The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

POST-OFFICE AT BOGOTÁ.

Moreno, the clerical dictator of Ecuador, had aided Ospina during the civil war, and to punish him Mosquera undertook a campaign which resulted in a Colombian victory at Cuaspud on the 30th of December, 1863. However, he desisted from his announced intention of deposing Moreno and installing an anti-clerical government in Ecuador, and granted peace without the imposition of any onerous terms. Murillo was elected president in 1864 for the ensuing two years, to which short period the term had been reduced. The religious question would not down, and he found a conservative revolution going on in the state of Antioquia. It triumphed, and Murillo prudently recognised the successful insurgents as the legal government. He followed this same policy in regard to other revolutions in the states of Bolivar, Magdalena, and Panama, and cautiously refrained from all intervention, even when conservative insurrections occurred in the neighbourhood of Bogotá itself, or when the clericals of Antioquia invaded Cauca, and defeated the liberals. One of the last acts of his administration was to impose on the impoverished federal treasury the settlement of all the forced loans and confiscations made during the three years of terrible civil war. Mosquera, who succeeded Murillo in 1866, was not content to remain a mere figurehead, although it was under his leadership that the federal system had been definitely established. He bought ships and artillery without authorisation from congress, and claimed the power of intervening by force whenever the legal government of a state was unable to maintain order. This attack on the right of revolution outraged the radical republicans. According to their theory and practice the federal government was merely an alliance between the peoples of the states, but Mosquera's doctrine would tend to make it an alliance between the state governments, creating a ruling oligarchy whose power might be continued indefinitely. Denounced as the assassin of Colombian liberty, he broke off relations with the liberal majority in congress, and in 1867 assumed dictatorial powers. But the Bogotá garrison was suborned by his enemies, and its revolt was followed by his deposition and the substitution of Acosta.

The new president renewed Murillo's policy of non-intervention. Colombia had begun to reap a benefit from the increasing foreign demand for tropical products. Exports grew in value, and with them, imports and revenue. But expenditures grew faster; the poorer states demanded and received subsidies from the federal treasury; public buildings and local improvements were planned beyond the nation's ability to pay; and a swarm of employees and pensioners battened on the public revenues. Under the concession of 1850 the Panama railway had agreed to pay three per cent. of its net revenue to the government, and the receipts from this source amounted to fourteen thousand dollars a year. Colombia had stipulated for the right to purchase the road in 1870 for the ridiculously low price of five million dollars, but Acosta's administration had no money to invest and was greedy for ready cash. So the franchise was extended until 1966 for one million dollars down and an annual subsidy of a quarter of a million. In 1880, under the pressure of poverty, the installments until 1908 were alienated.

Under Gutierrez's administration (1868-69), when the governor of Cundinamarca gathered troops and assumed a dictatorship, the president deposed him. Even a liberal administration found it impracticable to carry out the theory of non-intervention. An attempt was now made to secure the nation's creditors by authorising the hypothecation of specific revenue—a measure which left the administration insufficient means to meet ordinary running expenses. Under Salgar (1870-72), the acknowledged deficits amounted to fifty per cent. of the total revenue. The increasing revenues had proved a curse instead of a blessing, for the demands of the states and officials were insatiable, and the sums spent in subsidies and internal improvements grew beyond all reason. Meantime the most extreme and unrestrained liberalism dominated the politics of the country. Congress passed a formal vote of condolence for the death of Lopez, Paraguay's unspeakable tyrant, who had just succumbed to Brazil and Argentina, after having devoted to destruction nine-tenths of his people. All honorary and useless military titles and employments were abolished, and the law on that subject contains the following curious provision: "In naming the eight generals spoken of by the Constitution, from whom must be chosen the commander-in-chief of the army, all Colombians over twenty-one shall be considered as generals of the republic."

Murillo was elected for a second term in 1872, and at once devoted himself, and with considerable success, to the re-organisation and regulation of the finances. The law of 1868, which had hypothecated the revenues to meet the charges of the public debt, was repealed and the foreign bonds were scaled down to less than one-third their face. By such measures the president succeeded in paying the government employees and taking care of pressing home necessities, and even showed a nominal surplus at the end of his term.

During the administration of Santiago Perez (1874-76) the first mutterings of the terrible storm of civil war soon to burst over the country were heard. The state of Panama defied his authority and imprisoned his officers, but he applied conscientiously the constitutional doctrine of non-intervention, and disavowed a general who on his own responsibility had deposed the governor. The governor of the state of Magdalena took possession of the custom houses at the mouth of the river, and the troops of the state of Bolivar attacked federal detachments passing along the Magdalena—a river which is inter-state, and whose navigation was free by the terms of the Constitution. The popular election of 1875 was so disturbed that congress assumed the power of selecting a president, and Parra was installed the following spring. An internecine conflict broke out in Cauca; the president started to intervene, and the states of Antioquia and Tolima declared war against him. Although guerilla bands in Cundinamarca, Boyacá, and Santander menaced the government's rear, twenty-five thousand recruits were raised and sent against the rebelling states. Antioquia was beaten at Chancos and Garrapata, and the rebels of central Colombia at La Donjuana, in battles where the largest numbers of soldiers ever gathered on Colombian soil were engaged.

RAFAEL NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA
IN 1879-1883, 1885-1891.

Peace was followed by a general amnesty, because the victorious liberals dared not proceed to extremities against their adversaries. Trujillo was installed as president without opposition, and the harried country recovered somewhat from the exertions and disasters of the terrible year of 1876. The finances were, however, in horrible disorder; expenses amounted to enormous figures; the deficits became greater than the total revenues; interest on the public debt, which had been regularly kept up since 1873, was indefinitely suspended. Disturbances soon began to break out again, and the national guard deposed the governors of Cauca and Magdalena. The president showed an inclination toward centralisation; he formed alliances with state governors, encouraged them to prolong their terms, and systematically fostered divisions in the liberal party. Trujillo was succeeded by Nuñez, nominally a liberal, but who at heart had also sickened of the federalistic system and was looking for an opportunity to strengthen presidential prerogatives. The Constitution stood during his first term and those of his two successors, but when he was re-elected in 1884 the policy which he followed soon caused him to be denounced by the liberals as a traitor to the Constitution.

The failure of a liberal insurrection in 1885 was followed by a complete unitarian and clerical reaction. In 1886 a new Constitution was adopted which substituted a consolidated republic for the loose confederation. The country's name was changed from the "United States of Colombia" to "Republic of Colombia" in order to express the dominating principle of the new régime. The sovereignty of the individual states was expressly denied in the document, and the two most refractory ones—Panama and Cundinamarca—temporarily reduced to territorial dependencies. The governors were named from Bogotá instead of being elected and the right of federal intervention re-affirmed. Suffrage was limited by an educational and property qualification; the clergy were admitted to participation in politics; the Roman Catholic was declared to be the national religion, although individual freedom of worship was permitted; the presidential term was extended to six years; and an attempt was made to insure judicial independence by a life tenure.