Civilization and Barbarism/Preface

by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

PREFACE.

Since the translation of this work by Colonel Sarmiento was begun, the tide of events has carried its author to the proudest position before his country which any man since San Martin, the hero of its independence and of the independence of some of its sister Republics, has ever occupied. It is true that circumstances of even a trivial nature, and still more frequently of a corrupt nature, often bring a man to the chieftainship of his country, whether the office is elective or otherwise; but in this instance such circumstances have been singularly wanting. Colonel Sarmiento, after an absence of seven years from his country, without any political party, without any pledges of policy given or required, without any of the machinery that is generally used to set in motion such important measures, has by an almost unanimous movement been made the candidate par excellence for the Presidency of the Argentine Republic, and the returns are already known from the province of Buenos Ayres, which contains one third of the population of the whole Republic, and is by far the wealthiest, most cultivated, and most influential part of it. In this province his election has been complete and unanimous, and the voice of many other provinces has long been heard through their daily organs, so that doubtless before these pages see the light, the favorable result will be confirmed. Colonel Sarmiento has resisted all the entreaties of his friends to return to his country to aid the interests of his election. He has chosen to wait until elected by the unbiassed will of his countrymen,—and for wise as well as self-respecting reasons. All who have followed the golden thread of his life through the chaotic changes that have harassed the life of the Republic, so determined to be free and progressive, in spite of all the temporary reactions of the barbaric element which has its seat in the peculiar composition of its society, feel with him that it is only by appreciation of his motives, sympathy with his aims, and confidence in his ability to save them from the present threatened anarchy, that he can have any assurance of doing good from the high position now assigned him. He has never flattered his countrymen; he has always recognized the barbarian tendencies which have so often overpowered the equally persistent but vitally permanent influences of civilization, and he has been equally assiduous in his endeavors to arouse them from the apathy inherent, as it were, in a Spanish and at the same time priest-ridden community; but even Cordova, the "city of priests," anchored in conservatism by the very character of its extraordinary university culture, looks to him now as the only salvation for the nation.

Although a man of decided military ability, as has been proved at various times when patriotism has called him into the field, Colonel Sarmiento is eminently a man of peace, and during a long exile of twenty years, as well as in his subsequent brilliant career as Chief of the Department of Schools, Senator, Minister of State, and Governor of his native province, in his diplomatic missions to Chili, Peru, and the United States, has had but one watchword: "The Education of the People." To his countrymen he is the very ideal type of the Schoolmaster, which he has ever considered his proudest title.

By persistently keeping this idea uppermost, and opposing it to all the adverse tendencies of a community that could make money enough without it, and constantly predicting the disasters that would from time to time overwhelm it if this element of freedom were not cherished as the very ark of its liberties, he made an impression which in the hour of peril ripened quickly into a conviction, and to use an oft-repeated expression of the daily journals of the present period in South America, "his name surged spontaneously from the lips of his countrymen, and was shouted across the Cordilleras and the pampas from either border, from the eastern provinces intelligently, from the western as a cry of hope born of despair and terror, and from the interior where his beneficent labors have already borne fruit and given birth to unlimited hopes of the future." It is characteristic of that imaginative and poetical people to be powerfully swayed by a daring spirit, and a man must have self-reliance to kindle them. Colonel Sarmiento's self-reliance is founded in the nature of the principles he advocates; and his personal courage in opposing every form of tyranny and barbarism, united with a self-respect which has prevented him from ever asking for an office or a public favor, now commands an appreciation which perhaps his countrymen would be incapable of rendering under a less powerful intellectual stimulus than that given by their present danger.

The study of education also led him to the study of legislation at home and abroad, and in those two paths he has been of incalculable benefit to his country, not only convincing its most advanced men that public education is the only basis of a republic, but aiding them essentially in modeling their government upon that of the United States, which is their prototype, and to which they now look, rather than to Europe, for light and knowledge.

Colonel Sarmiento, in this work offered to the English and American public, gives no intimation of his personal relations with the tyrants, but as his whole life and much of the life of the Republic is connected with these relations, it is proposed to give a short account of its many "dramatic situations," incurred, by his love and utterance of truth. These will be better understood after than before the perusal of the main work. A complete life of Colonel Sarmiento, with all its interesting romantic and historical episodes, would fill two such volumes, but it is hoped that enough has been left untouched by the iron rules of publication to make him known, and to show that his present unsought triumph is one that a truly great man may be proud of. Constantly, from his earliest entrance into life, sacrificing all personal considerations, rather than swerve one iota from his principles, or deny himself the frank utterance of his convictions, he has proved conclusively to those who have studied his career, that, he is incapable of any mere personal ambition, though no one appreciates better the sympathy of his fellow-men.

It is the cultivated cities of the Argentine Republic, where Europeans find themselves at home in all that constitutes civilized society, and where the high culture of the few is painfully contrasted with the utter want of it in the body of the people, that constitute its difference from the other South American Republics, Chili excepted, in which certain influences have brought about certain elements of progress, Colonel Sarmiento being the chief of these favorable influences. If the chances of elections, or in this case rather the brute prowess of the reactionary chieftains, has defeated his election (which took place on the 12th of April), he will return to his country and take his seat in the Senate, to which he has of late been again chosen. He hopes by his influence in either position to increase the importance of his country's relations with the United States, whose great ideas he wishes to see planted in that hemisphere. The sources of information from which the details of his life have been gathered, are two or three small biographies, written in Chili, Peru, and Geneva; a short memoir in Rhode Island, the public documents of the Argentine Republic, the "Journal of the Sessions of the Legislature," the "Journal of the Constitutional Convention," and many periodical works, all containing remarkable speeches upon various subjects. The reports of the Chilian government on "Popular Education" may be added to these, and a little book entitled "Recollections of a Province," which is partly an autobiography written in 1850, while still in exile, under peculiar circumstances best described in his own preface to it. I shall give as copious extracts from this little book as my space will allow, for it is impossible, as I have proved by repeated efforts, to convey the same impression by any method of condensation within the reach of a compiler, which is the only character in which I have the presumption to call myself Colonel Sarmiento's biographer, a task which even his countrymen are too modest to assume at this moment of so much importance to their interests. My own interest in the subject has risen both from a personal one that grew out of his peculiar relations with my husband,—in whose name Colonel Sarmiento introduced the boon of Common School Education into Chili and the Argentine Republic, making the name of Horace Mann a household word with all whom he imbued with his own views upon that sujbject,—and from a deep interest in the nation whose highest aspirations rather than whose actual condition he represents. I wish therefore to place before the public, the series of pictures that give it a marked individuality, and that have in the course of a few years made me cognizant of its history, so obscured to the general eye by the repeated reactions it has suffered since the days of its hardly-won independence.

The work called originally "Civilization and Barbarism," but in the American translation entitled "Life in the Argentine Republic," was written in Chili, during the author's exile, in order to make known there the policy of Rosas. It found its way to France, and was so favorably received in the "Revue des deux Mondes," that the influence reacted upon his own country, as well as gave to European publicists an explanation of the struggle in the Argentine Republic. A work called "Rosas and the Questions of the La Plata," and many other European publications, were based upon its data and its standpoint. Rosas felt that it gave a mortal blow to his policy, yet during five years of anathemas hurled at the author by the "Gaceta Mercantil," which was his organ, the book was not named. All the author's books were proscribed, but the name of this one carefully suppressed, yet no book was more sought or more read in the Republic. It was handed about secretly, hidden away in drawers, and read at every man's peril.

The "Revue des deux Mondes" says of it: "During his residence in Santiago, which preceded his travels in Europe, Señor Sarmiento published this work full of attraction and novelty, instructive as history, interesting as a romance, brilliant with imagery and coloring. 'Civilization and Barbarism' is not only one of those rare testimonials which come to us of the intellectual life of South America, but it is an invaluable document. Doubtless passion dictated many of its vigorous pages, but even when exalted by passion, there, is internal evidence of a fund of impartiality which cannot fail to be recognized, and by whose light true characteristics are given to persons, and a natural coloring to events. . . . It is no less interesting to analyze South than North America. This can only be done by the philosopher, the traveller, the poet, the historian, the painter of manners and customs, the publicist. Señor Sarmiento has succeeded in realizing this object in this work, which he has published in Chili, and which proves that if civilization has enemies in those regions it also has eloquent champions."

This work and other productions of his pen, secured to Señor Sarmiento in Europe, which he subsequently visited, the acquaintance of many prominent men: M. Guizot, M. Thiers, Cobden, then ambassador in Spain, Alexander Dumas, Gil de Zarate, Breton de los Herreros, Ventina de la Vega, Aribou, and other literary Spaniards; Baron Humboldt, and many others. Pope Pius IX., then in the meridian of his glory, sent for him as cousin of the Bishops Cuyo, Oro, and Sarmiento, whom he had known in South America. All institutions of education were thrown open to his study in the portions of Europe which he visited, and to so well-prepared a mind, everything was full of significance, even failures, both educational and political. Dr. Wappäus; Professor of Geography and Statistics in the University of Gottingen, afterwards translated and published in German Senor Sarmiento's "Memoir upon German Emigration to the La Plata," and accompanied it with one hundred and sixty-nine pages of notes and comments of his own.

When R. W. Emerson read the book, he told Colonel Sarmiento that if he would write thus for our public, he would be read; and Mr. Longfellow suggested writing a romantic poem called the "Red Ribbon," which might be made as striking though it is to be hoped an even more exceptional picture of the peculiar customs of the country than the native poet Echevarria's "Captive," so descriptive of gaucho life.

Buenos Ayres was founded in 1535, by Don Pedro Mendoza, and in 1536 Don Juan de Aloyas, the lieutenant of Mendoza, ascended the Parana and the Paraguay, which Sebastian Cabot had visited in 1530, and founded the city of Asonoption in memory of a victory gained over the Indians. This city, now the capital of Paraguay, was then the capital of the Spanish possessions in La Plata. In 1537, while Mendoza was absent in Spain, Buenos Ayres was reduced to the last extremity by the Querandi Indians. The Timbues (Indians) destroyed it entirely in 1539. It was rehabilitated in 1542, again destroyed in 1559. In 1580, Juan de Garay, lieutenant of the Governor of Paraguay, descended the river from Asomption, and on the 11th of June planted the Spanish flag on the old site. He endeavored to people this city with Gruarani Indians, massacred the Querandis who had revolted against him, and died in 1584. Don Francisco de Zarate, chevalier of the Order of Santiago, and governor of Buenos Ayres, confirmed the foundation of the city by an act of the 10th of February, 1594, and began to construct the fortifications which are now seen on the bank of the river. In 1620, the government of Asomption was reduced in Paraguay and Buenos Ayres became the chief city of the second government established in La Plata. In 1629, a royal decree united into a single viceroyalty the hitherto separate governments of Buenos Ayres, of Asomption, and the provinces of Charcas, Potosi, and Cochabamba. In 1640, the Portuguese carried their arms into the La Plata, but after many contests, stretching over many years, a treaty was made in 1785, by which the domain came into the possession of Spain definitively.

Until the eighteenth century there was but one viceroyalty in South America, that of Peru, which extended from the western to the eastern shore, but on account of the inconveniences of so large a territory, Spain created another in New Grenada in 1718, a capitancy in Caraccas in 1734, another in Chili at the same time, and the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, including the provinces of Upper Peru.

The viceroy was the representative of the King and his court, and he maintained the pomp and luxury of the court of Madrid. The viceroyalty united the civil and military power with no other counterpoise than the distant dependency of the Council of the Indies, and the near but indirect inspection of the audiencia, a court of appeal for all cases not exceeding 10,000 dollars in gold. The viceroy was ex officio its president. His sanction, assisted by an assessor, was necessary to promulgate any sentence.

The salary of the viceroyalty, 60,000 dollars in gold in Mexico and Peru, and 40,000 in Buenos Ayres and New Grenada, sufficed to sustain the luxury prescribed by the royal ordinances. It generally lasted five years, and was then obliged to render an account of its administration, and the viceroy presented himself in person to answer to any charges made against him. Other high functionaries were obliged to do the same. The members of the audiencia were not paid; they must be natives of Spain, and could not form marriage ties in South America; they were even recommended not to contract intimate social relations with the residents of the country; but an exception was made in favor of Creoles. The officials of this body were a regent, three auditors, and two fiscals, and they took command of everything but of declaring war.

The functions of subdelegates (corregidores) were the same as in the peninsula. The institution of municipalities was the best guarantee against abuses, and these are still existent and of great import. Although the individuals of these corporations wre not elected popularly, they were considered by the people as their own representatives.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy formed another part of the colonial system. Ten viceroys in succession occupied Buenos Ayres from 1777 to 1806. The Marquis of Sobremonte was the King's representative in 1806, when the English invaded La Plata. The viceroy abandoned the capital on the 27th of June that year, leaving it to the occupation of General Beresford, and fled to Cordova, where he obliged the people to receive him with all the pomp due to his rank. The Governor of Montevideo, Ruiz Huidobro, and the cabildo^[1] and population of that city, prepared to reconquer Buenos Ayres. While the expedition was in preparation, Santiago Liniers, captain of a vessel, a Frenchman in the employ of Spain, arrived at Montevideo with the same purpose. The forces were confided to his command, and he retook Buenos Ayres on the 14th of August. The next day the principal inhabitants formed themselves into a junta which invested Liniers with the command, and created civic forces to defend the territory which was threatened with a new invasion. Sobremonte was obliged to bend before the will of the people. He confirmed Liniers in the military command, delegated his political and administrative powers to the audiencia, and retired to Montevideo.

In 1807, Sir Samuel Auchmuchty with five thousand English soldiers, took Montevideo by assault. The cabildo and the civic corps demanded the imprisonment of Sobremonte, and the audiencia, after resisting for a time, yielded to the will of the people, and took part in a second junta which decreed the arrest of the viceroy and the seizure of his papers.

Another English force under General Whitlocke, laid siege to Buenos Ayres, but was beaten in the streets of the city on the 3d of July, capitulated, and was obliged to evacuate the whole territory of La Plata. The court of Spain confirmed Liniers in the post of viceroy, and nominated Don Francesco Javier Elio governor per interim of Montevideo.

But from the time Sobremonte was deposed, the prestige of the viceroyalty was lost, never to be restored. At this period arose two rival parties, the European and the American. Ferdinand VII. was at that time dethroned; and this trouble in Spain, added to the ideas suggested by the French revolution, increased the difficulties in South America. The 1st of January, 1809, a conspiracy, supported by the Europeans, presented themselves in the public square of Buenos Ayres, and demanded the deposition of the viceroy and the establishment of a governmental junta for the whole viceroyalty. This met with opposition, of course, but the idea of independence had taken possession of the people, and the result was that a junta was formed, and three persons were put in power. After the fall of this junta, and the establishment of other similar ones, the government was placed in 1814, in the hands of a single person, called. Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the La Plata. From the beginning of this supreme directory, especially after the return of Ferdinand VII. to the throne, there was supposed to be a strong tendency in Buenos Ayres towards submitting to the royal authority. But if this desire had existed in any force among those who directed affairs, or guided public opinion, no opportunity or pretext could have offered more favorable to it than the incessant solicitations and propositions of the Princess Carlota, who asked to reign there independently, but which in effect were always utterly powerless in Buenos Ayres. General Alvear, appointed Director in 1815, had already made submission to the King, but this reaction caused a revolution in April, at the head of which stood the cabildo. The assembly was dissolved, and the Director displaced and exiled. On the 24th of March, 1816, a general congress opened its sessions at Tucuman. It declared the independence of the provinces on the 9th of July, since observed in the Republic as the 4th of July in North America, and Don Juan Martin Puyrredon was appointed Director. He assumed the power on the 29th of July. Three years after, General Rondeau was appointed Director in Puyrredon's place.^[2] In the mean time, the province of Montevideo had rebelled, and the place had been taken by General Alvear on the 23d of June, 1814. General Artigas, one of the country commandants, who cooperated in the siege, had early given tokens of insubordination, and General Alvear undertook to pursue him with the forces that had occupied Montevideo. Master of the Banda Oriental, and of all its resources, Artigas displayed his resentment towards Buenos Ayres. He not only took the Oriental province from the Argentine community, but his personal influence and that of his system, extended over Corrientes, Entrerios, Santa Fe, and Cordova. No treaties were accepted by either side. One of the effects of his influence was the invasion of the province of Buenos Ayres by the troops of Santa Fe and Entrerios, and in February 1820, the Director Rondeau was beaten at La Cañada de Cepeda. The conquerors entered Buenos Ayres with their troops, dissolved the Congress and the Directory, and reduced its power to Buenos Ayres alone. Some authors, in speaking of the revolution of 1810, have attributed to the landed proprietors considered as a class, an influence, an ambition, and political views which never had an existence. They declared

selves for their country, as many other classes did, purely from a sentiment of patriotism, and nothing more. During the first ten years of the revolution, when the existence of the Federal and Unitario parties was an old story, the rural districts of most of the provinces, and that of Buenos Ayres particularly, were indifferent and even strangers to those questions and those parties. That multitude of changes in the government which took place in the cities in favor of one or the other party, were of no importance or interest in the campagna. It was not till 1815 that it was called upon to give its opinion, conjointly with that of the city, not only upon the validity of a government, but even upon the proposed reform of a provisory State, which was never realized. The rural districts never made a movement which revealed political ideas and they never misunderstood any government. It is true that the gauchos, a peculiar race of men that is seen in the pampas, and holds a middle place between the European and the aboriginal inhabitant, followed certain partisans of that epoch, but it was because those partisans were the immediate authority which they recognized; they followed them from personal affection and from the habit of obedience, but from no political conviction, nor from any desire to make any system prevail for their interest as a class. The chieftainship (caudillage) did not appear till 1829. The rural districts, passively obedient, knew neither "Unitarianism" nor "Federalism." If the Congress of 1826 had proclaimed a federation, the chiefs that then represented the federation would have cried unity; the opposition was against men, not against things, which were but a pretext.

In 1820, in the absence of the Governor of the Province, Don Manuel Dorrego, who had offended and gone to fight the Governor of Sante Fé, Don Martin Rodriguez was put in his place. The cabildo protested against this; the city was thrown into agitation, and Rodriguez had to flee to the country. He returned to the city with Juan Manuel Rosas, commander of the militia or country forces, called the Colorados (or red soldiers) of La Conchas—a man of a Buenos Ayres family, but who, rejecting education, had gone into the country to enjoy more license for his vices than the customs of the city would allow. By the help of Rosas, Rodriguez was reestablished. Happily, Rodriguez chose Rivadavia for his prime minister, and the country appeared to breathe a free breath under the wise and enlightened administration of this truly great man.

When the Revolution of Independence began, the grand fractions of the viceroyalty, now its separate States, proposed to separate and form private governments. When the struggle with Spain ended, this was effected. Rivadavia, who was the chief of the Unitarios, began by introducing into Buenos Ayres the complete system of a Republic for this province alone, with legislature, government, revenues, etc., like the North American States, and advised the other provinces to do the same, each for itself. This was Unitarianism. The foundations of federal system were thus unconsciously laid by the Unitarios themselves, though at that time they opposed federation. What Rivadavia wished at that moment was to give to the actual governments regular form; but he, San Martin and Bolivar, had the same horror of the idea of federation that the French had in the time of the Girondines. Rodriguez was succeeded in 1824 by General Don Juan Gregorio las Heras. Under his administration a general Congress was convoked, which created a general government under a President, independent of the government of Buenos Ayres. The seat of both the provincial and general governments was the city of Buenos Ayres, and grave inconveniences were the consequence. The provincial government and its representatives were dissolved, and Rivadavia was made President-General on the 8th of February, 1826. He kept that office but one year. The opposition to him in Congress was in the majority, and he resigned. Dr. Don Vicente Lopez was put in his place. When Congress dissolved, the representatives, the majority of whom were Federals, nominated Don Manuel Dorrego, who began to rule in August, 1827. He was driven out by Juan Lavalle in December of this year. Dorrego fled to the country, but was beaten and shot by Lavalle. Rosas, partisan of Dorrego, fled to Santa Fé, from whence he returned with Lopez, its governor. Lavalle was beaten by Lopez at the Puente del Marques, in 1828. Don J. José Viemont was appointed Governor, and in 1829 was succeeded by Rosas. The Unitario forces, who, with their leaders, had emigrated from Buenos Ayres, occupied the Province of Cordoba, under the orders of General Paz, who was caught by a lasso at the head of his army, and thus made prisoner. Facundo Quiroga triumphed over Castillo, another Unitario chief, and this was the Occasion of his appearing on the general scene of action.

He was the most celebrated of all those chiefs, representing no party, but a gaucho of gauchos; his characteristics brought him an influence, baleful though it was, which made him aspire to the first place in the Republic. Rosas, whose most distinguishing traits were his atrocious cruelty and malice, was jealous of him, and caused his assassination at Barranca-yaco. All the accomplices of the crime were subsequently arrested and executed. Lopez died soon after under circumstances that pointed almost unmistakably to poison. Cullen, Governor of Santa Fé, who had bathed his hands in the conspiracy against Quiroga, and who had letters in his possession that would have compromised Rosas, was shot by Rosas' order at the Arroyo del Medio, a little river between the Provinces of Buenos Ayres and Santa Fe, to which place he was transported for that purpose. The character of Rosas was as stupidly misunderstood abroad, at the time of his supremacy, as that of Lopez of Paraguay at the present time. When he was appointed Governor by the Congress, he was crowned by the women; the city was illuminated, bands of music paraded, the people were in a state of exultation, and the universal cry was "Death to the Unitarios!" On the 18th day of the same month the House of Representatives, "in order to reward the worthy citizen, Don Juan Manuel Rosas, and his country companions, for having stifled the scandalous military insurrection of the 1st of December, 1828," voted for a law declaring all publications printed since the 1st of December, 1828, against the former governor, Dorrego, or Colonel Rosas, or the provincial governors and respectable patriots who had served the cause of order, to be infamous libels, and disgraceful to public morals and honor. It also declared him "the restorer of the laws and institutions of the Province of Buenos Ayres. The rank of Brigadier-General of this province shall be given him, and the legislature charges itself with making him known in this character throughout the Republic. He shall be decorated with a sword and a golden medal ornamented with the symbols of law, justice, and courage; the medal shall be garnished with brilliants on one side, and shall have a crown of laurels and an olive branch as an emblem of gratitude, with these words: Buenos Ayres to the Restorer of the Laws. The reverse shall have his bust in cement, with utensils of agriculture and trophies of war, and the device: He cultivated his fields and defended his country."

But their hopes were sadly disappointed. For more than twenty years he held them in abject terror, such as Colonel Sarmiento has described. The rigor of his rule deceived the world, which gives the meed to success rather than to merit. When Colonel Sarmiento visited the United States in 1847, and saw the working of federal institutions, his views of government underwent a great change. He had been a Unitario from education, and antagonism of ideas to Rosas and the caudillos or country chiefs, and from 1827 had taken arms against the Federal party, which was identified with them. Forty years of separation of the provinces, during which each had had its own government, had broken every national tie, and they could not easily unite under a federal government, such as the caudillos had proposed in opposition to Rivadavia. Rosas had continued to triumph over all the forces which the Republic had united to free itself from his horrible tyranny, and the Unitario chiefs and emigrants were driven into Montevideo, where Rosas besieged them. In 1848, while still in Chili, Colonel Sarmiento established a periodical called "The Cronica," and advocated a federal government, like that of the United States, as the only means of continuing the Republic. In this manner he could attract the provinces to their party, accepting the federation, which existed, in fact. After he had established that semi-annual periodical, he founded another weekly one, called "Sud America," which lasted till 1850, in which he unfolded the constituent principles of federation, and promoted the free navigation of the rivers in order to give seaports to the provinces. Another object of it was to encourage emigration. His endeavors were crowned with the most complete success. In 1850, he wrote a pamphlet proposing a Congress, and preparing the way to form a union and alliance of the Unitario chiefs and the Federal caudillos. This pamphlet was called "Argiropolis," and his plan was to found another capital in the island of Martin Garcia. This pamphlet was very effective, and ruined Rosas among his own supporters. Bompland, the celebrated naturalist, the companion of Humboldt, presented himself before Urquiza, the principal chieftain under Rosas, and refused obedience to the latter, and proposed a federal constitution and the alliance of the Unitarios, who had collected for mutual defense at Montevideo. This plan was accepted. Colonel Sarmiento, the present President Mitre, and General Paunero, now candidate for the Vice-Presidency, left Chili and went to Buenos Ayres, round Cape Horn, to join Urquiza. They conquered Rosas at Caseros. Thus the Unitarian party itself agreed to give the country a federal constitution. Colonel Sarmiento began the movement alone, but was finally joined by his friends. But General Urquiza proved incapable, through his ignorance and his gaucho habits, of comprehending the significance of the thing he had done himself, and endeavored to continue the old arbitrary rule. The biographical sketch in this volume recounts the self-banishment of Colonel Sarmiento at this time, and his subsequent return and labors in the Province of Buenos Ayres in a private capacity. Buenos Ayres succeeded in resisting Urquiza at this time, and constituted itself again a separate State while Urquiza governed the provinces. When Colonel Sarmiento was elected Deputy to the legislature of Buenos Ayres, before his release from Chili in 1855, he refused the office, and addressed a letter to the electors, reproaching them for having separated from the Republic. He was then appointed Deputy from Tucuman, and refused that also, because Tucuman had constituted itself independent of Buenos Ayres. When he went to Buenos Ayres in 1856, all his efforts and writings had for their object the Union. His oration at that time over the ashes of Rivadavia, which he gave at the request of the municipality when they were received from Europe at the port of Buenos Ayres, was an appeal to the national sentiment for this Union. In 1859, the Convention, called at the instigation of himself and friends, met at Buenos Ayres to amend the Constitution, and Colonel Sarmiento proposed such amendments as made it resemble that of the United States, and in the National Convention was chiefly instrumental in ratifying these and bringing about the Union which now exists.

When Governor of San Juan, he labored to amend the State government, but was opposed by his Unitario friends, who feared that he would give the provinces too much power. The disastrous history of the last few years has proved that he was in the right, and his countrymen, by the light of the conflagration of civil war, have at last seen that he was their best guide, and the only prominent man that has clearly mastered the situation. Their wild cry of agony now summons him to their aid.

MARY MANN.

1. The cabildo was a popular assembly with officials answering to mayors and aldermen; their attributes and prerogatives were very great, especially after the downfall of the viceroyalty. This form of government was originally taken from the peninsular government, with the idea of opposing a barrier to the exactions of the territorial lords. Rivadavia, when President in 1825, suppressed this body and substituted for it the municipality which still exists.
2. When Colonel Sarmiento was in France, in 1867, at the awarding of prizes in the Exposition, the Argentine Minister to France, who is the son-in-law of General San Martin, the most remarkable Argentine hero of independence, gave an official banquet to the legation, on which occasion Colonel Sarmiento had the pleasure of relating an historic fact, until then unknown, namely: that General San Martin, by his counsels to the Congress of Tucuman in 1816, at which time Independence was declared, was the moving spirit of that act of the Congress, for which the Deputies were not at that time prepared. To Colonel Sarmiento, also, the public is indebted for the details of the famous interview between San Martin and Bolivar in Guayaquil, which resulted in San Martin's noble self-abnegation and renunciation, not only of his place in the activity of that period, but in the lifelong misunderstanding of his contemporaries, all of which Colonel Sarmiento took from the lips of the grand old man when he visited him in his self-imposed exile at Grandbourg in France, in 1846. Party passions had obscured the subject till that revelation was made from so authentic a source.