BOOK II

THE CAUDILLOS AND THE DEMOCRACY

The history of the South American Republics may be reduced to the biographies of their representative men. The national spirit is concentred in the caudillos: absolute chieftains, beneficent tyrants. They rule by virtue of personal valour and repute, and an aggressive audacity. They resemble the democracies by which they are deified. Without studying the biographies of Paez, Castilla, Santa-Cruz, and Lavalleja, it is impossible to understand the evolution of Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay.

Chapter I

Venezuela: Paez, Guzman-Blanco

The moral authority of Paez—The Monagas—The tyranny of Guzman-Blanco—Material progress.

Two central figures, Paez and Guzman-Blanco, dominate the history of Venezuela. The first founded a republic in spite of the Unitarian aims of Bolivar; the second established a long autocracy over the factions and the quarrels of half a century.

Paez was an individualist, a nomadic leader, an impassioned champion of the district, of the native country, as against any vast political concentration. As the Argentine pampa gave birth to Quiroga, and the Arabian desert engendered the mystic adventure of the Khalifs, so the llanos of Venezuela created Paez.

Among the haughty llaneros of Apure he grew to be a horseman, a lover of the infinite plains, the leader of a nameless troop, the hero of a host of adventures, romantic or brutal. He was born in 1790. He was a half-breed, representing the indigenous forces in conflict with the Spanish oligarchy and the Creole aristocracy. A democrat of the school of Castilla and Rosas, robust and audacious, with the perspicacity of the Indian and the pride of a tribal chieftain, he cared only to lead armies. He detested "literary people," "judges," and ideologues. A lieutenant of the Liberator's, he was with him in a hundred battles, but he loathed all discipline, and his incipient insubordination in 18 18 diminished the success of Bolivar. His pride revolted against all tutelage, even when this was just. At times he wished Bolivar to be an absolute chieftain, an invulnerable monarch; at other times he rebelled against him. In 1819 he led the patriots of the llanos to victory; he obtained power and honours but was always notably insubordinate. In 1821 he opposed the order of enrolment issued by Santander, the Vice-President of Colombia. The municipality of Caracas shared his desire for autonomy, and Venezuela followed the leader who represented the national instincts. Bolivar intervened to enforce the unity of Colombia and gave way to Paez. In 1826 the latter counselled the Liberator to assume the crown.

The fusion of the peoples, unity as against discord, was the Bolivian ideal. At this time the spirit of nationality was working obscurely, and spontaneous republics were springing up. The race, exhausted by its long tutelage, uneasily sought subdivision, thinking thereby to gain autonomy; Paez, profoundly American, followed the stream and exiled Bolivar. He broke up the Colombian unity, as Santander in New Granada and Flores in Ecuador, and liberated his country in 1830. The nomad guerrillero had then to organise the country, to give it stability and continuity; his supple nature adapted itself to his new duties. By instinct (writes an eminent historian, Gil Fortoul) he inclined to play the part of certain constitutional kings, leaving the government to his ministers. Without denying his democratic past, he frequented the society of the literate and the oligarchs. His presidency (1831-1835) resulted in domestic peace, strict order in matters financial, political conciliation, and economic progress.

Dr. Vargas, an enemy of militarism, succeeded him, but the brothers José Tadeo and José Gregorio Monagas, who had risen against Paez in 1831, renewed their attempt in 1835. The weak, irresolute President appointed Paez commander-in-chief of the army, while the revolutionists of Caracas proclaimed him supreme ruler. His immense moral force loomed paternally above the squabbles of the parties; he became the arbiter of Venezuelan quarrels.

He upheld the constitution and the presidency of Vargas, but the latter could not retain supreme power and abandon the reins of government to the hands of the vice-president. The chieftain of the plains was elected for a second presidential period in 1838. Militarism declined under his rule, foreign credit increased, the payment of the debt was assured, and orderly progress was effected. In 1843 his loyal friend, General Carlos Soublette, a republican of the antique mould, austere and liberal, was his successor. Once more the omnipotence of Paez was triumphant.

The political tranquillity of these two periods masked a social transformation. Venezuela was not a democratic republic; it was, like Chili, ruled by an oligarchy. The Constitution of 1830 conferred the enjoyment of political rights only upon the land-owners, property-owners, and government employés; as in the southern nation the territorial overlords ruled, and slavery persisted. The "doctors" belonged to the dominant group. The oligarchs were conservatives; they defended property, order, and wealth against militarism and demagogy. They recognised no State religion, nor did they practise intolerance.

In 1840 a liberal reaction set in against the dictatorship of Paez and the conservative clan; democratic institutions and "new men" were called for. It was a struggle of classes and races. The obscure mass—pardos (mulattos), mestizos, proletariats—subjected to slavery or servitude, oppressed by the privileged, hybrid and anarchical—attacked the established ruling caste. Thus political unrest was complicated by social conflict. Antonio Leocadio Guzman, a brilliant demagogue, comprehending the liberal ambitions of the crowd, founded a popular party upon the hatred of hierarchies and traditions. A tribune and journalist, he violently attacked Paez, Soublette, and their ministers; he offered the people the abolition of slavery and the repartition of the soil, with the violence of all the creators of democracies, from Tiberius Gracchus to Lloyd George. He was presidential candidate in 1846; Paez supported General Tadeo Monagas, a gloomy personage who represented the oligarchy. The supporters of Guzman rebelled against the influence of Soublette and the tutelage of the great llanero, and a social revolution commenced under the mask of a political quarrel. The Liberals wished to overthrow the "Gothic oligarchy." Guzman was made prisoner. He was judged as were the tribunes of antiquity who terrified the patrician class by the tumult of a hungry democracy. Condemned to death as a conspirator and anarchist, he saw his punishment commuted to banishment.

GENERAL JOSÉ TADEO MONAGAS.
President of Venezuela (1846-1850 and 1855-1859).

The conservatives had won; the evolution of democracy was checked, thanks to the advent of certain crude demagogues. As in Chili, a moderate liberalism was germinating in the heart of the conservative group itself. Until 1861 the oligarchical constitution of 1830 was maintained, as in Chili the analogous constitution of 1833 persisted, in all its rigidity, until 1891. The liberals could hardly be distinguished from the conservatives; the democratic Guzman himself accepted slavery. There was not, therefore, any violent war of castes, but rather a slow infiltration of liberal principles in the substance of the aristocratic class. The man of this period of transition was President Monagas. He governed with liberals and conservatives, and founded a personal system. The Congress wished to impeach him, but the people defended him against the Congress. The independent Assembly was dissolved, amidst bloodshed and the bodies of the slain, on the tragic 24th of January, 1848, and the Executive was triumphant. The rule of oligarchies was followed by personalism or autocracy. Monagas struggled against Paez; these two predominant influences could not co-exist. The old caudillo took the head of a revolution; he was defeated, and, like Guzman, exiled. Curious analogy between the fate of the chieftain of the oligarchy and that of the leader of the democrats!

José Tadeo Monagas was replaced by his brother José Gregorio. The pair formed a strange species of dynasty in which inheritance was collateral. Guzman having again lost the presidency, his supporters and those of Paez rebelled against the government in 1853 and 1854; but the government was victorious, and in 1854 liberated the slaves. Better than the apostrophes of the popular tribune this radical measure prepared the way for the advent of the democrats. After José Gregorio Monagas his brother José Tadeo became President in 1855. A new Constitution of 1857, centralistic in tendency, permitted the re-election of presidents, and Monagas remained in power. General Castro defeated him at the head of a coalition of all parties. The old political groups were reorganised; the struggles between federalists and centralists recommenced; and the decline of the oligarchies saw the advance of democracy. The Convention of Valencia (1858) promulgated a liberal constitution, which established the autonomy of the provinces under governors and congresses of their own; the electoral capacity, restricted by the old statute, was enlarged; the jury system was established; and the Executive was weakened, with an eye to the personalism of Monagas. A civil war in which federals, liberals, centralists, conservatives, constitutionalists, and ideologists were mingled in motley assemblies disturbed the country. The battles lacked the simplicity of the old directorates, the rigidity of the old hierarchies. The democracy lamentably increased; the liberal factions were seized with an equalitarian frenzy. Their leaders—Falcon, Zamora—were demagogues on horseback. At the spectacle of this barbarism Paez, returning in 1861 from the United States, restored reaction and autocracy. On September 10th he proclaimed himself supreme chief in the face of the federal power; an octogenarian, he gathered all the powers of the State into his trembling hand; a melancholy symbol of the oligarchy, exhausted in its struggle against the invading democracy. In vain did he issue tyrannical decrees; he could not prevent the triumph of federation. At Coche, Guzman-Blanco, general of the federal forces, negotiated with Rojas, the omnipotent secretary of Paez, an agreement which put an end to the tottering dictatorship. The action of the founder of Venezuela, "the man of the plains," representing the conservative aristocracy, was over. He died in 1873, when his work of a half-century was about to be continued, under another form, by the great caudillo Antonio Guzman-Blanco.

He was the son of Antonio Leocadio Guzman, leader of the liberal party. He had travelled in the United States, was a diplomatist, and had followed a course of study in the law, and on his return to Venezuela had directed military operations during the revolt against Paez. He had the gifts of the military leader; he skilfully organised attack and retreat in that difficult warfare of many factions amidst the plains; he revealed himself as a heroic leader of men, dashing and persevering. In 1862 he attained the rank of General-in-Chief of the Army. The General Assembly elected him vice-president of the Republic, under the presidency of Falcon, after the agreement of Coche. Guzman-Blanco then contracted a loan of one and a half million pounds in London, where Venezuelan credit was ruined. It was necessary to restore the public finances after the long crisis of the revolution. The operation was onerous, and the liberal leader was criticised. However, the Venezuelan Congress awarded him a prize in the form of an award of money.

In 1865 and 1866, during the absences of President Falcon, he exercised command with admirable political tact, introducing severe financial economies, regularising the debt, and suppressing sinecures and pensions. In the political world, despite the triumph of the federals, he demanded the reinforcement of the central power, as against the anarchy of the autonomous provinces. In fact, a new constitution, extremely liberal, which was promulgated by the Assembly in 1864, had conceded an excessive degree of independence upon the provinces.

A revolution overthrew the federal President, and the conservative malcontents restored José Tadeo Monagas. Anarchy continued, and Guzman-Blanco intervened to repress partial revolts, to counsel political tolerance, and to negotiate abroad the unification of the public debt; he had inherited the moral power from Paez. Monagas wished to draw him into his party, and offered him the succession of the presidency. The struggle increased in intensity; the "Blues" of Monagas, as in Byzantium, defied the "Yellows" of Guzman-Blanco. The civil war lasted five years. The country seeking stability, even if it involved autocracy, José Ruperto Monagas succeeded to his father and the monarchical policy was again attempted. The chief of the federals was the enemy of the President, who exiled him, after a nocturnal attack upon his house, on the 14th of August, 1869.

Guzman arrived in Curaçoa, and in September openly commenced to work for revolution. Monagas was anxious to compromise, and willing to agree to one of those conventions so frequent in Venezuelan history; but the caudillo imposed hard conditions. His father, the demagogue and tribune, accompanied him as journalist. After indecisive battles the Revolution triumphed in Caracas (April, 1870), and Guzman-Blanco assumed the dictatorship. The autocratic régime accepted neither conciliation with the vanquished nor legal artifices; the figure of the Imperator looms above the passive crowd, a defence against federal disorganisation, economic waste, and incessant anarchy. The liberal leader attacked his adversaries energetically, directed battles, performing prodigies of strategy at Valencia and Apure. The "blues" recoiled, successively losing Valencia, Trujillo, and Maracaibo. General Matias Salazar, the seditious liberal chief, a friend of the dictator, was shot. Like Porfirio Diaz, the Venezuelan autocrat checkmated anarchy by decapitating its generals. Exile, battles, and confiscation of goods prepared the way for lasting peace. Two years the civil war lasted, and in 1872 Guzman-Blanco, a beneficent despot, commenced the material transformation of the country. He knew men, he had the gift of command; his decision was irresistible, his character of steel. He reduced import duties, and abolished export duties, founded a banking company which issued bonds guaranteed by the Government, and amortised the public debt. While introducing strict economies he attacked his political enemies with forced loans and special contributions. In the political arena he unhesitatingly repressed the revolts of the Blues and would grant them no amnesty; he exiled the archbishop because he refused to celebrate the triumph of the liberal Revolution by a Te Deum. The dictator was nationalist as against foreign pressure and threats; he aspired to the reconstitution of Venezuela, in matters domestic and foreign, despite the anarchy of the factions and the manoeuvres of European stockjobbers. Diplomatic conflicts arose with the United States, Holland, England, and the Papacy.

Guzman-Blanco favoured education; he wished to see "a school in every street." He reformed the civil and penal codes, and established marriage and civil registers. In 1873 he renounced the dictatorship before Congress, but the latter elected him President, and accorded him supreme honours. Statues and streets and medals bore his name; he was given the pompous titles of "Illustrious American" and "Regenerator of Venezuela"; nothing could be refused him by the servile and extravagant deputies. His statue, erected in Caracas in 1875, near that of Bolivar, glorified the Regenerator equally with the Liberator. The popular dictator satisfied the ambitions of all; he brought the peace desired by the oligarchs, he was the idol of the crowds, and he attacked the Church like the liberals and free-masons.

From 1870 to 1877 the Government fostered material development by means of the construction of railways and highways, public buildings in the large towns, and the transformation and embellishment of Caracas. It was said that the Dictator wished to imitate Napoleon III. by opening up promenades and avenues. Credit prospered, the service of the debt was assured, the public revenues increased, orderly and economical budgets were established, and statistics organised. The President reinforced and disciplined the army, and intervened in the politics of the states, in defiance of federalism. He endeavoured to found a Venezuelan Church, with a liberal archbishop and clergy elected by the faithful; he suppressed religious congregations and converted their goods into national property. His autocracy did not respect the powers of the outer world; he stimulated industries by a strict protectionism. An admirer of French art, he established museums in Venezuela.

In 1877 General Alcantara succeeded him. Guzman-Blanco stated in his message, reviewing his seven years' work, that he left behind him peace, administrative and political organisation, external credit, liberty of the vote, and "the triumph of the dignity and the rights of the Nation." He was acclaimed to the verge of apotheosis. He left for Europe, and in his absence the statues of the dictator were overthrown and his decrees annulled by those who had conferred such honours upon him. Democracy, unstable and feminine, burned what she had adored. Guzman-Blanco returned to Venezuela in 1878, devoured with dictatorial ambitions. He had sought in Paris to found a company which, like the East Indian and African companies of England, should transform his country. He longed for the power he had abandoned to an ungrateful mob. Upon his arrival a favouring revolution welcomed him, the state of Carabobo proclaimed him Dictator, and ten other states followed suit. The revolutionaries triumphed, and those who had overthrown his statues and reversed his statutes now praised him to the skies. Guzman-Blanco proposed to reform the Constitution; the Swiss federation was his political model. He reduced the number of states in Venezuela, and despoiled the Executive of many attributes, which he confided to a Federal Council. The Province approved the "Swiss" Constitution of 1882.

The "Illustrious American" then returned to France to realise a financial plan which was to transform his country, and to conclude a contract with the great Jew bankers. He formed a privileged company which was to exploit the country, obtain concessions of land, and organise what financiers call the mise en valeur of new territories. The Constitution promulgated, Guzman-Blanco was elected President of the General Council. In 1882 he expounded to Congress the benefits of his autocracy: material development, budgetary surpluses, extended cultivation, and political stability.

Until 1886 Guzman-Blanco was President of the Venezuelan democracy, or its minister in European capitals. His power was absolute; he imposed new leaders, left the country, returned; he was the Protector of the Republic. From the enchanted banks of the Seine he directed the febrile development of Venezuela. Like Porfirio Diaz in Mexico and Rosas in the Argentine he conquered all other leaders, imposed peace, organised and unified, and ruled by terror or by sentiment. A caudillo without definite political ideas, he loved power and his native country. State, Church, parties, and national riches, all were his; they were the domains of this feudal baron. His enemies accused him of enriching himself at the expense of the national property, but his work in the material world was fruitful; he built roads, erected buildings, and stimulated the development of the national fortune. In matters of policy he affirmed the inviolability of the country against foreign aggression; he was a democrat as against the conservatives. He loved pomp and triumph, sumptuous external shows, sonorous phrases, and the servile adoration of the crowd.

He had an enormous faith in his own work. In 1883 he stated that Venezuela, under his authority, "had undertaken an infinite voyage towards an infinite future." His dictatorship appeared to him as necessary, providential: "the people insist upon it so that we may be saved from anarchy." He aimed at "the regeneration of the country"; and his was the responsibility for this work; but the greatness also was his. "I have never followed the thought of any but myself," he said. Indeed, we may apply to him the classic phrase descriptive of absolutism: "L'Etat c'est moi."[1]

[1] En defensa del Septenio, Paris, 1878, p. 29.