Bolivar: American Liberator (61 page)

La Quinta, which had been Bolívar’s home over the years whenever he was in Bogotá, was hardly an opulent mansion.
A charming cottage nestled in the hills above the city, it stood in the shadow of two towering peaks that pierced the sky behind it. Ringed by high walls, set back by a driveway of stately cypresses, the house was a one-story, one-bedroom abode in the old colonial style, its rooms furnished in handsome mahogany. Under its red-tiled roof were three fine salons, a dining room, and a game room; outside, a scenic overlook, an orchard and vegetable garden, and a covered pool fed by a rushing stream where the Liberator took his daily bath. During cold mountain nights, fireplaces and braziers afforded warmth; during the day, balconied windows opened to fragrant gardens of honeysuckle, violets, wild roses, and ancient cedars. In the back was a spare room for Bolívar’s manservant, José Palacios. Bustling with servants, gleaming with crystal and silver, La Quinta was the getaway that Bolívar and Sáenz sorely needed after their hard journeys, and it was there that they found a brief interval of joy.

BOGOTÁ WAS CERTAINLY NO LIMA,
as Manuela was swift to observe. It was not as wealthy, not as grand, not as easy to get lost in as the City of Kings. The Colombian capital was
a mere 25,000 souls; Lima’s population was nearly its triple. But Bogotá was trying to manage an unwieldy amalgamation of territories—the departments of Venezuela, New Granada, Quito, and Panama—and that fact alone made it a thrilling experiment. For the time being, Venezuela had simmered down under Páez and the region Bolívar called Ecuador had calmed under General Flores, but at any time, it seemed, this lumbering republic might come whirling apart at the seams.

As Bolívar worked to gain Greater Colombia a place in the world and diplomats began to arrive to confirm it, time worked against him. There was a mounting sense—especially in the United States—that South Americans were no better off for their revolution. Hoping to maintain relations with his northern neighbors,
Bolívar sent off a letter
to Henry Clay, thanking him for his brilliant advocacy on behalf of South America. As we have seen, the congressman from Kentucky had been an ardent ally of Bolívar’s, summoning his name in government and banquet halls, exhorting fellow Americans to support the Liberator’s call for freedom. As Abraham Lincoln later recounted, Clay’s name was well known and well loved in the southern hemisphere:
“When South America threw off the thralldom of Spain,” as Lincoln put it, “Clay’s speeches were read at the head of her armies by Bolívar.” For the soldiers of the liberating forces, Clay was a kindred spirit, an American brother, his very name a rallying call.

Imagine, then, Bolívar’s surprise when he read Clay’s response to his heartfelt letter of gratitude. The chilly missive echoed every accusation Santander had ever made:

Sir. . . . The interest which was inspired in this country by the arduous struggles of South America, arose principally from the hope that along with its independence would be established free institutions, insuring all the blessings of civil liberty. To the accomplishing of that object we still anxiously look. We are aware that great difficulties oppose it, among which not the least is that which arises out of the existence of a large military force, raised for the purpose of resisting the power of Spain. Standing armies, organized with the most patriotic intentions, are dangerous instruments. They devour the substance, debauch the morals, and too often destroy the liberties of a people. Nothing can be more perilous or unwise, than to retain them after the necessity has ceased which led to their formation, especially if their numbers are disproportioned to the revenues of the state.

But notwithstanding all these difficulties, we had fondly cherished and still indulge the hope that South America would add a new triumph to the cause of human liberty, and that Providence would bless her as he had her northern sister, with the genius of some great and virtuous man, to conduct her securely through all her trials. We had even flattered ourselves that we beheld that genius in your excellency. . . .

I cannot allow myself to believe that your excellency will abandon the bright and glorious path which lies plainly before you, for the
bloody road passing over the liberties of the human race, on which the vulgar crowd of tyrants and military despots have so often trodden. I will not doubt that your excellency will in due time render a satisfactory explanation to Colombia, and to the world, of the parts of your public conduct which have excited any distrust. . . . H. CLAY.

Clay had been disappointed—perhaps even humiliated—by the dismal results of Bolívar’s Congress of Panama. After all,
it was Clay who had argued volubly that the United States should send delegates to that table. But the tone of Clay’s letter suggests something more, and it is equally probable that, having been newly appointed as secretary of state, Clay had begun to read blistering reports from United States diplomats, who were being courted assiduously by Bolívar’s enemies. In Lima, where Bolívar by now was roundly resented, the American consul, William Tudor, had gone from ardent admirer to almost pathological detractor, describing Bolívar in dispatches to Washington as a hypocritical
usurper and “madman.” In Bogotá, on the other hand, the American chargé, Beaufort Watts, believed Bolívar to be a strong moral force, and
had implored him—quite improperly—to hurry back from Caracas, resume the presidency, and “save the country.” William Henry Harrison, a future president of the United States, soon replaced Watts as resident diplomat in Bogotá and made no secret that he was consorting with Bolívar’s enemies. Harrison had heard that Bolívar favored the British style of government and he misguidedly took this to mean that the Liberator was a monarchist. His judgment of the Liberator was harsh, based entirely on hearsay:
“Whether Bolívar is himself the author of these measures,” he wrote back to the secretary of state, “and whether, under the mask of patriotism . . . he has really been preparing the means of investing himself with arbitrary power . . . I have not the least doubt.” Eventually, Harrison even had the effrontery to write Bolívar a long and insulting letter, scolding him for flaws his enemies had ascribed to him:

The mere hero of the field and successful leader of armies may for the moment attract attention. But . . . to be esteemed eminently great, it is necessary to be eminently good. . . . Are you willing that your
name should descend to posterity amongst the mass of those, whose fame has been derived from shedding human blood, without a single advantage to the human race? Or shall it be united to that of Washington, as the founder and father of a great and happy nation. The choice lies before you. The friends of liberty throughout the world, and the people of the United States in particular, are awaiting your decision with intense anxiety.

Andrew Jackson, another future president, was of a different mind about Bolívar. How could
“he who has made such liberal sacrifices and exerted such great powers, physical and moral . . . ever consent to exchange the imperishable renown . . . for the fleeting and sordid gratification of personal aggrandizement”? he later asked his secretary of state, Martin Van Buren. Jackson was correct.
Bolívar didn’t want a crown; he had made it clear from the beginning that the notion of according a liberated republic to a monarch was abhorrent to him. But John Quincy Adams, who was then president of the United States, was not so sure:

The conduct of Bolívar has for many years been equivocal. As a military leader, his course has been despotic and sanguinary. His principles of government have been always monarchical, but for himself he has repeatedly played off the farce of renouncing his power and going into retirement. He still holds out this pretense, while at the same time he cannot disguise his hankering after a crown.

What Bolívar couldn’t disguise—what he had no intention of disguising—was that he
vastly preferred the British system of government with its built-in controls to the American model. As he had said repeatedly since the early days of the revolution, Spain had kept Latin America in benighted ignorance for so long that the ordinary citizen was manifestly unprepared for the full, blazing light of democracy. A leader had to take undisputed power, hold on to it, and employ it to enlightened ends. The objective he had in mind—the complete social and educational transformation of a continent—was impossible to achieve in the short term; it needed lifelong, applied dedication. In this,
as far as he was concerned, the British parliamentary system, with its presumed noblesse oblige and educated legislators, was
superior to the American model. Moreover, he felt that the North American concept of federalism—meant to unite what had once been divided—was inappropriate for Spanish America, where
federalism would only divide what had previously been united. But for leaders in Washington, any preference for British ways was anathema. The allergy was understandable enough, but something had been lost in the translation.

To be sure, Bolívar understood that the differences between America north and south were deep.
Hadn’t Montesquieu’s
Spirit of Laws
, the precursor to the United States constitution, insisted that laws be tailored to those for whom they are meant; that it would be an astonishing fluke if one nation’s laws were applicable in another? South America had an obligation to construct a constitution appropriate to its needs,
“not one that was written for Washington!” Later, in an unbridled fit of anger, he complained to Santander that “liberals” like Santander—his antimilitarist, anticentralist circle of Bogotá lawyers—were blindly aping the United States without considering the radical differences. Beware of
“American hucksters,” he wrote his vice president. “I detest that lot to such a degree that I would not want it said that a Colombian did anything the same way they do.” As time and political necessity had worn on, Santander had used that intemperance against Bolívar, and now it was coming a cropper in the official Washington response.

When Bolívar read Harrison’s insult, he wrote to the British chargé d’affaires in a fury,
“The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom.”

Indeed, Bolívar’s relations with the British were far friendlier, and the Americans in Washington couldn’t help wondering why. Not only
had Bolívar written to King George IV, thanking him for the heroics of so many British soldiers in the liberating army, but he had developed
a close camaraderie with the British chargé in Colombia, Colonel Patrick Campbell. The sunny diplomat was thoroughly enchanted by the Liberator and said so at every opportunity. In Bolívar, he saw
the only leader who could purge the nation of the rank political corruption, armed insurgencies, and rampant ignorance that plagued it; to Campbell, Bolívar was indefatigable, admirably disinterested, patriotic,
awe-inspiring, capable of commanding the cooperation of all good men. Soon,
Campbell began hoping out loud that Bolívar would be given absolute power—the presidency for life, perhaps—with the right to choose a successor from among the princes of Europe. Bruiting about this notion of a “monarchical project,” the Englishman persuaded himself that Bolívar himself aspired to such a model. Campbell breezily reported to London’s Foreign Office that certainly every thinking person in Colombia favored a monarchy.
“I cannot suppose,” he wrote in a confidential memo, “that Bolívar would be an obstacle in the erection of Colombia into a constitutional monarchy—but I do not think that he would, himself . . . accept the crown.”

Bolívar’s enemies
leapt on the “monarchical project” as proof of the Liberator’s burgeoning megalomania. Unearthing letters from loyalists—Páez, Briceño Méndez, Urdaneta—who had lobbied openly to persuade their hero to mount a throne, those enemies decided they had
incontrovertible evidence.

The Liberator may well have been bullheaded, militaristic, deluded by blue-sky ideas of Pan Americanism. He may even have seen himself as a benevolent overseer, a sage of sages, capable of supervising a broader American union. But he had never wanted to be king.

IN SUCH A STATE OF
high blame and vitriol did Bolívar now face the Great Constitutional Convention. He had often said that the convention was Colombia’s last hope—an opportunity to forge a stable nation. But unlike Santander, who busied himself campaigning to pack the hall with delegates, Bolívar did little to ensure that Bolívarians would be there to argue his side. He had stressed the convention’s importance for months as he traveled the countryside; fretted openly about Santander’s bookish young “liberals” and their separatist fantasies; made every effort to court conservative institutions—the generals, the merchants, the priests—as a foil against the lawyer-bureaucrats. But ultimately, aside from insisting that delegates be chosen from among the
nation’s best and brightest, he made no preparations. He had decided to let fate take its course.

Santander, on the other hand, left nothing to chance. The general who had never led a battlefield victory now conducted a formidable
paper war, deploying journalists to write incendiary assaults against Bolívar.
“In my line of work,” he wrote to Vicente Azuero, the most rabid of Bolívar’s critics, “one avoids frontal combat against a powerful enemy, especially if it is possible to destroy him with forays, surprise ambushes, and all manner of lesser hostilities.” Santander was tireless in those maneuvers.
He traveled to outlying villages to rub elbows with small-town politicians; he visited the taverns and drank chicha with the people. He invited potential candidates to dine at his table, made flamboyant promises, offered them all the comforts of his house. Throughout, he spoke constantly of the Liberator’s alleged plot to hijack the constitution and mount a throne.

Bolívar knew very well that the convention would decide between him and Santander; between a national and a federalist state; between a new and an old constitution. But he kept out of the elections,
full of conviction that, as the highest executive of the republic, he could hardly stoop to those tactics; a president did not use his power for personal ends. In his mind, at least, there was a difference between assuming a dictatorship for the good of the republic and trying to sway an election. When it was suggested that he attend the convention in order to keep a firm hold on its decisions, he rejected the notion out of hand. He sent the delegates a written message instead. All this was good news to Santander, who quickly realized his opportunity.