South American republics

“ The history of most of the South American republics has been both mean and bloody; but there is at least a chance that they may develop, after infinite tribulations and suffering, into a civilization quite as high and stable as that of such a European power as Portugal. ”

“ If the prodigious expansion of the great North American republic may have inclined me to fear for the South American republics anything approaching to comparison, it is my belief that any impartial observer will rejoice to recognise the robust and generous development of some of the most promising forces of the future, in young communities that are clearly destined to attain to the highest grades of human superiority. ”

“ After many weeks of association with the distinguished men who control the affairs of the South American republics, after much observation of the widely different countries I have visited, it is with the greatest satisfaction that I find, in reviewing the new records of my mind, that the impressions with which I came to South America have been confirmed—the impression that there is a new day dawning, a new day of industry, of enterprise, of prosperity, of wider liberty, of more perfect justice among the people of the southern continent. ”

“ He thinks it desirable that the South American republics should be honest, and orderly, and prosperous, and forthwith he proclaims it to be our duty to make them so, in a manner insulting to them and discreditable to his own common-sense. ”

“ They need not now be tempted to do so, for there is at present plenty in the changeful relations of their own republics to engage the capacity of the ablest statesman. As to what may happen when one or two of the South American countries have reached the population and wealth of France or Italy, it is vain to speculate. Those who live to see that day will see a world wholly unlike our own. ”

“ As to political relations, the growing strength of the greater South American republics counts for much. They feel themselves to be in a position to say, "We do not want your protection; but we value your equal friendship; for we are Americans as well as you. And we are willing to group ourselves together for the preservation and protection of that America which is ours." ”

“ But among those South American republics there are some—such as Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil—which not a great many years ago seemed to be hopelessly given over to unending turbulence, but which since by their own effort have become very respectable and respected members of the family of nations, and which permit us to hope that others may to some extent follow that example without our interference. ”

“ When it is remembered that every one of the ten South American republics was divided from several neighbours by frontiers partly traversing half-explored and imperfectly mapped regions, it is perhaps surprising that such questions have been on the whole so amicably settled, and that those which are still pending do not appear to be menacing or dangerous. ”

“ I do not understand your question, Major.”
“I wait for you to explain your meaning: what is your ambition?”
“It is to form a grand confederation of South American states; as you know, our continent is divided into no end of petty republics. Why should they not unite into one powerful, resistless whole?”
“The only obstacle is themselves; each country is so jealous of every other that it prefers to fight rather than to fuse. ”

“ The majority of South American Republics—or rather of those in the lower half of the continent—are keenly alive to the benefits of many of the European methods and institutions. Although each of these countries possesses a strong individuality of its own, the generality of these younger nations have almost invariably shown themselves eager to graft to their system foreign methods of organisation that have stood the test of time and that have not been found wanting. ”

“ In some American republics, however,—and here I am speaking not of Uruguay, but of more backward communities,—there is no presumption at all either way. A government in Nicaragua or Honduras, for instance, has usually obtained power either by force of arms or by a mock election carried through under military pressure. ”

“ The only portion of the South American continent which seems to be making any favorable progress, in spite of a weak and arbitrary civil government, is Brazil, in which slavery has been retained. Cuba, of the same race with the continental republics, is daily and rapidly advancing in industry and civilization ”

“ None of the Republics as yet are World States, but South America is a World Power, though not a political entity, and as time goes on it is safe to predict that Pan-Americanism will become a powerful force. Accordingly, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, at least, are busily strengthening their defences. ”

“ The founders of South American independence understood that only a strong government could save the new nations from demagogy, anarchy, warfare between military chiefs, and untimely provincial ambitions. They wanted autonomy without licence, monarchy without despotism, and political solidity without Spanish suzerainty. ”

“ Though there are signs that the era of revolutions and tyrannies is passing away, such a man might again appear, rising by the favour of the populace and ruling by military force, and he might try to strengthen his domestic control by foreign conquest.
Of wars with European Powers there has for a long time past been no question, and as those Powers do not try to annex South American territories, and have no causes of quarrel except when their subjects complain of debts unpaid and injuries inflicted, so the South Americans have not taken a hand in the game of Old World politics. ”

“ Whilst they soon became semi-independent, their connection with the mother country was retained by means of the rights of legislation and of the power of nominating the persons who should fill every department of the executive government.
The Spanish adventurers, who laid the foundations of the republics of South America, were much more successful in the work of destruction than in that of creation. ”

“ South America is waiting for the great hand, for the great liberator of the land from the faults and follies of its own sons, and when he comes he will find a country rich to overflowing in unrealised possibilities. The curse of these countries seems to be in the love of the Spanish American for political intrigue, which periodically bears fruit in the bogus political “liberator,” throbbing with meretricious and self-seeking ambition which he bombastically labels “Patriotism.”
Cathedral and Plaza
Caracas, Venezuela
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co. ”

“ The larger group is composed of the eleven South American states. It presents some analogies to the Europe of the eighteenth century in which there were several great powers "playing the great game" against one another and against the smaller powers, nominally in the interest of that so-called Balance of Power which was to prevent any one from dominating the others, but often in reality for the sake of appropriating territory, whenever a dynastic pretext could be found. In this group there are three great powers, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile ”

“ They were among the very last to feel the revolutionary impulses which were born when the power of Spain was broken, and it was not until the Argentine General San Martin, and after him Bolivar, had kindled the torch of liberty, that Ecuador made any attempt to break away from its old allegiance. It was too near to many other insurgent areas to stand aloof from the movement, and it has the distinction of being the second South American republic whose independence was formerly recognised by Spain. ”

“ The South American states, especially, exhibit a most interesting spectacle. Let the great men who formed our constitutions of government, who still survive, and let the children of those who have gone to their graves, console themselves with the reflection, that, whether they have risen or fallen in the little contests of party, they have not only established the liberty and happiness of their own native land, but have conferred blessings beyond their own country, and beyond their own thoughts, on millions of men and on successions of generations. ”

“ If the religious emancipation of the old world did not find its echo in South America, ideas of freedom from kingly oppression began to take root in the hearts of the people, and before the year 1825 the Spanish colonies had risen against the mother country and had formed themselves into several independent republics, while three years before that the independence of Brazil from Portugal had been declared. At the present day no part of the vast continent is ruled by either Spain or Portugal, but ten independent republics have their different flags and governments. ”

“ Really to know Latin-America is to believe in its high and fine possibilities. What Latin-America needs is a fair chance.
The end of the last great despotism of earth has left democracy a triumphant political principle in human government. Henceforth no nation may hope to keep step with the advance of mankind unless its political procedures are essentially democratic. And while South America has long had the form of democracy, it now becomes essential that her republics develop the [Pg 252] working reality of effective self-government. ”

“ The South American struggle for self-government and free ideals has been a long, bloody, and heroic grapple with the reactionary and despotic forces brought over from mediæval Europe. Men like San Martin and Bolivar deserve high honor for their work in breaking the bondage that held all life helpless. ”

“ It has been intimated, indeed, that in respect of these South American possessions, Great Britain is herself an American State like any other, so that a controversy between her and Venezuela is to be settled between themselves as if it were between Venezuela and Brazil, or between Venezuela and Colombia, and does not call for or justify United States intervention. ”

“ Truly, here was a people widely differentiated from the ruck of South American natives—those squalid Indians with whom the Spanish adventurers came into contact. Possessed of sufficient enterprise to establish an empire which, from north to south, extended from Quito in Ecuador to the River Maule in Chili, they were a noble and withal peaceful race; and the inexplicable manner in which this fabric of civilisation arose can only be compared in sheer wonder with the sudden manner of its fall. ”

“ Holland, France, and England all at one time meddled in South America, but all three, while each retaining a foothold in Guiana, have long ago drawn apart and left Latin America to itself. Politically its republics live in a little world of their own; they have their own alliances, their own wars and bitternesses, with which strangers do not intermeddle. ”

“ The average citizen of any of these countries is said to be but slightly distinguishable from the average citizen of either of the other two.105 The same is the case as regards Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. But in each and all of these states there is a profusion of militant nationalist spirit, which, in Central America, has been fostered by frequent wars. Ecuador has been repeatedly on the point of taking up arms against Colombia on one side and Peru on the other, over disputes about territory. So far as national sentiment can make a nation, these republics have it to overflowing. ”

“ In following such a train of thought, how can we help pausing for an instant to consider the Pan-American Congress which so fitly closed the splendid exhibition of the Argentine centenary? With the sole exception of Bolivia, every republic of South America sent a representative to the palace of the Congress to discuss their common interests—an imposing assembly, which in the dignity of its debates can bear comparison with any Upper Chamber of the Continent of Europe. ”

“ The imagination of the South American is constantly at work; and unconsciously, perhaps, he is ever showing forth, among his countrymen, things as they ought to be, not as they are. When we hear him descant, in glowing and eloquent terms on civil liberty, freedom of the press, liberal education, privileges of the constitution, we fancy there must be a tolerably good foundation laid of all these blessings before so much could be said about them. ”

“ The spirit of a centralized, unified government whose citizens are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their nation, did not run in their blood. They belonged to a fragmentary and embryonic group of nations. Spain did not adopt a policy of centralization long enough before the acquisition of her American colonies to allow the results of such a change in methods of government to affect popular habits of thought. In the meantime, South America was being colonized by men who had no sense of racial unity and few tendencies towards concerted political action. ”

“ While Teutonic America was making enormous strides in population and prosperity, intestine strife checked all progress, educational and material, in the Spanish lands during two generations. It is to the last thirty years of the nineteenth century that the development of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay belongs. After the Latin-American countries had become independent, there was no more commercial intercourse between them and the United States than there had been in colonial days and no more community of feeling. ”