GENERAL MOSQUERA.
President of Colombia (1845-1849, 1861-1864, 1865-1867).
Mosquera declared a Kulturkampf, separated Church and State, exiled the bishops, confiscated the goods of the convents, and, like Guzman-Blanco, created a national Church. Without the authorisation of the supreme power no priest could exercise his religious functions. The civil power was the supreme power; the Church and her ministers were subject thereto.
The President shot or suppressed his enemies, and imposed his policy by terror; he enthroned militarism. Faithful armies followed him, accustomed to victory. The domestic policy of New Granada did not satisfy his ambition; he aspired to restore the Greater Colombia, and dreamed the dream of Rosas and Santa-Cruz; the hegemony of his country to be forced upon other peoples. He declared war upon Ecuador, and was victorious. In 1864 he was followed by another liberal, Dr. Murillo-Torro. In 1865 the military caudillo resumed the reins of government. He was hostile to Congress, and proclaimed himself dictator; he violated the Constitution and the law, intervened in the struggles of other States, and sought an absolute and irresponsible authority. His own supporters conspired against him, and sent him into exile. In Colombia he was the indisputable authority, as Paez in Venezuela, from 1845 to 1867.
After this long empire came a period of civil Presidents and military Presidents, who moderated the ambitions of the liberals. Presently a new caudillo arose: Dr. Rafael Nuñez. Mosquera was first a conservative, then a liberal. Nuñez, a liberal, fomented a conservative reaction and dominated Colombian politics for twenty years.
At one time secretary to Mosquera, he had made a study of the evolution of great States. He was not only a leader, but also a diplomatist, and a philosopher in his political disinterestedness, his lasting moral influence, and the width of his views. A theorist like Balmaceda and Sarmiento, he none the less did not forget the inevitable imperfections of Colombia. He became President of the Senate in 1878, and a minister of the Reformation and head of the Republic in 1880. Democracy looked to him for a renaissance.
In the heart of the liberal party Dr. Nuñez directed a new independent group. He had been a radical in 1850, but he departed from the rigidity of his original beliefs before the persistent suggestions of experience. Why weaken the executive in an anarchical nation—why increase the national troubles by the bitterness of religious warfare? Nuñez became a liberal-conservative; he forgot his original socialistic principles, the theories of Louis Blanc and Saint-Simon, and applied a British common-sense to Colombian politics.[[3]]
His political ideas (expounded in various articles) were prudent and conciliatory; no sterile idealism dominated Dr. Nuñez. He believed, with many English statesmen, that "in politics there are no absolute truths, and all things may be good or evil according to opportunity and extent." This was the policy he opposed to Colombian dogmatism. He believed that "politics is indissolubly bound up with the economic problem."
A conservative in religion, tolerant in the art of governing, he taught the Jacobins of America some admirable lessons. "Our population," he wrote, "does not exceed three millions of inhabitants, the majority of whom are but slightly civilised. If the social fraction called upon by its aptitudes to the functions of government divides and subdivides itself and occupies itself in weakening itself we shall never succeed in doing anything of importance as legatees of the Peninsular domination." His ideal was a free oligarchy, coherent in intention, and in action persistent.
Equally lamentable were the division of the best class of the nation and the intolerance of the governing parties. Rafael Nuñez preached respect for minorities. "The absolute exclusion from the government of the parties in a minority," he said, "weakens the national spirit, envenoms discussion, and creates extraordinary dangers." Majorities have need of discussion and opposition. "The myopia of party spirit," adds the caudillo, "fails to perceive the virile vigour which a political group obtains by the mere fact of giving proofs of tolerance, justice, and respect for its defenceless adversary." "When for some extraordinary reason one of the great parties disappears, the surviving party splits up into fractions, and these fractions fight among themselves as bitterly as when they have to face a common enemy: even more bitterly."
The leader of the independents had studied political science not only in foreign books, but also in practice, in public life; he had a profound acquaintance with the country which he governed, and with the Latin American vices which are the incurable weakness of these new democracies. "We have no viceroy in Colombia," he said, "but anonymous rulers. We have a written liberty, but no practical liberty. We have a Republic, but only in name, for opinion is not expressed by the only legitimate means, which is the suffrage." "It is a grave error, generally accepted by us, that the sole object of a political party and all its efforts should tend toward the possession of the public power, represented by the leadership of the national army."