste_, the despised poetry of the Gothic school; they charmed by the

rude naturalism of the primitive legends. Similarly the modernists

of America have renewed Spanish literature by listening to the

ingenuous voice of Berceo and the more melancholy accents of

Manrique. The result is that they are more traditionalist than the

classic writers of the seventeenth century, whose intolerance so

impoverished the language.

This renaissance is of barely twenty years' date. Certain

forerunners--Marti and Julien del Casal, both Cubans, one a

revolutionary in politics as in poetry, {261} the other a man of

tragic life, and Gutierrez Najera in Mexico--revealed the new poetic

speech to a continent weary of sentimentalism. New or unfamiliar

rhythms and agile metres were the vehicle of a new and intimate

lyrical passion. But the note was not as yet decadent: Banville and

Gautier, and De Musset, even, had not yet given way to Verlaine, who

was as unknown as Mallarmé. A Venezuelan critic, Pedro Emilio Coll,

drew attention to the persistent cult among the "American decadents,"

of the great Theodore, and of the author of _Funambulesques_. In the

_Azul_ of Ruben Dario he noted the influence of Mendès and Loti, even

that of Daudet and the realists of his school, rather than the

influence of symbolism.[13]

By the vivacity and brilliance of his verse, Manuel Guttierrez Nájera

reminds one of Banville. He sings in a new key, at once Creole and

exotic, the complicated sensations which are presently to torment

Ruben Dario. Spanish verse had never yet held such grace and spirit,

nor this sensuality appeased by tears, nor this proud and reserved

melancholy. _A Cecilia_, _Vidas Muertas_, _Castigadas_,

_Mariposas_--these contained a new lyric poetry, elegiac and tender,

an unknown rhythm, a forgotten manner. He was a forerunner. Who

does not know his lines upon the spoiled child whom he loves?

"No hay en el mundo mujer mas linda!

Pié de Andaluza, boca de guinda,

_Esprit_ rociado de Veuve Cliquot,

Talle de avispa, cutis de ala,

Ojos traviesos de colegiala,

Como los ojos de Louise Théo."[14]

{262} He is not always so frivolous. Mystery torments him; he knows

the bitterness of vanished illusions; a pessimist, he has a vision of

the moths of death "which have such black wings, and encircle us in a

funereal round." The monologue of the unbeliever is a lament like

that of Sigismond de Calderon upon the vanity of life:--

"Si es castigo ¿ cual pecado,

Sin saberlo, cometimos?

Si premio ¿ porque ganado?

Sin haberlo demandado,

Responded ¿ porqué vivimos?"[15]

Poems and chronicles are filled with a like restlessness and trouble.

He writes Odes worthy of an anthology; he translates De Musset and

Coppee. His master is Gautier: he shares his love of the light; he

sings, in love with ideal whiteness:--

"¿ Qué cosa más blanca que cándido lirio?

¿ Qué cosa más pura que místico cirio?

¿ Que cosa mas casta que tierno azahar?"[16]

The modernism of South America was inspired firstly by the Parnassian

school of France, which did not until later give place to the new

voice, symbolist or decadent. Verlaine, Samain, and Laforgue were

then the chief models; but beneath the current of imitation a

movement was forming which was more and more original, a great school

of verse, the leading note of which was refinement. "We owe to

foreign literatures, and more particularly to the French," says a

writer already cited, "the refinement of the organs necessary to the

interpretation of beauty; we owe to them our methods of observation

{263} and our love of impressions, rather than any kind of

co-ordinated æsthetic perspective.... Our eyes have learned from

them to see better, and our minds to gather fugitive sensations."

No writer represents this evolution, this progressive refinement,

better than Ruben Dario, a poet of Central America (of Nicaragua),

the recognised master of the new school and one of the greatest lyric

writers of all time in the Spanish language. He is to America what

Verlaine and Hugo are to France. His images, his phrases even,

excite a servile imitation. A noble band of disciples aspires to

continue his immortal work. He denies his disciples: "He who shall

slavishly follow my track will lose his treasure, and, whether page

or slave, will not be able to hide his livery." But in vain: ardent

youth listens and lays its votive offerings at the feet of the great

and disdainful artist.

His poetic reform was effectual in the extreme. He renewed the youth

of archaic metres, adapted French rhythms to Spanish verse, and

modified, with perfect taste, the classic division of the line of

verse--the place of the cæsura. With equal mastery he has employed

slow and majestic measures to interpret the melancholy of the flesh,

or the dancing metres of Banville, or plastic forms of a Hellenic

perfection. He seems to make his own the cry of Carducci: _Odio

l'usata poesia_.

Modern Spanish poetry used often to employ verses of eight and eleven

syllables, forms to which a certain rhetorical pomp very readily

allies itself. An interpreter of new ideas, Dario would not, like

the French poet, accept old forms; he employed lines of ten and

twelve syllables, adopted the pentameter and hexameter of the

classics, and employed verses of fourteen and sixteen syllables.[17]

He displaced accents, {264} and wrote admirable _vers libres_. A

revolutionary, in ten years he had transformed Spanish poetry.

_Prosas Profanas_, published in 1900, is, according to the phrase of

his incomparable critic, José Enrique Rodo, "the full tension of his

poet's bow." From the paradoxical title to the wealth of metre, all

is strange in this delicate piece of work, which opens a new literary

cycle, as did _Emaux et Camées_ or _Fleurs du mal_ in France. The

originality of the book comes from the poet's prodigious faculty of

recognising in each school what is essential to him, and in

appropriating it, without, therefore, ceasing to be personal. A

lyric unrest carries him to one manner or another, but, archaic or

modern, it becomes his own. His grace, suppleness, and learned

complexity are unequalled; he will write a Symphony in _Gris Majeur_

like Gautier, or poems in the manner of Verlaine, or a _Chant an

Centaure_ in the manner of Maurice de Guerin. His work is not built

of imposing granite, but of many coloured marbles, with strange and

decadent shades, such as the chiseller of the _Camées_ loved.

[Illustration: RUFINO BLANCO FOMBONA (VENEZUELA). Contemporary poet,

novelist, and thinker. To face p. 264.]

His verse possesses at once the sensuality of a faun, the distinction

of a marquis of the _Grand Siècle_, and the disenchantment of a

mystic. No form, no period can arrest his wandering spirit:--

"Yo persigo una forma que no encuentra mi estilo,

Boton de pensamiento que busca ser la rosa."[18]

In the presence of love, art, and life he experiences an enthusiasm

which quickly vanishes; he discovers the final melancholy of all

things. He knows, with the Roman, the sadness that lurks in human

joys: _quod in ipsis floribus angit_.

But before singing his autumnal bitterness of heart {265} he sings of

nature, of ancient civilisations, of the art of all ages, and of the

pageantry of life.

Dario is the leader of a school, but other poets, as great as he, may

be regarded as the precursors of literary "modernism": José Asunción

Silva, Leopoldo Lugones, Guillermo Valencia, Rufino Blanco

Fombana--the latter, like Almafuerte, Chocano, and the Lugones of the

"Hills of Gold," seeks to be the poet of the new America. These

writers aim at an American art, an art free from rhetorical

_clichés_, innocent of imitation, of declamation, of affected

sensibility. Who shall say whether the revolt of this younger

generation will lead it? Angel de Estrada is the poet of the exotic

in his _Alma nomade_; Guillermo Valencia, as great as Dario in the

exegesis of the legends of Greece and the love of things Hellenic,

has a universal curiosity and an astonishingly versatile lyrical

capacity. Rufino Blanco Fombana has sung of sensual passion, the

hatred of tyrants, and the glories of Bolivar; he has remodelled the

lyric, has written verses as finely chiselled as the gems of the

Greek anthology, and sonorous lines in which we hear a call to action

and to victory. Chocano aspires to become the poet of America:

grandiloquent, sonorous, rich in imagery. Lugones is a much admired

author of sentimental verse, audacious as to form and vocabulary.

José Asuncion Silva was noted for his melancholy, languorous verse:

he was a forerunner, a master, like Dario. Ricardo Jaimes Freire

employs the more audacious metres; Amado Nervo, equally radical in

his love of new forms, exhibits a modernism touched by a breath of

Buddhistic pantheism, and sings of "Sister Water" like a modern St.

Francis.

Essayists of the English type are numerous in America. They import

European ideas, freely discuss the great problems of existence. If

they apply themselves to the criticism of letters, they discover

{266} general ideas; in place of minute analysis they write artistic

commentaries. José Enrique Rodo, of Uruguay, is the master in this

department of literature. He has published an essay on Dario, and

his two books, _Motivos de proteo_, a collection of essays of great

beauty, and _Ariel_, a noble address to the youth of South America,

have become classics. There are other critics as brilliant: Manuel

Ugarte, at once thinker and artist, writer of short stories, poet,

ideologist, and the author of a remarkable book dealing with the

future of South America; the Colombian, Sanin Cano, who treats of

ideas; two Argentines, Emilio Becher, who writes admirable analyses

of ideas and books, and Ricardo Rosas, who is, by reason of his

nationalism and his wide culture, the master of the rising

generation; two Venezuelans, Manuel Diaz Rodriguez and Pedro Emilio

Coll, the first a noble idealist and prose artist, the second a

dreamer, who has been influenced by the sceptical irony of Renan; the

Peruvian, Manuel Gonzala Prada, whose aggressive and sonorous style

reveals a lofty moral unrest: in his essay on life and death are

pages which Guyau might have signed, and his study of Castelar is a

magnificent satire; José de la Riva Agüero, a historian, a critic,

and a polemist of unusual vigour; in San Domingo a powerful mind with

an extraordinary knowledge of literatures, classic and foreign, Pedro

Henriquez Ureña; while in Uruguay, Carlos Reyles has just proved by

his book, _La Mort da Cygne_, his acquaintance with all the new ideas

and his ability to make a powerful synthesis of them. Two Brazilian

essayists, Oliveira Lima (also a great historian) and José Verissimo

have written remarkable studies of civilisations and books.

[Illustration: MANUEL UGARTE (ARGENTINA). Contemporary poet,

novelist, and essayist. To face p. 266.]

The short story, neglected by the romantics, is being revived.

Modernism, having already transformed poetry, has brought to the

_conte_ a subtlety {267} in the analysis of the passions and a

knowledge of psychology that refuses to take alarm at problems of

morbid obscurity, and the indispensable quality of concentration of

interest. Machado de Assis is a master of powerful analysis, and a

sober and ironical style; his vision of life is melancholy. Diaz

Rodriguez has written some superb short stories. An evocation or a

symbol places those of Carlos Reyles of Uruguay on a plane far above

that of the ordinary romance. Two other writers of the younger

generation, Attilio Chiappori and Clemente Palma, hailing

respectively from Argentine and Peru, have introduced a new æsthetics

into the short story; the latter seems to show the influence of

Hoffmann and Poe, but his examples of the _macabre_ are none the less

powerfully original; while Chiappori, a physician and alienist, loves

the states of twilight phases of a mind which is tottering on the

verge of reason. _Borderland_ tells us of this vague territory in a

sinuous, and, in America, hitherto unfamiliar style.

A great Peruvian writer, Ricardo Palma, has created a department of

literature, that of tradition, which partakes equally of the nature

of history, and the romance, and the _conte_. He has described in a

sumptuous style the life of the old Spanish colonies, devout and

sensual; the traditions of a cultivated community, the city of Lima.

His subtle irony, his joyous and somewhat licentious narrative, often

remind us of M. Anatole France and the Italian story-tellers.

In Latin America are published not only exquisite examples of the

_conte_, but also novels in which the study of society and the

analysis of the mind are not overlooked. Among others may be cited

_El Hombre de Hierro_, by Rufino Blanco Fombona, a Venezuelan;

_Canaan_, by the Brazilian, Graça Aranha; _La Gloria de don Ramiro_

and _Redención_, {268} by the Argentine writers Enrique Rodriguez

Larreta and Angel de Estrada; _Idolos Rotos_ and _Sangre Patricia_,

by Diaz Rodriguez, whose high talent as a writer of short stories we

have already praised; _La Raza de Cain_, by Carlos Reyles, so

remarkable, also, for his essays and his tales.

Blanco Fombona possesses irony, the gift of telling a story, a rich

descriptive talent, ease of dialogue, and a power of forcible

scene-painting. A novelist by temperament, he has written the

biography of a representative Creole, the lamentable type created by

environment, for whom love and life reserve their most terrible

cruelties. A scrupulous employé, neither strong nor cunning, he is

the product of the languorous tropical life; this "man of iron" is

the symbol of all the weaknesses. And about this life is all the

monotony of a small city, civil war, the secret hatred of Creoles and

foreigners, the superannuated grace of the Spanish manner and the

Spanish pomp--in short, the whole of a little seething world.

_Canaan_ is the romance of the promised land, of fertile Brazil,

where the blonde immigrant and the half-breeds of every shade compete

for the bounty of a prodigal Nature. This long struggle is the

dramatic interest of the book; its beauty lies in its magnificent

descriptions of the tropics; the language of Graça Aranha is full of

harmonious poetry. Angel de Estrada is one of the most cultivated

spirits of America. Traveller (is not one of his books entitled _Ame

Nomade_?), novelist, and poet, he distils in his books the

quintessence of long meditation and infinite reading. His novel

_Redención_ is the work of a humanist; civilisations, arts, beliefs,

all pass before us, evoked by the hand of a master. A subtle and

rich vocabulary serves him to give life to his ideas and resuscitate

the life of dead cities.

[Illustration: RICARDO ROJAS (ARGENTINA). Contemporary poet and

essayist. To face p. 268.]

{269}

Enrique Rodriguez Larreta has described in his novel _La Gloria de

don Ramiro_ the period of Philip II., bloody, austere, and

tyrannical. No American artist has his verbal wealth, his power of

evocation, and his meticulous scholarship and genius for

reconstruction. This patient and harmonious piece of work surprises

us in a literature full of improvisations like that of South America.

_La Raza de Cain_, by Reyles, is a remarkable romance, in which the

author shows us the superman, Nietzsche's man of prey, at grips with

the weak and the vanquished; he exalts, in language full of

eloquence, the Dionysiac joy of life and domination.

Writer of short stories, a novelist at times, but above all a

brilliant chronicler, Gomez Carrillo has had the greatest influence

in Latin America. In a nervous, harmonious style, full of delicate

shades, he has instructed the younger generation in symbolism, in the

elegant paradoxes of Wilde, in the work of D'Annunzio and Verlaine;

in short, in the whole of decadent art. Above all, he eulogises

Paris: the "charming soul" of the city, the sounding boulevards, its

women, and the _galante_ frivolity of its unrest. A master of smiles

and subtle irony, he has the taste, the delicate amenity, of Scholl

or Fouquier, the art of telling an anecdote, of analysing a comedy,

of pouring gentle ridicule upon learned heaviness or conceited

solemnity. His books on Japan and Greece, praised by the French

critics, have revealed the mystery of exoticism to the American

public, and all his work breathes a continual suggestion of France.

Such is the new literature, in which you will find novelists and

poets and a truly Florentine love of beauty. He who knows America

only by its imperfect social framework, its civil wars, and its

persistent barbarism sees only the outer tumult; there is a strange

divorce between its turbulent politics {270} and its refined art. If

ever Taine's theory of the inevitable correspondence between art and

its environment was at fault, it is in respect of these turbulent

democracies which produce writers whose literary style is so

precious, such refined poets and analysts.

[Illustration: GOMEZ CARRILLO. Contemporary novelist, essayist, and

chroniqueur.]

[1] _L'Evolution de la poésie lyrique en France au XIXe siécle_,

Paris, 1899, p. 134.

[2] "Tzar of three colours, black, white, and Indian (red)--who

governs the American continent--and is called the Sovereign People."

[3] "Thou shalt suffer the martyrdom--that for him who is born a

poet--is reserved by impious fate."

[4] "I live only when I dream--that my heart has broken all ties with

the world-- ... Come, for my life and my joy hardly begin to be--save

when I know I have left mankind far behind me."

[5] "Like the ruins of a silent temple,--empty, abandoned,

fearful,--without light and without sound."

[6] "Men refuse me a tomb in their cities,--in my country I was

expelled from the house of my fathers."

[7] "My God, Lord my God, who is there in the world--that is not

sorrow's?--Man is born and lives a moment--and suffers unto death."

[8] "My God, make me able to love!"

[9] "Mountain on whose summit--human genius nests."

[10] "Which on the map of astonished Europe--traced frontiers and

suppressed deserts,--and which, weary perhaps with receiving--the

homage of living kings,--came at length to demand afar--the homage of

dead kings."

[11] "The voice of thunder of the great Hebrew prophet,--the chord of

bitter tones--of Juvenal--and the rumour of the songs--of the old

Ghibelline."

[12] "Brother to the eagles of the Caucasus--who fanned piously with

their wings the bleeding face of Prometheus."

[13] _Decadentismo y americanismo_, in _El castillo de Elsinor_.

Caracas 1902.

[14] "There is not in the world a prettier woman!--Foot of an

Andalusian, mouth of fruit--Sparkling wit of Veuve Cliquot--Waist of

wasp, skin like a bird's wing--The roguish eyes of a schoolgirl--Such

the eyes of Louise Theo."

[15] "If it is a punishment, what sin--have we without knowing

committed?--If it is a reward, how gained?--Without having asked

it,--say, why do we live?"

[16] "What whiter than the candid lily?--What purer than the mystic

wax?--What more chaste than the tender orange-blossom?"

[17] See the study of these innovations in _Horas de estudio_, by P.

Henriquez Ureña, p. 118 _et seq_. Paris, Ollendorff.

[18] "I pursue a form which my pen does not find--the bud of an idea

which would be the rose."

{271}

CHAPTER III

THE EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHY

Bello--Hostos--The influence of England--Positivism--The influence of

Spencer and Fouillée--The sociologists.

The democracies of America have not created new systems of

philosophy; they have rather contributed, with Emerson and William

James in the United States, to propound the old problems in a new

light. Politics and history have been the occupation of intelligent

men. To pure speculation they have preferred the patient study of

the past, and the impassioned analysis of the conflicts of the day.

Yet they adopted European theories from the earliest years of the

Republic: those of the French ideologists, Cabanis and Laromiguière

were the predominant influences in some schools, while the influence

of England extended from Central America to Chili. With that

influence went a moderate utilitarianism, a bold analysis of the

doctrines of political and economic liberty. England contributed to

the liberty of America in Montevideo as in Colombia; with the English

gold which the revolutionaries received the English philosophic

radicalism entered the country. Jurists and politicians profited by

its lessons, and certain of the thinkers of America freed themselves

from the shackles of the peripatetic school under the influence of

the Scottish philosophers. Thus Ventura Martin and José-Joaquin de

Mora in Chili and Alcorta in the Argentine. With {272} Andrès Bello,

poet and legislator, philosopher and philologist, these doctrines

acquired a great importance. His _Philosophy of the Understanding_

was inspired by Reid and Hamilton. In England he had known James

Mill, and some of his ideas upon the inductive method and causality

recall the doctrines of John Stuart Mill, the son of James. Bello

was especially noted for the vigour of his logic and his analysis of

the phenomena of consciousness, his penetrating psychology, and his

positivism, which caused him to disdain anything in the nature of

metaphysics. His conservative spirit accepted the Catholic dogmas,

while his critical faculty was checked by them; what his implacable

analysis destroyed his religious temperament reconstructed. He

believed in perception, liberty, and the reality of the external

world, and in a first cause; he transformed grammar by his

psychological analysis, and by his positivism civil law and the law

of nations. His excessive critical faculty sometimes ran to

super-fine abstraction, to an intellectual algebra. Bello passed

from ideology to positivism, from Destutt de Tracy to Stuart; Mill,

by way of the Scottish philosophers. His admirable grammatical and

juridical efforts may be attributed to his mastery of English

analysis and realism.

After Bello, the most remarkable of South American philosophers was

Eugenio de Hostos, who was born in 1839. He did not merely expound

European ideas; he had his own system, which he developed in a series

of remarkable works; he was a moralist rather than a metaphysician,

and whether in San Domingo or Lima or Santiago he never ceased his

endeavours to reform education and the law. Problems, social and

moral, gave him no rest; he sought to found a new morality and

sociology.

Hostos might be called an optimistic rationalist. He believed in an

ideal world. Science, according {273} to him, is an efficacious

agent of virtue. He thought it possible to discipline the will by

teaching what is true. Good is not a metaphysical entity nor duty an

imperative; the two together constitute a "natural order." A

profound harmony exists between man and the world he lives in, and

the moral law is merely the revelation in the consciousness of the

geometry of things. For Hostos the world was just, logical, and full

of reason; an internal law, _lex insita_, was manifested in the

sidereal harmonies as in virtuous actions.

The moral ideal is therefore merely the adaptation of conduct to the

inevitable and harmonious relations of things. Does not this

optimism recall the morality of Spencer, the rigorous ethics of

Spinoza, and the thought of Cournot, that "the philosophical basis of

morality is the idea of conformity to the universal order"?

The founders of the Republic were formed by scholasticism. In the

old universities men debated in language bristling with syllogisms.

A free philosophic doctrine which accepted all the Catholic

verities--immortality, free will, and Providence--and explained them

with a fiery eloquence, was the reaction against this school, whose

thought was crystallised in variable forms; this philosophy

corresponded to the romanticism of the politicians, to their faith in

democracy, liberty, and human progress.

In Spanish America French ideas predominated; in Brazil, German

thought. Tobias Barreto and Sylvio Romero propagated this culture in

the place of a colourless eclecticism; the first was a disciple of

the German philosophers, the second popularised Spencer, without

neglecting the Germans. In his German studies Barreto adopted the

monism of Ludwig Noiré: "The universe is composed of atoms,

absolutely equal, which are endowed with two properties: the one,

which is internal, is sensation; the {274} other, which is external,

is movement." This is the metaphysics of the Brazilian thinker, and

such was his influence that, according to a critic, "the theories of

Comte and Noiré explain modern intellectual Brazil." Sylvio Romero

expounded the evolutionary theories of Spencer, "a philosophic

monument even more important than that of Comte"; but in spite of the

efforts of this disciple Spencer is not as popular in Brazil as in

other American nations.

Barreto, a monist and philosopher, was a disciple of the judicial

finalism of Jhering; Sylvio Romano, a disciple of Spencer, expounded

and supported the conclusions of the social science of Demolins; in

the scientific ardour of these propagandists doctrines were assembled

together which had no mutual affinity. In Brazil all exotic

philosophies find their readers and commentators, but the confusion

caused by incoherent imitations completely lacks the unity of a

national tendency. A psychologist of great value, a free follower of

Renan, Joachim Nabuco, in a style full of subtlety, writes essays in

philosophy and criticism.

A Spanish philosopher, less rigid than the schoolmen and richer in

doctrine than the eclectics, Balmes engrossed many minds which were

fatigued by sterile eloquence. He founded no school in America, but

he is much read by the conservatives. His penetrating analysis, his

British realism, and his rationalism, which seeks to harmonise these

faculties with his dogmas, attract many who are repelled by a diffuse

spirituality.

These various tendencies--English empiricism, French eclecticism,

Benthamism--are not very profound intellectual movements. They have

replaced the old scholasticism. A political ideology is wanted which

shall be adequate to the needs of those who are struggling for power;

metaphysical discussions are relegated to oblivion.

[Illustration: JOSE ENRIQUE RODÓ (URUGUAY). Contemporary critic and

essayist. To face p. 274.]

{275}

Positivism was the first philosophy to impress men's intellects; it

has created great social movements, such as the Reformation in Mexico

and the Republic in Brazil. It became an intellectual dictatorship,

a new scholasticism. Free-thinkers believe in Comte and Spencer; in

the humanitarian religion of the first and the agnosticism of the

second.

Comte, to quote Mill, founded a complete system of spiritual

despotism. It upholds order and authority as against the abuses of

individualism, "the energetic preponderance of the central power"; it

condemns "anarchy, and destructive liberalism"; it exalts "the

eminently social genius of Catholicism." In nations annihilated by

revolution and a romantic freedom these theories are liable to

justify dictatorship, as they did in Brazil. There the Comtian

phrase "order and progress" has become the national watchword.

Other causes explain the supremacy of positivism; a reaction against

theology in the name of science, and against a vague and official

philosophy. Minds formed by Catholicism, even if they have lost

their faith, demand secular dogmas, and verities organised in a

facile system: in short, a new faith, and the Positivist philosophy

satisfies this craving. At the same time material progress, based

upon scientific development, and the utilitarianism which exaggerates

the importance of wealth, find in positivism, which disdains futile

ideologies, a system adequate to industrial life.

In Mexico, Brazil, and Chili positivism in its integrity is

predominant: the philosophic method and the religion of humanity. In

Brazil the positivist school, with Constant, d'Araujo, Bastos, and

their disciples, preserves the calendar, the secular saints, and the

rites of the founder. It produces teachers and creates political

constitutions like that of Rio Grande do Sul, and ardently propagates

the doctrines {276} of Comte. In Chili, Juan Enrique Lagarigue

preached a generous idealism, and the oblivion of patriotic hatreds;

but the democracy did not give ear to this ingenuous apostle. In

Mexico Barreda, founder of the Preparatory College, and the leader of

intellectual life, was a disciple of Comte in Paris from the year

1867. He revolutionised Mexican education in a positivist direction,

but did not accept the religious aspect of the new philosophy. There

is still in Mexico a _Positivist Review_, which has a certain small

influence.

Comtism influenced thinkers as a method, as a reaction against

theology and metaphysics, and as a goal of pedagogy. But the

philosophy of Spencer is that which has sent its roots deepest into

the life of the Latin republics; progress, the cardinal idea of the

romantics, is succeeded by evolution, a doctrine more agreeable to

the positivist intelligence. Since 1880 the theories of Spencer have

made converts of two generations; in some universities they

constitute an official system. No application has been made of his

psychology nor his biology, but his social and moral teaching has

been followed with servility. Politicians and journalists employ

Spencerian formulæ: the social organism, the instability of the

homogeneous, differentiation, the relativity of consciousness. In

1883 a Colombian politician, Rafael Nuñez, President of his country,

expounded the philosophy of Spencer to his fellow-citizens as a

remedy for the political dogmatism of his predecessors. American

statesmen might readily have asked the philosopher of evolution for

scientific suggestions, as did the Japanese.

Under the influence of the English thinker the scientific period was

ushered in. The study of social science is beginning; men profess a

materialism or a positivism hostile to the older ontological ideas;

they believe in science even more than in the sciences, {277} in the

rational explanation of all mysteries, in the supremacy of

mathematics and physics. Various influences are at work, and the

confused result thereof favours the triumph of positivism. The

political and social theories of Dr. Gustave Le Bon, the impetuous

writings of Max Nordau, the criminology of Lombroso and Ferri, the

formulæ of Taine, the biology and sociology of Letourneau, are

studied and commented upon in the universities, the parliaments, and

the schools of South America. Eloquence is repudiated as contrary to

scientific precision, and romantic faith is disdained by the

positivist. A party which has ruled over the evolution of Mexico for

the last thirty years has named itself the "Scientific Party."

The significance of these doctrines rapidly acquired an excessive

importance; in place of lucid methods and clear ideas we find the

teaching of the professors full of the narrowness of dogma.

Positivism implants a limited and vulgar rationalism, a new

metaphysic which accords an absolute truth to the formulæ of science;

which exalts egoism and practical interests, and the frantic pursuit

of wealth in daily life. The tendency of the American mind being

undue simplification, this philosophy has not been a discipline of

knowledge and action, but has limited the effort of man to the

conquest of the useful. The positivists organise plutocratic

tyrannies in certain American nations.

Without reigning in the schools as Spencer has done, a French

philosopher, M. Fouillée, has greatly influenced law, politics, and

education. In spite of the reign of positivism his flexible doctrine

has attracted many Americans, and his works, such as the _Idée du

Droit_ and the _Histoire de la Philosophie_, are coming into use as

text-books in some universities. The theory of unavoidable ideas is

well known; and thinkers and philosophers have been {278} inspired by

this "philosophy of hope." By its noble idealism, by its admirable

wealth, its serene rationalism, and its essentially Latin character,

the harmonious system of M. Fouillée has won considerable popularity

among the youth of America.

We cannot separate his influence from that of the young

poet-philosopher whom a premature death has consecrated: Guyau was

the professor of idealism to two generations of America. In _Ariel_

José-Enrique Rodo has enlarged upon his finest metaphors; and a

Peruvian thinker, Gonzalez Prada, has popularised the suggestions of

this Platonic thinker upon death.

Nietzsche also has disciples and commentators. Translated into

Spanish and vulgarised, his doctrines are the Bible of exasperated

egoism. Men saw nothing of his stoicism, his worship of heroic life

and tragic adventures; "concussionary" ministers and half-breeds

aspiring to power believe themselves Nietzschians, because in their

immoral advancement they ignore all moral scruples. A generation

above good and evil is practising opportunism--what the French call

"arrivism"--disorganising philosophy and society, and forgetting the

code of human dignity.

Fouillée, Guyau, and Nietzsche have not supplanted the positivist

philosophers; the superstition of science and the hatred of

metaphysical construction is still prevalent. All the new doctrines

are making their way: pragmatism, Bergsonism, the philosophy of Wundt

and Croce, the philosophy of contingency: without, however, creating

new tendencies. From this variety of imitations perhaps an American

system will arise. To-day every intellectual novelty is passionately

received and applied; an Argentine judge has even founded some of his

judgments upon the teaching of Tarde.

A reaction is setting in against dogmatic {279} positivism; the

present is a period of dissolution and criticism. In accepting

influences so various--English, German, and French--the old faith in

science, in Comte and Spencer, is evaporating. Two young

philosophers, Antonio Caso in Mexico and Henriquez Ureña in San

Domingo, have contributed to this analysis. Inspired by the ideas of

M. Emile Boutroux, they attack the narrow interpretation of

scientific laws.

Thus after thirty years of influence, positivism is losing its

prestige. It is not being replaced in the schools by any rigid

system; but in place of an intolerant dogmatism we have a free

examination of which we cannot yet foresee the consequences. Some

essays of Enrique Varona, in his writings on morality and philosophy;

of Carlos Octavio Bunge, in his _Psicologia individual y social_; of

Vaz-Ferreira, in his critique of the problem of liberty; of Deustua,

of Lima, in his essays on morality, reveal the fact that the new

school is not lacking in a serious philosophical orientation. But

originality, the new doctrine, the Ibero-American school--are these

shortly to be realities? So long as these nations are still busy at

the task of self-organisation in the midst of anarchical unrest, so

long as the cult of wealth prevails above all disinterested efforts,

so long we shall assuredly have no other philosophy than an

adaptation of foreign systems.

But in the new movements philosophical speculation is losing its old

simplicity; the study of psychology is developing, analysis is more

profound, the old verbal solutions are rejected, and the study of

societies is acquiring an extraordinary importance.

Half a century ago books on political science swarmed. The same

pragmatic preoccupation--the adaptation of scientific ideas to the

uses of social life--prevails to-day.

Many sociologists are inspired by biology, or {280} psychology, or

historical materialism. Cornejo, in Peru, is adopting the

psychological theories of Wundt, his analysis of language, myth, and

custom. Letelier, in Chili, inclines toward the positivism of Comte;

Ramos Mejia, in the Argentine, explains social phenomena in a

biological sense. His books, _La Locura en la Historia_, _Las Masas

Argentinas_, reveal this tendency. Ingegnieros has studied the

history of the Argentine in relation to the economic factor. His

work, _De la Barbarie al Imperalismo_, is an essay in Marxist

sociology.

To sum up; social science preoccupies our thinkers rather than pure

philosophy. Neither the great German idealists nor the critics and

thinkers are known in America; neither Hume, nor Kant, nor Hegel,

although the Spanish orator Emilio Castelar has propagated a

Hegelianism _ad usum delphini_ in the new continent. The pessimism

of Schopenhauer does not acclimatise itself in the tropics.

Eclecticism, positivism, and spiritualism prevail.

[Illustration: ALCIDES ARGUEDAS (BOLIVIA). Novelist and sociologist.

To face p. 280.]

{282}

BOOK VI

_THE LATIN SPIRIT AND THE GERMAN, NORTH

AMERICAN, AND JAPANESE PERILS_

From a racial point of view, it is true, one cannot call the South

American republics Latin nations. They are rather Indo-African or

Africo-Iberian. Latin culture--the ideas and the art of France, the

laws and the Catholicism of Rome--have created in South America a

mental attitude analogous to that of the great Mediterranean peoples,

which is hostile or alien to the civilisation of the Germanic or

Anglo-Saxon peoples.

New influences, whether they come from Germany or Anglo-Saxon

America, and even more those that come from Japan, are dangerous to

the Latin-American nations, if they tend to destroy their traditions.

{283}

CHAPTER I

ARE THE IBERO-AMERICANS OF LATIN RACE

Spanish and Portuguese heredity--Latin culture--The influence of the

Roman laws, of Catholicism, and of French thought--The Latin spirit

in America: its qualities and defects.

Contrasting the Imperial Republic of North America with the twenty

democracies of South America, we seek the reason of the antagonism

which exists between them in the essential element of race. The

contrast between Anglo-Saxons and Latins is the contrast between two

cultures.

The South American peoples consider themselves Latin by race, just as

their brothers of the North are the remote descendants of the

Anglo-Saxon Pilgrim Fathers; but although the United States were

created largely by the aggregation of austere English emigrants,

there has been no intervention of pure Latin elements in the

colonisation of the South. Navigators of Latin blood discovered an

unknown continent, and Spaniards and Portuguese conquered and

colonised it; but there was little Latin blood to be found in the

homes formed by the sensuality of the first conquerors of a desolated

America.

Emigrants from Estremadura and Galicia, Andalusians and Castilians,

many-hued men of Spain and Portugal, were all concerned in the first

interbreeding with the vanquished races; they were Iberians, in whom

the anthropologists discover moral analogies with the Berbers of

North Africa. The Basques, {284} rude and virile, who emigrated from

Spain to dominate America, did not come of Latin stock; the

Andalusian element, from Seville or Cadiz, was of Oriental origin. A

Spain that was half African and half Germanic colonised the vast

territories of America; two heredities, Visigoth and Arab, were

united in its strange genius.

The French and Italian colonists have not the importance of the

Spaniards and Portuguese; they are inferior in numbers and in wealth.

The Iberians have jealously defended their racial prerogative in

these isolated transatlantic colonies. After three centuries, when

once the continent was opened to the outside world and to European

commerce, the Italians invaded the rich plains of the Argentine;

there they contributed to the formation of a new race, which is more

Latin than Spanish.

But we must not forget the innumerable Anglo-Saxons who have founded

families in the Argentine and in Chili, and have brought wealth to

those countries; nor the Germans in Southern Brazil, nor the Asiatics

of the Peruvian seaboard. Iberians, Indians, Latins, Anglo-Saxons,

and Orientals all mingle in America; a babel of races, so mixed that

it is impossible to discover the definite outlines of the future type.

It is useless to look for unity of race in such a country. And even

in the United States the confused invasion of Russian Jews and

Southern Italians is little by little undermining the primitive

Anglo-Saxon unity.

This confusion of races in the North and the South leaves two

traditions, the Anglo-Saxon and the Iberian. By force of

assimilation these traditions are transforming the new races.

Englishmen and Spaniards disappear, but the two moral inheritances

survive.

The Latin tradition is not far to seek in the {285} Americans of the

South. They are not exclusively either Spanish or Portuguese; the

legacy received from Spain is modified by persistent influences of

French and Italian origin.

From Mexico to La Plata, by long continued and extensive action, the

Roman laws, Catholicism, and the ideas of France have given a uniform

aspect to the American conscience.

Laws of Spanish origin prevail in South America; they have formed the

rigid framework of civil life. These laws, in spite of strong feudal

elements, are of Roman origin. Under the influence of Roman law

Alfonso X. unified Spanish legislation, during the first half of the

thirteenth century; three centuries later the Spaniards colonised

America. The _Partidas_, that vast encyclopædia of law and

collection of Castilian laws in particular, is a Roman code. It

confirmed the individualist sense of property as against the Spanish

forms of collectivism; it reinforced the power of the _paterfamilias_

in the austere Iberian family; it consecrated equality, authorising

marriage between free men and the serfs formerly banished from the

State; and it adopted the Roman formalism.

Politically, after the downfall of the feudal system, ambitious

princes, from the time of Alfonso X. to that of the Catholic Kings

and of Charles V., enforced their royal authority in the Roman sense.

These monarchs were Cæsars; they concentrated all the powers of the

State in themselves; they centralised, unified, and legislated. This

royal absolutism destroyed privilege and levelled mankind. A vast

Spanish democracy was formed, subject to Cæsar, after the manner of

the Roman people. The Latin sense of authority and law prevailed in

the Spanish colonies; property was individual and absolute; civil

equality obtained; in spite of racial differences, Indians and

Spaniards were theoretically {286} on the same plane; the family,

like the Roman _gens_, united slaves and children under the gloomy

paternal power. The distant monarch was a formidable overlord, to

whom viceroys and chapters, courts, judicial and ecclesiastical,

addressed themselves to demand laws and regulations, penalties and

sanctions.

Catholicism was indissolubly bound up with the Roman authority of the

laws; in Spain and America the prince was at the same time the

shepherd of the Church. Religion was an instrument of political

domination; it was an imperial force, a legacy of the Latin genius.

It multiplied forms and rites; it disciplined the colonists,

demanding outward obedience and uniformity of belief and manners.

"The Roman Church," says Harnack, "is a juridical institution."

Catholicism is also a social religion. In America it created the

Brazilian nation in opposition to the Dutch peril; it founded

republics among Indians inimical to all forms of organised social

life; it extended the field of Latin endeavour, and from North to

South favoured the constitution of new governments and societies.

Under the double pressure of Roman Catholicism and legislation,

America became Latinised. It learned to respect laws and forms, to

submit to a religious as well as a civil discipline. French ideas,

added to these influences, first prepared the way for the Revolution,

and afterwards dominated the mind of America, from the Declaration of

Independence to our own days.

These ideas constituted a new factor of Latin development. France is

the modern heir of the genius of Greece and Rome, and in imitating

her, even to excess, Ibero-Americans have assimilated the essential

elements of the antique culture. We find in the Gallic spirit the

sense of taste and harmony, the _lucidus ordo_ of the classics; the

love of general ideas, of universal principles, of the rights of man,

{287} and a hatred of the mists of the North and the too violent

light of the South; rationalism, logical vigour, emotion in the

presence of beauty, and the cult of grace. France has been the

teacher of social life and letters to the American democracies; her

influence is already of no recent date. Voltaire and Rousseau were

the theorists of the revolutionary period; Lamartine taught "lyrism"

and romantic melancholy; Benjamin-Constant, the theory of politics,

and Verlaine the lamentations of decadence.

Either indirectly, through the influence of the thought and

literature of Spain and Portugal, or directly, these republics have

lived by the light of French ideas.

Thus a general current of thought has arisen on the American

continent which is not merely Iberian, but also French and Roman.

France has effected a spiritual conquest of these democracies, and

has created a new variety of the Latin spirit. This Latin spirit is

not a thing apart; it is formed of characteristics common to all the

Mediterranean peoples. French, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and

Spaniards find therein the fundamental elements of their national

genius, just as in antiquity the Greek women found in Helen the

reflection of their own beauty. To this spiritual synthesis Spain

contributes her idealism; Italy, the paganism of her children and the

eternal suggestion of her marbles; France, her harmonious education.

In the Iberian democracies an inferior Latinity, a Latinity of the

decadence prevails; verbal abundance, inflated rhetoric, oratorical

exaggeration, just as in Roman Spain. The qualities and defects of

the classic spirit are revealed in American life; the persistent

idealism, which often disdains the conquests of utility; the ideas of

humanity and equality, of universality, despite racial variety; the

cult of form; the Latin instability and vivacity; the faith in pure

{288} ideas and political dogmas: all are to be found in these lands

oversea, together with the brilliant and superficial intelligence,

the Jacobinism, and the oratorical facility. Enthusiasm,

sociability, and optimism are also American qualities.

These republics are not free from any of the ordinary weaknesses of

the Latin races. The State is omnipotent; the liberal professions

are excessively developed; the power of the bureaucracy becomes

alarming. The character of the average citizen is weak, inferior to

his imagination and intelligence; ideas of union and the spirit of

solidarity have to contend with the innate indiscipline of the race.

These men, dominated by the solicitations of the outer world and the

tumult of politics, have no inner life; you will find among them no

great mystics, no great lyrical writers. They meet realities with an

exasperated individualism.

Indisciplined, superficial, brilliant, the South Americans belong to

the great Latin family; they are the children of Spain, Portugal, and

Italy by blood and by deep-rooted tradition, and by their general

ideas they are the children of France. A French politician, M.

Clemenceau, found in Brazil, the Argentine, and Uruguay, "a

superabundant Latinism; a Latinism of feeling, a Latinism of thought

and action, with all its immediate and superficial advantages, and

all its defects of method, its alternatives of energy and failure in

the accomplishment of design." This new American spirit is

indestructible. Contact with Anglo-Saxon civilisation may partially

renew it, but the integral transformation of the spirit proper to the

Latin nations will never be accomplished. It would be a racial

suicide. Where Yankees and Latin Americans intermingle you may

better observe the insoluble contradictions which divide them. The

Anglo-Saxons are conquering America commercially and economically,

but the {289} traditions, the ideals, and the soul of these republics

are hostile to them.

The Ibero-American race should seek to correct its vices without

forsaking the framework of tradition which is proper to it. Without

losing its originality as a nation, France is to-day triumphant in

many departments of sport, and is spending her energy and inventive

genius upon the conquest of the air without counting the cost; she

has made her own victories which seemed to belong to the Anglo-Saxon.

At the same time, if the American democracies are to acquire a

practical spirit, a persistent activity, and a virile energy, they

must do so without renouncing their language, their religion, and

their history.

The defence of the Latin spirit has become a duty of primordial

importance. Barrès, an impassioned ideologist, preaches the cult of

self as a remedy for barbarism; no foreign tutelage must trouble the

spontaneous internal revelation. The republics oversea, wending

their way under hostile or indifferent eyes, _sous l'oeil des

Barbares_, must cultivate their spiritual originality in the

encounter with inimical forces.

The North American peril, the threat of Germany, the menace of Japan,

surround the future of Latin America like those mysterious forces

which, in the drama of Maeterlinck, dominate the human stage, and in

silence prepare the way for the great human tragedies. To defend the

traditions of the Latin continent, it is useful to measure the

importance of the influences which threaten it.

{290}