CHAPTER XV
CHILE’S UNIQUE POLITICAL HISTORY
National Life a Growth—Anarchy after Independence—Presidents Prieto, Bulnes, Montt, Perez—Constitution of 1833—Liberal Modifications—The Governing Groups—Civil War under President Balmaceda—His Tragic End—Triumph of his Policies—Political System of To-day—Government by the One Hundred Families—Relative Power of the Executive and the Congress—Election Methods Illustrated—Ecclesiastical Tendencies—Proposed Parliamentary Reforms—Ministerial Crises—Party Control.
CHILE has a political history that marks an isolated chapter among the Spanish-American Republics. Its unique and significant feature is four successive and peaceful presidencies of ten years each. The phenomenon is worthy of study. The tributes which the Chileans pay themselves are merited. Their national life has been a growth and not a series of spasms.
After independence was achieved through O’Higgins in 1818, the Liberator was sent into exile, because he sought to exert kingly powers as a dictator under the merest crust of republican forms. The riot of liberty followed for ten or twelve years with frequent revolutions, changes of rulers, and unavailing efforts to form a stable government. The anarchy of license under the mask of popular institutions reached its height during the period from 1828 to 1833, when the Liberal party—that is, liberal in name—was in power. Then came the Conservatives, or reactionists. They forced the adoption of the Constitution of 1833, which remained unchanged for thirty-seven years. Order and tranquillity was the motto, and genuine republicanism was choked in order that a government of law might live.
Under this Constitution the colonial despotism differed only from that of Spain in that it was exercised by family groups, who controlled the Executive, rather than by a viceroyal representative of the distant monarchy. It was easy to suspend the Constitution and to put the whole country under martial law. The promptness with which this was done in the emergencies undoubtedly prevented the series of revolutions that cursed other South American countries. It was constitutional for the Executive to abrogate the organic law when the opposition got too active. The party in control under this Constitution of 1833 always was known as the Conservatives, and the opposition in a general way as the Liberals. Sometimes a faction of the Conservatives would split off and attempt a revolution; sometimes the conservative element was really liberal in character, but not in name.
From 1833 to 1873 Chile had four presidents, all elected and reëlected under constitutional forms. These chief magistrates were Joaquin Prieto, Manuel Bulnes, Manuel Montt, and José Joaquin Perez. During General Bulnes’ administration an army uprising was attempted; during that of President Montt a revolution started at Copiapo in the North. There were also other disturbances. But all of them were suppressed without long periods of civil dissensions, and though liberty seemed to be smothered under councils of war and the absolute suspension of individual rights, it was a hardy plant and after a brief period would begin to grow again.
Under the Constitution of 1833 the presidential term was five years, and there was no prohibition against a second term. In this manner each president reëlected himself and enjoyed a ten years’ tenure. But he could not have done this if the privileged classes, the family groups, had not sustained him. They were aggressive in defending their share in the oligarchy, and their individual independence they maintained as sturdily as did the English barons who forced the Magna Charta from King John. With the national development assured, the country began to chafe under the recognition of the autocratic power which was vested in the Executive, and to feel that the growth which would not have been possible without the colonial despotism under republican form had now reached the full measure. Consequently the agitation for liberalizing the Constitution began and was continued persistently instead of intermittently. In the decade from 1860 to 1870 the Conservative reactionaries were pressed so vigorously and were on the defensive so constantly that the harsh features of the Constitution were modified in the spirit if not in the letter.
During the life of this old parchment and the four Executives who put it into practice,—for there never was a dictator among them,—Chile consolidated her domestic interests, inaugurated the building of railways, and by the navy and other means prepared for the war which it was felt one day would be had with Peru and Bolivia. In view of all that was accomplished, it can hardly be said that the Constitution of 1833 and the power of the one hundred families as exerted under that instrument, were bad for the country. But a change was inevitable, and in 1870 the Constitution was reformed in a manner to bring it within the sphere of modern principles of government and remove its aggressive antagonism to republican institutions. Greater independence was conceded to the judicial power, and larger liberty of action to the municipal authorities, while the electoral right of the citizen was broadened. The presidential term remained at five years, but successive elections were prohibited so that the ten-year tenure could not continue.
Frederico Errazuriz was the first of the Executives to serve under the amended Constitution. His term was peaceful and progressive, but was devoted chiefly to preparing for war by ordering the construction of the armored cruisers which rendered the Chilean navy so formidable. He was succeeded by Anibal Pinto, who had served in the cabinet as Minister of War. A financial and economic crisis supervened during his administration, and in its closing year was fought the war of the Pacific, with Chile as the antagonist of allied Bolivia and Peru. Chile’s sweeping victories not only gave her the nitrate territory which she exacted as war indemnity; it made her the most aggressive and the most feared Power in South America.