The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

Although his nomination had been bitterly opposed by many prominent liberals, once in office Santa Maria found means to unite in his support a great majority of congress. The members who took their seats in 1882 were divided into three factions: the liberals proper, as the moderates were called, the radicals, and the nationals—few in number but counting in their ranks some of the ablest and wealthiest aristocrats in Chile. The conservatives, no longer an important factor, had abandoned their opposition to the civil reforms which the liberals pressed forward, concentrating their efforts on a hopeless but desperate resistance to religious innovations. Santa Maria was in full accord with his party, and his message of 1883 proclaimed that the time had come for the realisation of the oldest and dearest aspirations of Chilean liberals—civil marriage and registry, entire liberty of conscience, and the secularisation of the cemeteries. In the fierce discussion which followed, the eloquent prime minister, Balmaceda, took the lead. Although educated for the priesthood he had developed into an intransigent radical, a passionate advocate of the completest separation of Church and State.

The civil-marriage law was pushed through in spite of the sullen resistance of the conservatives and clericals. The women of Chile, the old-fashioned elements of society, and the clergy would not accept the result. The priests refused to perform a religious ceremony for any one who had been married by the civil law, and excommunicated the president and his cabinet. Devout Chileans of all classes would not yield on this point of conscience, and cursed the liberal politicians as betrayers of their God. All other political questions were held in abeyance. Urged by their wives and the priests, the conservatives abandoned the attitude of abstention from politics which they had so long maintained, and went to the polls to do what they could to secure a majority for the repeal of the law. But ladies' entreaties and priests' absolutions availed little against the government's control of the election machinery, and the law remained on the statute books. Opposition centred against the presidential candidacy of Balmaceda—the radical, the Anti-Christ, the uncompromising. In vain Santa Maria tried to unite the four liberal groups—the government liberals, the radicals, the nationals, and the new division called dissidents. They refused to meet in a general convention. However, a majority, composed of the government liberals, the nationals, and a portion of the radicals, decided to support Balmaceda and he was triumphantly elected in 1886.

The dissidents, conservatives, and opposition radicals formed a formidable minority, determined to obstruct his administration. In the closing days of 1885 scenes were enacted on the floor of the Chilean congress which resembled recent sessions of the Austrian parliament. The revenue and appropriation bills were about to expire, and fresh ones for a new fiscal period had to be adopted. Under the regulations every member had a right to speak twice on each section, and the minority filibustered until the constitutional period for adjournment had expired. Santa Maria would have to finish out his administration and Balmaceda begin his without supply bills. Under a strict construction of the Constitution all government would cease, but Balmaceda was not the man to shrink from enforcing the right of self-preservation inherent in all governments. The executive calmly proceeded to collect taxes and pay expenses according to the provisions of the expired law until a new congress met shortly after Balmaceda's inauguration, and this solution was peacefully accepted by the country.

Chile had never known a time of such material prosperity as the first three years of Balmaceda's administration proved to be. The revenues, well-nigh doubled by the nitrate and copper of the provinces wrested from Peru, were further increased by the flourishing condition of commerce and industry. The administration initiated and carried forward many important public works. Large sums were voted for railways, colonisation, and schools. Public salaries were raised, the Araucanian country colonised, and the Indians finally incorporated as real citizens of Chile. The clericals made the best of their defeat, and the liberal majority in congress, inspired by Balmaceda's energy, pushed forward rapidly on the road of reform and change. A new election law was passed and a beginning made toward making the Constitution more democratic.

Balmaceda's first idea was to unite all the liberal factions, conciliate the conservatives, and devote himself to a policy of material development. Although owing his election to three political parties out of the six, he was unwilling and perhaps unable to govern solely by their assistance. Instead of regarding himself as the chief of a combination of parties, entrusted by it with the direction of affairs and under obligations to act in harmony with it, he did not hesitate to accept the help offered by his former political opponents when that help was needed to carry into effect his personal ideas of what was best for the public interest. On the other hand, the party which had elected him was really no party at all—it was only a temporary coalition of three discordant factions. It is not necessary to follow the many changes in his cabinet, the continual substitution of one group for another, the details of the efforts which he made during three years to govern as he pleased, and at the same time to govern in harmony with congress. His difficulties lay not so much in reconciling conflicts of opinion on matters of policy as with the personal rivalries and ambitions of the factions. Suffice it to say that toward the end of 1889 he found himself without a majority in congress and with no prospect of obtaining one. Heretofore the rival groups had been only too anxious to trade their votes in exchange for a share of patronage. Now, satisfied that the president was determined upon depriving them of their secular influence in public affairs, all the factions of the ruling aristocracy fought him bitterly. They feared that the president was plotting the formation of a personal party, cemented by hopes of office, responsible to him alone, and that the system of parliamentary government which had grown up by tacit consent and long-continued custom, would be replaced by a real presidential government in which the executive would be the source of power and not merely its channel.

Indeed, circumstances and his own characteristics were rapidly forcing Balmaceda into this position. Conscious of his own integrity and the disinterestedness and patriotism of his motives, his irritation against the stubborn self-seeking of the cliques ended in convincing him that the old interpretation of the Constitution must be abandoned, and the president in person in reality vested with all the powers given by the letter of the fundamental law. He devoted the remainder of his life to an effort to free the presidency from the practical control which congress had exercised since the days of Portales. In January, 1890, he threw down the gauntlet by appointing a cabinet composed exclusively of personal supporters. The new ministers announced that, considering their power to be derived from the president, they would hold office so long as they continued to be satisfactory to him, regardless whether or not they were supported by a parliamentary majority. In May, Balmaceda went a step farther by selecting another cabinet at whose head he placed San Fuentes, his own intimate friend and a man regarded with particular hatred by the president's opponents because it was understood that he had been selected as the president's successor, pledged to the continuance of the same policy. Congress replied by passing a vote of censure. Balmaceda insisted that the cabinet should remain in power. Congress refused to pass any appropriation bills and summoned the ministers to the bar of the House. But the president was confident that he could carry the elections, and, sure of ultimate victory, felt he could afford to make present concessions. In August a compromise was agreed upon by which Balmaceda dismissed the San Fuentes cabinet and selected one composed of neutral men, while congress consented to pass the appropriation bills. The truce did not last long. The new ministers soon found that they were mere figureheads and that the Balmacedist executive committee was the real power in the administration. They resigned and Claudio Vicuña formed a ministry which was a re-edition of the May cabinet. The announcement of its appointment was in effect a notification that the armistice was at an end. Congress accepted the gage of combat and immediately began to organise for civil war.

The wealth, social distinction, and professional classes of the country were mostly on the side of the congressionalists, and all who were conservative and fearful of disturbance in the established order rallied around them. The democratic elements, the reformers, the radicals, the dissatisfied, supported Balmaceda, but the great mass of the common people, used for centuries to political subordination to the upper classes, remained inert. His opponents met with no encouragement in their efforts to suborn the army and General Baquedano refused the leadership of the insurrection which they offered him. However, the officers of the navy, recruited from among the aristocratic classes, enthusiastically assured their undivided support, and Jorge Montt, who held a high position in the navy, was chosen as chief of the revolution.

The congressionalists resolved to make the issue upon the point whether the president had a right to maintain any military force, land or naval, after the 31st of December, the day upon which the existing appropriation law expired. Balmaceda did not hesitate an instant, but issued a proclamation that he would follow the precedent established in 1886—collect taxes and maintain the public service by executive authority until the assembling of the next session of congress. He expressly disclaimed any designs of establishing a permanent dictatorship, while expressing his firm determination not to permit the refusal of congress to interrupt the functioning of government. The issue was sharply drawn; neither side would recede; either congress would cease to exercise its immemorial control of the executive or would depose him.