2018;47(1):74-82. Yet, despite his obvious ambitions, in 1819 Bolivar still wanted to appear as to be reluctant to become a perpetual dictator. 1999. Yet, astonishingly, Ferdinand abolished the 1812 Constitution, and imposed a new absolutist regime that, once again, contemplated the American territories as colonies. Draper, H. 1968. Charles III introduced a system of comercio libre, free trade, but the name is very deceptive. 2003. Colombia: Civility and Violence, Document #20: Press Release from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Secretariat of the Central General Command of the FARC-EP (2002), Document #21: Statement by Humberto de la Calle, Head of the Government Delegation to the Conversations Table, Humberto de la Calle (2013), Chapter 8. Who could resist the admiration and esteem inspired by an intelligent government, which unites at the same moment public and private rights, which forms by general consent the supreme law of individuals? The will of the Grand Sultan, the Khan, the Bey, and other despotic sovereigns, is the supreme law, and it is arbitrarily executed by the pashas and inferior governors in Turkey and Persia, where the system of oppression is completely organized, and is submitted to by the people because of the authority from which it emanates. With us it is quite different. On the contrary, aristocracy and monarchy have long established great and powerful empires. Hence, many expect that the 2019 will again be a year of nationalist unexamined joy, celebrating the Angostura Address. This bring us to one of our key questions: Had Bolivar already planned to be a perpetual dictator by 1819 and was the Angostura Address paying mere lip service to the principle of alterability in power? When it came to liberty, Rousseau himself had some qualms about how truly liberal a State should be, to the point that he claimed in an oft-quoted phrase from The Social Contract, that subjects should be forced to be free (Roberts 2012: 117). of History, Cal. Bolivar acknowledged that federal forms of government were theoretically virtuous, and that democratic systems of checks and balances were to be emulated. In 1829, in the mist of continuous crises of legitimacy, some of Bolivars loyalists in Bogota proposed to establish a monarchy, with Bolivar as king, although his title would be Liberator; he would then have a European prince as successor (Lynch 2010: 263). 2018;47(1):7482. 2010. But, as it turned out, this was just to pay lip service as Bolivar assumed dictatorial powers again and again throughout his ensuing political career. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16993/iberoamericana.427, Andrade G, Lugo-Ocando J. In the Angostura Address, Bolivar, typical in his style, praises North American society over and over again: Our legislators were influenced by the provincials, and were carried away by the dazzling appearance of North Americas happiness, thinking that the blessings she enjoyed were owed exclusively to the form of government, and not to the character of the people (Bolivar 1819). An Address of Bolvar at the Congress of Angostura (February 15, 1819). Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press. Document #41: "Address at a White House Reception for Members of Congress and for the Diplomatic Corps of the Latin American Republics," John F. Kennedy (1961) Discussion Questions; Further Reading; Chapter 16. Caballero, M. 2006. This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Congress of Angostura A Great Address and Campaigning in the Plains (1819) Congress did not meet until February 15, 1819, on account of the late arrival of some representatives. Thanks to these achievements he would then be invited by the Peruvian authorities to organize the military campaign against the remaining Spanish and loyalist forces in Peru and Upper Peru (modern-day Bolivia), thus completing the final defeat of the Spanish Empire in South America. Unless the executive has easy access to all the administrative resources, fixed by a just distribution of powers, he inevitably becomes a nonentity or abuses his authority. By this I mean that the result will be the death of the government, whose heirs are anarchy, usurpation, and tyranny . Europeans still perceived Spain more as an African country, as in Alexandre Dumas (himself of African descent) apocryphal observation: Africa begins at the Pyrenees (Altaschul 2012: 11), and Enlightened Spaniards tried hard to overcome that. Neoliberal Hegemony and the Pink Tide in Latin America. Indeed, in the 18th Century, a series of reforms began to be undertaken by the new Spanish ruling dynasty, the Bourbons. Venezuela: The Perils of Prosperity, Document #23: Address to the United Nations, Hugo Chvez (2006), Document #22: Pact of Punto Fijo, Accin Democrtica, COPEI and Unin Republicana Democrtica (1958), Chapter 9. Lynch, J. Indeed, despite his strong criticisms of Spanish imperialism he seemed to acknowledge that Spanish rule offered an important degree of stability and unity while independence could bring instead disunity and possible chaos amongst the emerging nations: The separation of America from the Spanish Monarchy resembles the state of the Roman Empire, when that enormous structure fell to pieces in the midst of the ancient world (Bolivar 1819). As it was the educational custom of his times, Bolivar was deeply embedded in the Classics, emulating the spirited rhetoric of Cicero and other great orators of Greece and Rome. At the opening session, held at the Orinoco River port of Angostura (today Ciudad Bolvar), on 15 February 1819, Bolvar delivered a major address in which he warned against imitation of Anglo-American institutions and called for a new constitution featuring a hereditary Senate and a "moral power" with special responsibility for education and Its culminating piece of legislation was the Venezuelan Constitution of 1819, officially adopted on August 15, but quickly made obsolete by the creation of the Republic of Colombia on December 17, 1819. By 1819, Bolivar fully understood that he would not succeed without their support. Starting in 1999, Bolivars image was politically used by Hugo Chavezs leftist revolution, and ever since, leftist governments and guerrillas (especially FARC in Colombia) throughout the region have claimed to be followers of Bolivarian thinking. Yet, there were still notable Spanish Enlightenment figures (Jovellanos, Mayans, Olavide, amongst others). Being just 21 years old in 1805 and after losing his wife just years earlier, he went to tour Europe. The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading. The executive power, consisting of two consuls, had the same flaw as Sparta. Americans by birth and Europeans by law, we find ourselves engaged in a dual conflict: we are disputing with the natives for titles of ownership, and at the same time we are struggling to maintain ourselves in the country that gave us birth against the opposition of the invaders. A strongly rooted force can only correct this weakness. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Throughout his lifetime, Bolivar was concerned with public morality, and perhaps his most quoted words by Colombian and Venezuelan schoolchildren, come from the Angostura Address: Morals and knowledge are what we most need now (Bolivar 1819). The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading. 2019 should definitely be a year of celebration, for the Angostura Address is a landmark political document. Despite their genuine admiration for Bolivar, constituents understood that Bolivars argumentation in favor of hereditary principles of political power was very weak (not to say confusing), and that an institution imitating the British House of Lords would be nothing but a setback to old aristocratic times. This argument is hard to follow. Inspired by the revolutions of both the. In: Lively, J (ed. From there, with the auspices of President Alexandre Petion (17701818) that included 6.000 soldiers, money and even a print- (Helg 2003), Bolivar returned to Venezuela with a military expedition. Once again, he was inspired by his upbringing of admiration for Classical Antiquity: I have dared to suggest a moral power, drawn from the remote ages of antiquity and those obsolete laws, which for some time maintained public virtue amongst the Greeks and Romans (Bolivar 1819). A political upheaval that took place between 1765 ad 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded the United States of America. New York: Springer. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text. And, at times, he seems to believe that, the new nations are not sufficiently mature to be wholly free: Liberty, says Rousseau, is a succulent food, but difficult to digest. The enforcement of public morality has repeatedly been associated with authoritarian regimes. No matter what citizen occupies this office, he will be aided by the Constitution, and therein being authorized to do good, he can do no harm, because his ministers will cooperate with him only insofar as he abides by the law. After some military action in New Grenada (modern-day Colombia), Bolivar returned to Venezuela in 1812 and after a remarkable series of military triumphs he managed to recapture the capital Caracas (Lopez and Lopez 1999). Carta de Bolivar al General Juan Jose Flores. We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. June 13, 1821. Document #2: "Address at the Congress of Angostura," Simn Bolvar (1819) Travels in Colonial Latin America; Discussion Questions; Further Reading; Chapter 3. Framing Pan-Americanism: Simn Bolvars Findings. CR: The New Centennial Review. Bolivar spoke, expressing his ideas regarding freedom. This was by far the most important motive in the struggle for independence amongst the criollo elite, and throughout his writings, Bolivar makes very clear how important this issue is for him. State Fullerton. Castro-Klarn, S. 2003. It enjoys all its proper functions, and it requires no essential revision, because the Constitution, in creating it, gave it the form and powers which the people deemed necessary in order that they might be legally and properly represented. The Enlightenment proclaimed the equality of all human beings, on account that we all share a common nature that makes human rights universal. His praise for division of powers was also only half-hearted. In this regard, Bolivar very much anticipates Tocquevilles analysis in Democracy in America. Angostura bark, a spice made from the bark of the tree Angostura trifoliata. Shubert, A. But then, mysteriously, Bolivar argues that those very advantages are a good reason why a republican president should be endowed with greater power than a constitutional prince (Bolivar 1819). Again the Angostura Address of 1819 clearly shows a Bolivar who was already very concerned with the chaotic potential of an independent South America. Geographies of Philological Knowledge: Postcoloniality and the Trasatlantic National Epic. The hereditary senate will also serve as a counterweight to both government and people; and as a neutral power it will weaken the mutual attacks of these two eternally rival powers. An Address of Bolivar at the Congress of Angostura (February 15, 1819) Reprint Ordered by the Government of the United States of Venezuela, to Commemorate the Centennial of the Opening of the Congress (tr. My sword, and the swords of my illustrious comrades-in-arms, will protect its solemn authority. The case could be made, however, that, in the context of revolutionary struggle, perhaps Bolivar was not aspiring to create an old-fashioned nobility, but rather, a neutral organ intermediate between executive and popular instances. hold on the North American continent five. 80: Communist Interference in El Salvador, and Response to Stories Published in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, U.S. Department of State and Alexander Haig (1981), Document #12: Testimonies of Guatemalan Women, Luz Alicia Herrera (1980), Chapter 5. Bolivars stand on the abolition of monarchy, however, is more problematic. Edinburgh University Press. Central America: Within the U.S. Orbit, Timeline for Central America, 1502-Present, Central American Profiles and Personalities, Forced Disappearance and Impunity in El Jute, Guatemala, Document #9: Introduction to the Shark and the Sardines, Juan Jos Arvalo (1956), Document #10: Acceptance and Nobel Lecture, Rigoberta Mench (1992), Document #11: Special Report No. How, exactly, does the potential for abuse in a monarchy justify the expansion of executive power in a republic? Do we not read in Montesquieus Spirit of the Laws that laws should be suited to the people making them, and that it is extremely unlikely that the laws of our nation will suit another? (Bolivar 1819). Nevertheless, his main concern was not so much with absolutism itself, but rather, with the exclusion of criollos in the administration of the Spanish Empire. The people are more easily deceived than is Nature perfected by art; and although these senators, it is true, would not be bred in an environment that is all virtue, it is equally true that they would be raised in an atmosphere of enlightened education. There can be multiple answers to this question: These sources both signify a change in attitude with the people of each nation. Paredes Muante, J. Let us start by saying that by 1819, Simon Bolivar was a very uncertain man who had lived till then a hectic life. Unlike Jose de San Martin (who explicitly desired a Constitutional Monarchy for emerging South American nations), he constantly paid lip service to the toppling of monarchs. The Congress ultimately decided not to pursue two of Bolivars most controversial proposals in the Angostura Address: a moral power, and a hereditary senate. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text. In 2010, in the backdrop of a wave of left-wing, populists and nationalists governments that have been swept into power in what some refer to as the Pink Tide (Chodor 2014), many Latin American countries (most notably Venezuela, Peru and Argentina) held massive celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the beginning of independence from Spain. In modern times, he sought the protection of the British empire; in referring to ancient times, he consistently showed admiration for Roman imperialism, and had no words of criticism for it, as once again expressed in the Angostura Address: A monstrous and purely warlike government raised Rome to the highest pitch of virtue and glory, and made the whole world a Roman Empire, showing men just how much can be achieved by political virtue, and how trivial the influence of institutions can be (Bolivar 1819). The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading. Thus our position is most extraordinary and complicated. Login has been disabled for this journal while it is transferred to a new platform. Said, E. 2006. 1974. Andrade G, Lugo-Ocando J. State Fullerton. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. Reporters Without Borders. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16993/iberoamericana.427, Andrade, G., & Lugo-Ocando, J. Iberoamericana Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Silencios y disputas en la historia de Hispanoamerica. Bolivars political program, as laid out in the Angostura Address, is straightforward. He makes his first point very quickly in the first sentence, "We are not Europeans.Americans by birth and Europeans by law." The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading. Consuls, senate and people all served also as legislators, magistrates and judges. comments powered by 1965. Tocqueville, A. Proyecto de Constitucion para la Republica de Bolivia y discurso del Libertador al Congreso Constituyente de Bolivia. The Enlightenment did not reach Spain with the same force as it did in France or Great Britain. However, as we will argue in this paper, it is precisely due to the nationalist distortions that are likely to occur around the nature and context of the Angostura delivery that calls for a more critical reading of the document. Bolivar, S. 1819. . The authors have no competing interests to declare. Mine is done. Predictably, many of these celebrations were carried out without sufficiently critical and objective approach towards historical data. You may begin your work. Chile: Repression and Democracy, A Voyage from the United States to South America, Thomas Bennett (1821), Document #28: Final Speech, Salvador Allende (1973), Document #29: Military Decrees on Seizing Power, Augusto Pinochet (1973), Document #30: Inaugural Address, Michelle Bachelet (2006), A Romanticism of Slavery and the Plantation Economy, Casa Grande e Senzala and the Formation of a New Brazilian Identity, Amnesty, Amnesia, and Moral Reparations in Brazil, Exploracin oficial por la primera vez desde el norte de la America del SurViaje a Rio de Janeiro, Francisco Michelena y Rojas (1867), Document #31: On Slavery in Brazil, Thomas Ewbank (1856), Document #32: State Department Telegram to Ambassador Lincoln Gordon (1964), Document #33: Letter to Pope Paul VI, Marcos Sattamini Pena de Arruda (1971), Document #34: Speech of the President of the Republic in the ceremony installing the Truth Commission, Dilma Rousseff (2012), Chapter 12. Considerations on France. These subordinate officers are entrusted with the civil, military, and political administration, the collection of duties and the protection of religion. This new nation . Simon Bolivar was one of the liberators in the time of the revolution in the northern part of South America. The Angostura Address 200 Years Later: A Critical Reading. The conspiracy against Miranda July 31, 1812. Dilogos Revista Electrnica de Historia, 16(2): 219267. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2515360. Government posts were bought and sold, thus being filled by grossly incompetent administrators. The collection of duties and the Pink Tide in Latin America anticipates Tocquevilles in. Olavide, amongst others ) a year of celebration, for the Angostura Address Years old 1805! Would not succeed without their support illustrious comrades-in-arms, will protect its solemn.! Let us start by saying that by 1819, Bolivar fully understood he... Bolivars political program, as laid out in the 18th Century, a spice from... 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