They were both great men, the greatest after Washington that America has produced. Both fulfilled their mission. The one gave the first signal for a continental war, the other carried it to a glorious termination. Without San Martin at the South and Bolívar at the North it is impossible to conceive how the forces of the revolution could have worked together towards one end; neither is it possible to conceive how one could have completed his task without the other. Nevertheless, as politicians both went astray; neither reached the level of the public opinion of their day, and both failed to comprehend the instincts of the masses they led. They were military leaders only, and knew not how to direct the organic evolution of the peoples.
Time, which dissipates false and enhances true glory, has thrown much light upon matters which during their lifetime seemed obscure. Their outlines are now seen clearly against the horizon of history; they stand forth as symbols of the epoch which gave birth to a new republican world, the greatest political phenomenon of the nineteenth century.
The Argentine Republic and Chile, led by San Martin, were victorious in the South, and carried their arms from sea to sea, and from the temperate zone to the equator. There the entire forces of the revolution of South America joined hands; there the two liberators embraced, and separated for ever.
Columbia, led by Bolívar, gave victory to the revolution in the North; secured the independence of Peru and Bolivia, and guaranteed that of the other Republics of the Southern Continent. San Martin yielded the completion of the task to Bolívar, and by his abdication gave a high example of civic virtue. Bolívar crowned the work; the triumph belongs to both. Their fate was equal, both died in exile.
The fate of the emancipators of South America is tragical. The first revolutionists of La Paz and of Quito died on the scaffold. Miranda, the apostle of liberty, betrayed by his own people to his enemies, died alone and naked in a dungeon. Moreno, the priest of the Argentine revolution, and the teacher of the democratic idea, died at sea and found a grave in the ocean. Hidalgo, the first popular leader of Mexico, was executed as a criminal. Belgrano, the first champion of Argentine independence, who saved the revolution at Tucuman and Salta, died obscurely, while civil war raged round him. O’Higgins, the hero of Chile, died in exile, as Carrera his rival had done before him. Iturbide, the real liberator of Mexico, fell a victim to his own ambition. Montufar, the leader of the revolution in Quito, and his comrade Villavicencio, promoter of that of Cartagena, were strangled. The first Presidents of New Granada, Lozano and Torres, fell sacrifices to the restoration of colonial terrorism. Piar, who found the true base for the insurrection in Columbia, was shot by Bolívar, to whom he had shown the way to victory. Rivadavia, the civil genius of South America, who gave form to her representative institutions, died in exile. Sucre, the conqueror of Ayacucho, was murdered by his own men on a lonely road. Bolívar and San Martin died in banishment.
San Martin when he saw that his life’s work was accomplished, left Mendoza for Buenos Ayres, where he was received with indifference and contempt. Neither country wife, nor home, was left to him, there was not even a place in the Argentine Army for the man who had led the armies of three Republics to victory. At the close of the year 1823 he took his orphan daughter in his arms and retired into exile. In Europe he found himself penniless. Five years later he returned to Buenos Ayres, seeking to end his days in his native country; the war with Brazil had just concluded.
On the 12th February, 1829, the anniversary of his triumphs at San Lorenzo and at Chacabuco, the ship which carried him anchored in the roadstead, and he was greeted with this contemptuous denunciation in the city press:—
“General San Martin has returned to his native country after five years’ absence, but after knowing that peace was concluded with the Emperor of Brazil.”
His answer had been given two thousand years before, by the mouth of Scipio, when he was insulted by his fellow countrymen on the anniversary of one of his great battles:—
“On such a day as this I saved Rome.”