The Man and His Work
Bolívar was of rather less than medium height, thin and agile. In all his
actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing
eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long;
his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed but
expressive and graceful. From early youth his forehead was deeply lined.
His neck was erect; his chest, narrow. At one period of his life he wore
a mustache and sidewhiskers, but he resumed shaving about 1825, when grey
hair began to appear. His hair was auburn at first, and his complexion very
white in his youth, but tanned after his long campaigns. His appearance
evidenced frankness of character, and his body, spiritual energy.
Bolívar was always a great reader. In his style and his quotations he shows
his predilection for the classics, especially for Plutarch's "Lives." He
also read much of the literature of the French Revolution. He was a very
impressive orator; his addresses and proclamations show much emphasis, and
the rhetorical artifice is apparent, as it is in all literature of this
kind. In his letters he uses a very simple and naturally witty style.
He was a great coiner of sentences, many of which can be found in his
proclamations and addresses. His political perspicacity was remarkable.
He could and did break the conventionalities and the political principles
sacred in that epoch, to formulate those which were better for the
condition of the country. He was a shrewd judge of men, and knew how to
honor them and please them for the good of the cause they defended. All his
intellectual power was necessary to become a master of men like Páez and
Bermúdez. His mental alertness was exceptional. He could make a decision
promptly without showing the effect of haste. He had a brain for large
problems and for small details. He would attend to the organization of his
army down to the most minute details, as well as to the preparations for
long campaigns.
The most admirable moral quality of Bolívar was his constancy. It rose
above everything.
His energy was marvelous to carry him through the difficulties he had to
encounter. In defeat he had
"the virtue of Antheus as no other hero had to such a degree; a
singular virtue of growing to more gigantic proportions when the fall
had been deepest and hardest; he had something like a strengthening
power to assimilate the sap of adversity and of discredit, not through
the lessons of experience, but through the unconscious and immediate
reaction of a nature which thus fulfils its own laws. His personality
as a warrior has in this characteristic the seal which individualizes
it, as was aptly said in a few words by his adversary, the Spanish
general Morillo: 'More fearful vanquished than victor.'"[1]
[Footnote 1: Bolívar--J.E. Rodó]
His soul could be like steel, as in the case of Piar, and it could be soft,
as in his untiring forgiveness to Santander. His generosity was unlimited.
He gave all. Any soldier could come to him and receive money. It is said
that no common soldier went away from him with less than a dollar. When he
was on his way to Cartagena, having resigned power forever, when he was
writing to Caracas for money, at a time when he had not enough to pay his
transportation abroad, he was still giving of his limited resources to all
who begged of him.
His ambition was legitimate. In a communication he acknowledged that he was
not free from all ambition; but that does not mean that he yielded to
it. Virtue does not lie in the absence of temptation, but in fighting
it successfully. He was truly ambitious for glory, and when glory is as
legitimate as his was, there is no worthier ambition. He was accused by
Lorain Petre of craving flattery, and of having been delighted with the
homage paid him on his way to Potosí. Great men have been flattered
always, and that they are flattered does not mean that they like flattery.
Furthermore, there is a certain delicate flattery which every man likes.
We, sober-minded Americans, have often heard some of our great men who are
still living, even called saints, and we do not feel shocked. After
having given life to three countries, one of them composed of three large
divisions, Bolívar could receive homage without finding it incongruous or
exaggerated.
He was refined in manner and always a gentleman. In his campaigns he was
careless of his clothing through necessity, but when in the cities he liked
to have all the refinements. He never thought of money; he would spend
it if he had it, and if he did not spend it, he gave it away. He enjoyed
society and was a great admirer of women. "He knelt before love, without
surrendering his sword to it."
He was human. He enjoyed a good joke, and sometimes his jokes hurt. It is
related that once, after a long march, he arrived at a small town where he
expected to get some food. He was received by the notables of the town,
among them a young intellectual, who took from his pocket a long address.
Bolívar listened to the beginning and at once knew that it was going to be
not only long but tedious. The young man came to a sentence reading: "When
Caesar crossed the Rubicon...," at which point Bolívar interrupted him,
saying, "My dear friend, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he had had his
breakfast, and I have not yet had mine. Let us first have breakfast."
Generally, he respected everyone's feelings, and was much inclined to
praise others, the living as well as the dead. We may well remember the
honors paid to Girardot, his beautiful words in homage to Cedeño and Plaza,
how Páez received his dues after the battle of Carabobo, and how Sucre
was given his right place as one of the most legitimate glories of the
continent by Bolívar. Speaking of Anzoátegui's death, he said: "I would
have preferred the loss of two battles to the loss of Anzoátegui." No more
beautiful way could be found to be generous while being just.
We have called Bolívar a gentleman; we might rather call him a knight.
He loved an ideal and lived for that ideal, and that ideal was his last
thought before he went to his rest.
He was judged in Europe and North America in very flattering terms. Daniel
Webster, J.H. Perkins and Joseph Story, in the name of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association, wrote Bolívar the following:
"When we read of the enormous sacrifice of personal fortune, the
calmness in difficult situations, the exercise without misusing
a power greater than imperial power, the repeated refusal of
dictatorship, the simplicity of your Repúblican habits and the
submission to the constitution and law which has so gloriously
distinguished the career of Your Excellency, we believe that we see the
image of our venerated Washington. At the same time that we admire and
respect his virtues, we feel moved by the greatest sympathy to pay
equal homage to the hero and Liberator of the South."
Martin Van Buren wrote:
"What better example could be presented of human glory than that
the great chieftain who, after having successfully resisted foreign
aggression and extinguished domestic commotion, also conquered the
weakness to which noble hearts have been subjected at all times."
Murray, an English rear admiral, wanted to present his homage to the
"leader of all South America"; Lord Byron, whose yacht was called Bolívar,
also expressed his desire to visit him. Lafayette, Monsignor de Pradt,
Martin de Nancy, Martin-Maillefer, and the noted Humboldt, among others,
expressed their admiration for Bolívar. Victor Hugo praised him. His name
was on the lips of the Repúblicans of Europe as a symbol of liberty.
We have seen the words of Lafayette in transmitting the present sent to
Bolívar by Washington's family. A former member of the French Convention
wrote to him: "You are the first citizen of the world." The noted Irish
orator O'Connell sent his son to him with the following words: "I am
sending him to you, illustrious sir, in order that, admiring and imitating
your example he may serve under Your Excellency." The same was done by Sir
Robert Wilson, member of the English Parliament. Kosciusko's nephew went
to him to have the honor to serve him. The Dutch representative in Bolivia
compared him with William of Nassau. Bernadotte, King of Sweden, spoke of
a striking analogy between Bolívar and himself. Joseph Bonaparte, King
of Spain, expressed his desire that Murat's son go to Bolívar as his
aide-de-camp. Iturbide's son preferred also to serve under him. J.P.
Hamilton, British commissioner to the republic of Colombia, says: "He is
the greatest man, the most extraordinary character produced up to this day
by the new world." He considers him "supereminent above all heroes living
in the Temple of Fame."
Many persons have made comparisons between Bolívar and Napoleon, Bolívar
and Washington and Bolívar and San Martín. Juan Montalvo (in "Simón
Bolívar") writes that Bolívar is not so well known as Napoleon because
the glamour of Napoleon's life reduced to silence the lives of his
contemporaries. He asserts that in the future, Bolívar will take his place
beside the French Emperor. Napoleon owes his glory to Chateaubriand, to
Lamartine, to Madame de Stael, to Byron, to Victor Hugo, while Bolívar has
had few biographers, and a very few have spoken of him with the power and
authority of those who praised or attacked Napoleon.
Regarding a comparison between Washington and Bolívar, Montalvo says:
"Washington presents himself to memory and imagination as a great
citizen rather than as a great warrior; as a philosopher rather than as
a general.... Washington and Bolívar have in common their identity of
purpose; both aspired to the freedom of a country and the establishment
of democracy. The difference between these two illustrious men
in the excessive difficulty one had to conquer and the abundance with
which the other carried on his work to the end. Bolívar, during several
periods of the war, had no resources at all, nor did he know where to
get them; his indestructible love for his country, the sense of honor
active in his breast, the fertile imagination, the supreme will, the
prodigious activities which formed his character, inspired in him
wisdom to turn the impossibility into a reality.... North America was
rich, civilized and powerful even before its emancipation from Mother
England; if the colonists had not had their leader, one hundred
Washingtons would have presented themselves to fill the place, and not
at a disadvantage. Washington was surrounded by men as remarkable as he
was, if not better: Jefferson, Madison, men of great and deep counsel;
Franklin, a genius of Heaven and earth. All these and many others, no
matter how great they were, or how numerous, were as one in the service
of the cause, were rivals in obedience.... Bolívar had to tame his
lieutenants, to fight and to conquer his own fellow citizens, to fight
one thousand elements conspiring against him and against independence,
at the same time that he fought the Spanish legions and conquered
them or was conquered by them.... Washington presents himself to the
admiration of the world, more venerable and majestic, and Bolívar,
higher and brighter. Washington established a republic which later
became one of the greatest countries on earth; Bolívar founded also a
great country, but, less happy than his elder brother, saw it crumble
down; and though he did not see his work destroyed, he saw it
disfigured and diminished. The successors of Washington, great
citizens, philosophers and statesmen, never dreamed of tearing up the
sacred mantle of their mother in order to cover their scars with rags
of purple; Bolívar's companions, all of them, stabbed Colombia
order to take for themselves the greatest prize. Washington, his work
finished, accepted the trivial presents of his fellow citizens
Bolívar refused millions offered by Perú. Washington declined a third
presidential term in the United States and, like a patriarch withdrew
to live tranquilly in the bosom of private life, enjoying without any
mixture of hate the respect of his fellow citizens, venerated by the
people and loved by his friends. This singular and happy man had no
enemies. Bolívar accepted the tempting command that came to harass his
spirit for the third time, and this time from an impure source,
he died rejected, persecuted, insulted by many of his contemporaries.
Death has erased this small blemish and we see only the light which
surrounds the greatest of South Americans. Washington and Bolívar were
august men, the glory of the New World."[1]
[Footnote 1: "Simón Bolívar," Juan Montalvo.]
In reality, great men cannot be compared. Each one stands by himself.
Washington was an able general, ready to sacrifice himself for his country;
a learned man, trained in military affairs; the representative of the will
of his fellow citizens, who were behind him in his tremendous fight for
freedom. Washington was the Father and the servant of his country.
Bolívar did not receive special training in military affairs. He did not
represent the will of his country, for his country had no will. His country
really did not exist. Bolívar created it. He was obeying no commands but
those of his conscience. He was making something out of nothing, and in his
campaigns it was the flash of genius which led him rather than science.
Washington was successful as a military commander and more so as a
statesman; Bolívar had remarkable successes and crushing defeat a general,
and, as a statesman, he showed a vision which amounted to inspiration--but
the creation of his mind and soul, Colombia, was a sad failure. Washington
lived in a country of law; Bolívar had to make the law. When Washington was
absent from a place, law remained in that place; when Bolívar turned his
back, law was violated.
San Martín is a noble figure. He stands alone in the southernmost part of
America. He did not begrudge praise given Bolívar, whose superiority he
acknowledged by withdrawing in time from the scene in America. Because of
this acknowledgment, San Martín grew greater than he had been before their
interview in Guayaquil. To endeavor to establish invidious comparisons
between him and Bolívar does harm to both heroes and good to no one. Let
both stay where they belong, in the hearts of their fellow-citizens, and
in the minds of lovers of freedom.
Strong resemblance might be found between Bolívar and Lincoln. Both gave
freedom to slaves; both fought a real civil war, for we must not forget
that most of the royalists were Americans. Both were men of sorrows. A
close examination of Bolívar's pictures and statues will reveal to the
observer that in the eyes of the great man of the South is the same
inexpressible melancholy which is obvious in those of our own man of
sorrows, the beloved Lincoln. Bolívar was insulted and slandered as was
Lincoln, and if Lincoln was assassinated by a man, Bolívar escaped the
weapon of the assassin only to sink under poisonous treachery and
ingratitude. It is true that Bolívar was quick-tempered, at times sharp
in his repartee; his intellectual aptness had no patience with stupidity,
and occasionally his remarks hurt. But when the storm had passed, he was
all benevolence, enduring all, forgiving all, like Lincoln.
He compared himself with Don Quixote, and in many ways this comparison is
the best. As Don Quixote, he created Dulcinea. It was not Don Quixote's
fault that the lady of his thoughts, the ideal Dulcinea, proved to be just
the uncouth peasant girl, Aldonza Lorenzo. Bolívar's Dulcinea was his
people, and he was not to blame for all the weakness, the roughness, the
grossness of those with whom he came in contact. But the American Don
Quixote had a higher virtue than the knight created by Cervantes, for Don
Quixote never could transform Aldonza into Dulcinea, while the peoples that
Bolívar saw in his imagination, those peoples who at first were hostile to
his work, through a century of constant purification, through a century
during which Bolívar has become a symbol, a protecting genius, a warning
against danger, an irresistible force to conquer difficulties and an
imperious finger pointing to higher destinies, are approaching more and
more each day what Bolívar thought they ought to be. The Aldonza Lorenzo
of America, through Bolívar's sublime madness, rid of her dross, will be
the Dulcinea of Bolívar's dream.