RAFAEL NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA IN 1879-1883, 1885-1891.RAFAEL NUÑEZ, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIAIN 1879-1883, 1885-1891.
Peace was followed by a general amnesty, becausethe 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 thedominating 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.
Under this Constitution there was for a long time less disorder. In Colombia political hatreds are, however, incredibly virulent and persistent because party differences are fundamental and irreconcilable. The clericals regard their opponents as pestilent enemies of religion and order, and the liberals anathematise the ruling party as a reactionary, corrupt, and benighted oligarchy. The exiled liberals have made repeated efforts to regain power, and the administrations have not been able to avoid a constantly mounting national expenditure and the continuation of deficits and repudiation. In 1899, a formidable insurrection, aided from Venezuela, broke out, President Sanclemente was imprisoned, and in 1900 Vice-President Marroquin assumed the executive functions. This terrible civil war ended only in November, 1902, when the insurgents surrendered their fleet and stores. President Marroquinand the conservative government seem now firmly established, backed as they are by the tremendous influence of the Church among the masses. The people are returning to their usual avocations, though business has been demoralised by the stupendous depreciation of the paper currency.
The vast expenditures of the French canal company boomed Panama, but the resulting prosperity was confined to the Isthmus. The Bogotá government hoped for a great increase of income when the canal should be completed, and the abandonment of the enterprise was a disappointment. The principal subject of public preoccupation during 1903 was the negotiation with the United States concerning the permission desired by the latter to continue the work. Colombia proper has its outlet down the Magdalena to the Caribbean, and therefore has no greater special commercial interest in the building of a canal than Venezuela, Guiana, or Cuba, but the Colombians of the continent regarded the possession of the isolated Isthmian region as their most valuable national birthright, and believed that this invaluable strategic position should be used so as to obtain the utmost possible advantages for the Bogotá government as well as for the people of Panama. The revenue from the Panama railway had been one of the important sources of government income and the ruling political classes considered that they were entitled to have this income largely increased if a canal was built.
The special congress summoned to consider the treaty already signed by the executive failed toratify the agreement and adjourned, after empowering the president to try and negotiate a new one which would give Colombia a larger bonus and revenue. But the rejection of the treaty was followed by a declaration of independence on the part of the people of Panama, who believed that the United States would pay no larger sum than that already agreed upon and who saw their own interests being sacrificed for the sake of a far-distant interior region with which they had few commercial ties and whence invasion and coercion need not be feared because of the lack of practicable routes of communication. The United States and other powers promptly recognised the new nation, which at once made a canal treaty similar to that rejected by the Bogotá congress.
At Bogotá the first impression was one of profound dismay. The executive offered to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and ratify the rejected treaty in spite of the Senate. General Reyes, the foremost living Colombian, immediately departed for Panama as a special envoy to endeavour to persuade the people there to return to their allegiance, but his overtures were rejected, and he went to Washington on the hopeless errand of inducing the United States Government temporarily to abandon its policy of forbidding fighting on the Isthmus, so that Colombia might reduce the people of Panama to obedience. Meanwhile many Colombians blamed the Marroquin administration for the irreparable loss of Panama and ten million badly needed dollars. Some popular demonstrations occurred, and thehot-headed demanded that war be declared against the United States and an army marched across the Atrato swamps to attack Panama from the land. But the financial and topographical difficulties were so evidently insurmountable that the war talk soon died down, the demonstrations against the Government ceased, and most elements seem to have acquiesced in the election of General Reyes to the presidential term which begins in 1904. It will be under his able guidance that Colombia will start on the tedious road leading to internal peace and regeneration, to financial rehabilitation, and to the reconcilement of those fierce factions whose wars have drenched their country's soil with blood for so many decades.
PANAMA
The history of Panama is for the most part identified with that of Colombia, which is narrated elsewhere in the present volume. It will, however, be convenient to review certain movements and tendencies of the last half-century in order to obtain a just understanding of the position and prospects of the new republic.
All the principles of advanced democratic government were included in the programme of the party which ruled Columbia from 1863 to 1883, and the statute books of the time afford ample proof that the leaders earnestly tried to put those principles into practical effect. They dreamed a Utopia, but practically their efforts only aggravated the anarchical tendencies bequeathed by the Spaniards and Bolivar. Colombian liberals still insist that a persistent enforcement of the Constitution and principles of 1863 would ultimately transform the character of the people—that religious bigotry and priestly influence would gradually disappear; that the progressive enlightenment of the masses wouldmake military despotism and revolutions impossible; and that in process of time the relations of the states to the federal government would reach a satisfactory and workable basis. But so far as the experiment went no progress was made toward unifying the nation and pacifying the adverse elements. Discontent, disorders, civil wars increased in violence as the years went by. Though one-fifth of the federal revenues were spent on the public school system, and one-tenth of the children were nominal attendants, the clergy were permitted to have no share in their control, and retaliated by excommunicating the parents. The devotedly pious Creole mothers and wives, threatened with the closing of the confessionals and the denial of absolution, threw their incalculable influence against the atheistic government. The destruction of the convents and the confiscation of the vast ecclesiastical estates violently changed the ownership of two-thirds of the land in the confederation, but this imposition of new landlords on the industrious, oppressed, half-enslaved tenantry did not much modify real agricultural conditions. No extensive subdivision of estates resulted, and the Creole aristocracy continued to pay more attention to political intrigue than to improving their property.
VIEW OF PANAMA.VIEW OF PANAMA.
Not less disappointing in its practical working was the independence of the states. Not only did the local bosses constantly abuse autonomy for their own selfish purposes, but the presidents at Bogotá often ignored the constitutional rights of the states, and selected for coercion precisely those states whichwere farthest from the capital and most needed wide autonomous powers. Though Panama's position was isolated, its population cosmopolitan, its commercial interests and social structure peculiar, and though in colonial times its dependence on Bogotá had been only nominal, the liberal presidents usually ruled it like a conquered province. Members of the Andean oligarchy poured in to batten on its revenues; the autonomy guaranteed by the Constitution proved illusory, and discontent led to repeated efforts to achieve absolute independence.
Rival ambitions among its own leaders furnished, however, the immediate cause of the downfall of the liberal party. A close oligarchy grew up and that inevitable corollary, a powerful faction of dissident liberals, while the clericals remained formidable and irreconcilable even after their bloody overthrow in 1876. Rafael Nuñez, a brilliant writer, a resolute and ambitious party chief, and a leader in the confiscation of church property, had been defeated in his candidacy for the presidency in 1875. The younger and dissatisfied liberals rallied behind him in his war against the oligarchy, and in 1880 the old-fashioned liberals could not prevent his election to the presidency. He vigorously strengthened the prerogatives of the federal executive and built up his personal following, but although the issue of paper money and the discontinuance of interest on the foreign debt—a debt which only ten years before had been scaled down to $10,000,000, one-sixth its original amount, on a solemn promise that at least this muchwould be faithfully paid—placed large funds at his disposal, the old-line liberals were strong enough to prevent his re-election in 1882. Their victory was illusory and temporary. Nuñez controlled both houses of congress and was able to block President Zaldua at every turn. Eighty years old and in feeble health, the latter died after a year of fruitless struggle.
STEAMERS ON THE MAGDALENA RIVER.STEAMERS ON THE MAGDALENA RIVER.
After a shortad interimadministration in which Nuñez's influence predominated, he was re-elected to the presidency and installed in 1884. By this time his centralising tendencies were manifest, and the measures he adopted unmistakably pointed to the substitution of a unified republic for the old loose confederation. Many of his liberal supportersfell away and he was driven into an alliance with the conservatives. Appointments of members of that party to important positions were followed by the great revolt of 1885. The insurrectionists delivered their main attack on the Caribbean coast, whither the importation of arms was easy. Much of the department of Magdalena fell into their hands, and they besieged Cartagena in force. But when one of their expeditions invaded the Isthmus, burning Colon, and interrupting traffic on the Panama Railway, the president appealed to the United States, as previous presidents had done in similar cases, to carry out the guaranty of free transit contained in the treaty of 1846. At the same time the government troops attacked and defeated the isolated insurrectionists at Colon, and shortly afterwards the latter's main army suffered a bloody repulse in an assault on Cartagena. This broke the back of the movement against Nuñez, and the liberals abandoned the hopeless struggle.
The insurrection had been undertaken for the purpose of defending the 1863 Constitution, and its defeat meant the destruction of departmental independence. As the logical and natural result of his victory, the president proclaimed the abolishment of the Constitution and summoned a convention to adopt a new one. Thenceforward until his death ten years later Rafael Nuñez and his political ideas were supreme in Colombia, and Panama was held in the most rigid subjection. The old "United States of Colombia" was replaced by the "Republic of Columbia," one and indivisible; the departmentsbecame mere administrative divisions whose governors were appointed from Bogotá; the presidential term was increased to six years; the radical liberal projects were abandoned; the clergy regained many of their privileges; and the historical conservatives continued the dominant party.
As long as Nuñez lived there were few outbreaks and no serious civil war, though the ousted liberals never ceased to plot the government's overthrow. The centralising system held the departments in a rigid control from whose inconveniences Panama suffered far more than the mountain districts. Practically she was allowed no voice in either her own or general affairs; the very delegates who nominally represented her in the constitutional convention of 1885 were residents of Bogotá appointed by Nuñez; military rule became a permanent thing on the Isthmus; all officials were strangers sent from the Andean plateau; and the million dollars of taxes wrung each year from the people of Panama were spent on maintaining the soldiers who kept them in subjection. In January, 1895, the harassed province broke out in a rebellion which was suppressed by an overwhelming force of Colombian troops in April.
Meanwhile in Colombia proper the opposition to the ruling clique grew stronger and stronger. Persecution united the liberals, and they began organising for revolt all over the republic. The conservatives themselves divided into two parties, one of which opposed the administration. Nuñez did not live to finish the second term to which hehad been elected in 1892, but his successor managed to suppress the premature revolt of 1895, and in 1898 Sanclemente was elected, the opposition refraining from going to the polls. The new president soon found his position very difficult, and, unlike Nuñez, was unable to dominate his own party and hold the opposition in check. The French Canal Company, whose concession, granted in 1878, would expire in 1904, offered a million dollars for a renewal, desiring to recoup, by a sale to the United States, a part of the two hundred millions sunk by De Lesseps. Sanclemente's government wished to accept, but the opposition and even the conservative congress insisted on the forfeiture of the French rights. The administration rapidly lost prestige, the discontented elements saw their opportunity, and the long-brewing storm now broke on the hapless country. The liberals hurriedly completed their preparations, and in the fall of 1899 a civil war began—the most terrible and destructive that has ever devastated the republic. Before it ended in 1902, more than two hundred battles and armed encounters had been fought, and thirty thousand Colombians slain. The detailed history of the campaigns has not yet been written, but it is apparent that the insurrectionists at first gained many successes. The president declared martial law, suspending the functions of congress, and the extension desired by the French Canal Company was granted by executive decree. But the pecuniary relief thus obtained did not materially help the floundering administration. Sanclemente became a mere figurehead for his moreresolute ministers, and in July, 1900, the vigorous vice-president, Marroquin, seized power by acoup d'état, throwing Sanclemente into a prison, where he remained until his death. Thereafter the war against the rebels was prosecuted with more energy, and the tide turned with the defeat of an army of Venezuelans, eight thousand strong, which had invaded the eastern provinces, to co-operate with the insurrectionists.
NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE PANAMA R. R.NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE PANAMA R. R.
However, the liberals were still strong in the west and north. On the Isthmus four insurrections had broken out from October, 1899, to September, 1901, and though each had been promptly suppressed, in 1902 the liberals were able to make a last great effort to establish themselves at Panama. They had considerable forces near the mouth of the Magdalena, and gunboats on the Pacific. The secure possession of the Isthmus would have enabled them to reinforce this Magdalena army, cut off Marroquin from the sea, and undertake a campaign against the interior. At first all went well for them; their gunboats captured the government's vessels on the Pacific side; they concentrated a respectable army there and finally defeated and captured two thousand of Marroquin's troops at Agua Dulce, near Panama. But this was their last success. Marroquin poured reinforcements into Colon, and though the American admiral at first refused to allow them to be transported over the railroad to Panama, permission was granted when it became evident that there would be no fighting near the line. News came of the defeat of the liberal army near theMagdalena, and General Herrera, the victor at Agua Dulce, found himself isolated. In desperation he sent an expedition in October which surprised and captured Colon, but French and American marines were promptly landed to prevent fighting in that city. The expedition had no alternative but to surrender, and a few days later General Herrera with the main body capitulated on the Pacific side.
The three years of war left Colombia in frightful demoralisation. The victorious government was little better off than the defeated liberals. Commerce and industry had been prostrated; revenues had dwindled to nothing; the paper currency was worth less than one per cent. The exhaustion of its adversaries, not its own strength, enabled Marroquin's government to continue in power. In such a situation the administration welcomed the opportunity which now offered of renewing the building of the Isthmian canal. The United States government determined to undertake this great work itself, and finally decided in favour of Panama as against the Nicaragua route. Forty million dollars was agreed upon as a just price for the work already done by the French Company, and nothing remained but to obtain Colombia's consent to the transfer. The civil war helped to delay the negotiation of a satisfactory treaty, but as soon as it was over the Marroquin administration lost little time in coming to an agreement with the United States. Colombia was to receive a bonus of ten million dollars for consenting to the transfer and enlarging the terms of the original concession; her sovereign rights werereserved and guaranteed, although she agreed to police and sanitary control of the canal strip by the United States.
When this treaty was submitted to the Colombian Senate for ratification, opposition developed which the administration was not strong or resolute enough to overcome. Among the politicians at Bogotá, the opinion was almost universal that the executive should have demanded more. The Colombian people have ever regarded the political control of the Isthmus as their most valuable national heritage, and cherished extravagant hopes that some day they would be vastly enriched by the sale or rental of this strategic bit of ground for its natural use as the greatest artery of the world's commerce. Many now insisted, as they had done in 1898, on enforcing a forfeiture of the French rights, or at least on receiving a proportion of the $40,000,000 to be paid for them. It was also said that the Americans could well afford a larger bonus, and the opponents of the treaty made the further point that the agreement was unconstitutional and contained insufficient guaranties of Colombian sovereignty. Against this storm the feeble administration probably could do little and certainly did nothing. The Senate was allowed to adjourn without ratifying the treaty, and an attempt was made to negotiate a new one providing for a larger bonus and more stringent guarantees of Colombian sovereignty.
The United States, however, absolutely refused to consider any other terms than those already agreed upon, and the civilised world saw the completion of an enterprise promising incalculable benefits to mankind indefinitely postponed by the opposition of Andean provinces whom the accidents of war and international politics had given an arbitrary control over a region with which they had no natural connection. The situation was particularly hard for the people of the Isthmus, whose confident hopes were now disappointed of at last receiving, by the prosperity which would follow the building of the canal, some compensation for the oppression and losses they had suffered during eighty years of misrule by the Bogotá oligarchies. Hardly had the treaty been rejected when plotting for a declaration of independence began. The resident population was unanimous, and good grounds existed for believing that even the Colombian garrison would offer no resistance unless reinforcements should come from Bogotá. In case of an armed conflict with Colombia the people of Panama could count on the sympathy of all America and Europe. The stockholders of the French Company had a direct pecuniary interest in their success. If once they could establish independence and ade factogovernment, Colombia could not deliver an effective attack without violating the neutrality and security of transit guaranteed to the Isthmus by the United States. Everything pointed to the success of a well-conducted movement.
Though the preparations for the revolt could not be concealed, the Bogotá government took no effective measures to forestall it. Warned that trouble was impending, the United States sentships to prevent fighting that might interfere with transit. The new republic was proclaimed at Panama on the 3rd of November, 1903. The Colombian authorities made no resistance; the garrison surrendered without firing a shot; and the entire population acquiesced in the appointment of a provisional government, pending the calling of a convention and the adoption of a Constitution. A small force of Colombians had been landed at Colon, but the revolution at Panama found it still on the Atlantic side. On November 4th the American naval commander refused to give these troops permission to use the railroad for warlike purposes. Because the vital portion of the new republic is virtually neutral under the treaty of 1846, the provisional government having established itself in peaceable possession was safe from external attack. The useless Colombian troops at Colon either joined the people of Panama or retired. The inhabitants of Colon and the outlying districts immediately sent in their adherence, and the peace of the whole Isthmian region remained unbroken. On the 13th of November the United States recognised the new republic, being followed by France on the 18th, and then by all other nations as soon as diplomatic formalities could be complied with. Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero was elected first president of the Republic of Panama, being inaugurated on February 19, 1904. A treaty with the United States for the building of the canal was framed on substantially the same lines as the one which had been negotiated with Colombia. By the end of February it hadbeen ratified and proclaimed, and the United States at once made preparations for the beginning of the work.
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