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 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.
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.