Peru has only once been subjected to the federal experiment, and she has not suffered so much from internal dissensions as the unfortunate countries above mentioned. She holds a central position amongst the South American republics, not so cruelly torn by anarchy as Mexico on the one hand, and not enjoying so good and settled a government as Chile on the other. Her people too are perhaps inferior in capacity and mental endowments to the Chilians and the natives of New Granada, but infinitely superior to those of Central America and Mexico. She may, therefore, be taken as an average example of these half Spanish, half Indian states; and as such I will proceed to give some account of her people, her government, and her material resources.
The population of Peru, by the latest accounts, was 1,880,000 souls: the whole of the labouring classes in the interior being pure Indians; the artizans and shopkeeping classes in the towns partly Indians and partly half-castes or mestizos; the lower orders on the coast being negros, or zambos, a caste between negros and Indians, with some imported Chinese; and the upper classes being chiefly of Spanish descent with a slight dash of Indian blood, many nearly or quite half-castes, not a few pure Indian, and an exceedingly small proportion of pure Spanish descent.[353] The men of Indian extraction display perhaps more energy and equal ability with their fellow-countrymen of pure Spanish origin; and many Indians are wealthy enterprising men, while others have held the highest offices in the state. The Peruvians are intelligent and quick of apprehension, exceedingly hospitable and kind-hearted, and remarkably humane and forgiving, as a rule, in the conduct of their civil wars; but they are apt to be fickle and volatile, incapable of any long-sustained effort, and inclined to indolence. Corruption, bribery, treason, and pusillanimity are but too common; but may not these be the vices engendered by civil strife and periods of anarchy, rather than the normal characteristics of the people? With the exception of the negro races on the coast, there are few people among whom crime is more uncommon.
The causes of the civil and foreign wars which have retarded the progress of Peru since her independence may be explained in a very few sentences.
The first of these has arisen from disputes with her neighbours respecting boundaries. On her southern frontier the ambitious policy of Bolivar created a small republic, from no reason or motive that was apparent, beyond the childish vanity of having a country called after his name. This country was to all intents and purposes a part of Peru. Her people, her languages, her traditions and feelings were the same, and, until the latter part of the last century, she had formed a part of the Peruvian viceroyalty. No good end was attained by this division; while disputes respecting a doubtful unsurveyed boundary, jealousies and misunderstandings arising from all imported goods from Europe having to be landed at the Peruvian port of Arica, and conveyed to Bolivia across Peruvian territory, has created a hostile feeling, embittered year by year, between people who should have lived as brothers under a single government. On her northern frontier Peru has the little republic of Ecuador, until 1830 a portion of Colombia; which possesses the only good port, with the exception of Callao, on the western coast of South America, that of Guayaquil. This port has always been coveted by Peru; and the question of the frontier was further confused by the civil jurisdiction in Peru and Quito, during Spanish times, having been divided by one line, and the ecclesiastical by another. The generally recognised rule for deciding the frontiers between the South American Republics is the uti possidetis, as regards the former colonial jurisdictions, at the time of the war of independence.
These frontier disputes, carried on with feelings embittered by former jealousies, led to a war between Colombia and Peru in 1828,[354] in which the latter republic was worsted; and a campaign, ending in a treaty, between Peru and Bolivia at the same time.
The second and more disastrous cause for civil dissensions was the question between a federal and a centralized form of republican government. Peru enjoyed a period of peace between the war with Colombia in 1828 and the year 1834; but between the latter period and the year 1844 the unfortunate country was subject to a constant series of civil wars and insurrections. The ten years between 1834 and 1844 was Peru's most miserable time. Her public men were corrupt, pusillanimous, and selfishly ambitious; she was given up to be torn and distracted by wretched military adventurers; and the marches of armies, with their system of forced recruiting, banished all attempts at advancement or improvement from the country. Yet even during this dark interval there was a space of two years, when General Santa Cruz established his dream of a federal republic under the name of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, during which the land enjoyed peace and some signs of revived prosperity. The able and vigorous administration of Santa Cruz, whose mother was an Indian chieftainess, was the one bright spot in this dreary waste of anarchy.
For the following ten years Peru enjoyed a period of peace, under the rule of General Don Ramon Castilla, an old Indian of Tarapaca, for the first six years, and afterwards of General Echenique. During this period the country advanced rapidly in material prosperity, but in 1854 it was again convulsed by a revolution, caused by the general discontent of the people at the gross malversations and unblushing robbery of Echenique's Government. Castilla placed himself at the head of this movement, and, with the aid of a large army, has retained his power up to the present day. The insurrection at Arequipa, and mutiny in the fleet, in 1857-58, were purely local, and did not affect the general tranquillity of the country.
Towards the close of Peru's ten years of convulsion, a constitution was adopted, establishing a strictly centralising form of government, in 1839, in which immense power was placed in the hands of the executive. But during the ten years of peace which followed the election of Castilla in 1844, men's minds were strongly influenced by European travel and by more extended reading, extreme liberal views were very generally adopted, and the old constitution was felt to be out of date. In 1856, therefore, a new constitution was promulgated by a national assembly summoned for the purpose by General Castilla, in which abstract ideas of what is just and right were unhesitatingly and heedlessly adopted; and a strong tendency to federalism and local self-government was displayed.
By a stroke of the pen the capitation-tax paid by the Indians, the principal source of revenue in ordinary times, the slavery of negros on the coast, and all capital punishments were entirely abolished. There would have been some nobleness in the abolition of slavery, and the grant of 1,780,000 dollars as compensation, as well as a display of liberal sentiment, if it had in any way increased the burdens of the people, but this was not the case. For the same reason the discontinuance of the tribute paid by the Indians was a mere act of recklessness. In this constitution there were two legislative chambers, a Senate and a House of Representatives; but half the representatives were chosen by lot to form a Senate, so that one chamber was a mere counterpart of the other. The most remarkable clauses, however, were those in which measures leading to the federal form of government, a plagiarism of the disastrous system of the United States, were adopted. Peru continued to be divided into Departments governed by Prefects appointed by the President; but it was now enacted that in the capital of each Department there should be a sort of state legislature called a Junta Departmental, the members being elected by the people, and empowered to deliberate and legislate for the good of the Department. This measure was but a commencement of that fatal system which had convulsed some of the other republics; and its tendency was so apparent that Castilla was accused of intending to divide Peru into a dozen petty states, and to rule as a Dictator, by fomenting dissensions among them.[355] A wiser and more useful measure was the establishment of what are called Juntas Municipales in the towns and unions of villages, composed of the principal residents, who are intrusted with the supervision and promotion of all local interests and improvements.
In November 1860 this constitution was reformed, improvements were introduced, and some of its more absurd and injurious provisions were repealed. Capital punishment for the crime of murder was again enacted. The Congress was to meet every two years on the 28th of July; a third of their number to be renewed every two years; and, during the recess, a permanent committee of the Congress, consisting of seven senators and eight deputies, to be elected at the end of each session, was to watch the execution of acts passed by the Congress, and to exercise its functions. A great improvement was also adopted in the constitution of the Senate. The members of that body are to be elected by the Departments, each one electing a certain number according to the number of its provinces, and the qualification of a senator is raised to 1000 dollars a-year. Thus there is now an intelligible difference between the two chambers, and, in the formation of the Senate, one of the few good points of the constitution of the United States has been wisely adopted. The executive power is in the hands of a President and two Vice-Presidents elected for four years, and a council of ministers. Finally the mischievous Juntas Departmentales, which I believe had never been allowed to meet, were abolished, while the municipal institutions of the constitution of 1856, which could only be productive of good, remained in full force.