Latin America: Its Rise and Progress

by Francisco García Calderón

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 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 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.