"Happy is the citizen," he said in his address, "who, under the shield of the armies he commands, has convoked national sovereignty to exercise its absolute will…. Only a forceful need, coupled with the imperious will of the people, could force me into the terrible and hazardous position of Dictator and Supreme Chief of the Republic. I breathe freely now when I return to you this authority, which, with much danger, difficulty and sorrow, I have succeeded in keeping in the midst of the most horrible misfortunes which can befall a people."
Among the most remarkable parts of this document, the following will bear close and careful study:
"The continuation of authority in one individual has frequently been the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential in popular systems, because nothing is so dangerous as to permit a citizen to remain long in power. The people get used to obeying and he gets used to commanding it, from which spring usurpation and tyranny." … "We have been subjected by deception rather than by force. We have been degraded by vice rather than by superstition. Slavery is a child of darkness; an ignorant people becomes a blind instrument of its own destruction. It takes license for freedom, treachery for patriotism, vengeance for justice." … "Liberty is a rich food, but of difficult digestion. Our weak fellow citizens must greatly strengthen their spirit before they are able to digest the wholesome and nutritious bread of liberty." … "The most perfect system of government is the one which produces the greatest possible happiness, the greatest degree of social safety, and the greatest political stability."
The following study of the balance of powers in a country shows keen political penetration:
"In republics, the executive must be the stronger, because all conspire against him; while in monarchies, the legislative power should be the stronger, because all conspire in favor of the monarch. The splendor of the throne, of the crown, of the purple; the formidable support given to it by the nobility; the immense wealth which generations accumulate in the same dynasty; the fraternal protection which kings mutually enjoy, are considerable advantages which militate in favor of royal authority and make it almost boundless. These advantages show the need of giving a Repúblican executive a greater degree of authority than that possessed by a constitutional prince.
"A Repúblican executive is an individual isolated in the midst of society, to restrain the impulses of the people toward license and the propensities of administrators to arbitrariness. He is directly subject to the legislative power, to the people; he is a single man, resisting the combined attack of opinion, personal interests and the passions of society."
Elsewhere in his address, he remarks:
"The government of Venezuela has been, is, and must be Repúblican its foundation must be the sovereignty of the people, the division of powers, civil freedom, the proscription of slavery, the abolition of monarchy and of privileges." … "Unlimited freedom, absolute democracy, are the rocks upon which Repúblican hopes have been destroyed. Look at the old republics, the modern republics, and the republics now in process of formation; almost all have aimed to establish themselves as absolutely democratic, and almost all have failed in their just desires." … "Angels only, and not men, could exist free, peaceful and happy, while all of them exercise sovereign power." … "Let the legislative power relinquish the attributes belonging to the executive, but let it acquire, nevertheless, new influence in the true balance of authority. Let the courts be strengthened by the stability and independence of the judges the establishment of juries, and of civil and criminal codes, not prescribed by old times, nor by conquering kings, but by the voice of nature, by the clamor of justice and by the genius of wisdom." … "Humankind cries against the thoughtless and blind legislators who have thought that they might with impunity try chimerical institutions. All the peoples of the world have attempted to gain freedom, some by deeds of arms, others by laws passing alternately from anarchy to despotism, from despotism to anarchy. Very few have contented themselves with moderate ambitions constituting themselves in conformity with their means, their spirit and their circumstances. Let us not aspire to impossible things, lest, desiring to rise above the region of freedom, we descend to the region of tyranny. From absolute liberty, peoples invariably descend to absolute power, and the means between those two extremes is social liberty." … "In order to constitute a stable government, a national spirit is required as a foundation, ha for its object a uniform aspiration toward two capital principles; moderation of popular will and limitation of public authority." … "Popular education must be the first care of the paternal love of Congress. Morals and enlightenment are the two poles of a republic; morals and enlightenment are our first needs."
Then Bolívar recommended the sanctioning of his decree granting freedom to the slaves.
"I abandon to your sovereign decision the reform or abrogation of all my statutes and decrees, but I implore for the confirmation of the absolute freedom of slaves as I would implore for my own life and the life of the Republic."