twists and turns of the threads that form it, and search in our national precedents, in the physiognomy of our soil, in our popular customs and traditions, the places where they are attached.
The Argentine Republic is today the region of Hispanic America that, in its outward expression, has drawn the preferential attention of the European nations, which on no few occasions have found themselves embroiled in its disturbances, or drawn, as if by a maelstrom, toward the center where such conflicting elements swirl. France was on the point of giving in to this attraction and, not without great efforts of rowing and sailing, not without losing the rudder, managed to steer away and remain at a distance. Its most skilled politicians have been unable to understand anything their eyes have seen when casting a hasty glance over the American power challenging that great nation. On seeing the burning lavas that churn, boil, crash, and roar in this great hub of internecine struggle, those who hold themselves to be best informed have said: “It is an insignificant volcano, without a name, one of many that appear in America: soon it will be extinguished”; and they have turned their gaze
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elsewhere, satisfied at having provided a solution as easy as it is exact to the social phenomena they have seen only superficially as a group. South America in general, and especially the Argentine Republic, has lacked a Tocqueville who, equipped beforehand with the knowledge of social theories, like the scientific traveler with barometer, octant, and compass, would come to penetrate into the interior of our political life, as into a vast field not yet explored or described by science, and reveal to Europe, to France, so eager for new phases in the life of the different portions of humanity, this new way of life, which has no known, clearly marked precedent. The mystery of the obstinate struggle tearing the Republic to shreds would then have been explained; the conflicting, unconquerable elements that collide would have been classified distinctly: the configuration of the land and the habits that this engenders; the Spanish traditions and the iniquitous, plebeian national consciousness left by the Inquisition and Hispanic absolutism; the influence of the opposing ideas that have disrupted the political world; indigenous barbarism; European civilization; the democracy enshrined by the revolution of 1810; equality, whose dogma has penetrated to the lowest layers of society, all these would have been allocated their part. This study, which we are not yet in a state to conduct due to our lack of philosophical and historical instruction, conducted by competent observers, would have revealed to the astonished eyes of Europe a new world in politics, a naïve, frank, and primitive struggle between the latest progress of the human spirit and the rudiments of savage life, between populous cities and shady forests. The problem of Spain would then have become clearer, that straggler behind Europe which, cast between the Mediterranean and the ocean, between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, joined to cultured Europe by a broad isthmus and separated from barbaric Africa by a narrow strait, is teetering between two opposing forces, now rising up on the scales of the free peoples, now falling on those of despotism; now unholy, now fanatical; now a declared constitutionalist, now an imprudent despot; sometimes cursing its broken chains, now folding its arms and crying out for the yoke to be imposed upon it, which appears to be its condition and its mode of existence. What! The problem of European Spain could not be resolved by a minute examination of American Spain, as the ideas and morality of the parents are traced through the education and habits of the children? What! Does it mean nothing for
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history and philosophy this eternal struggle of the Hispanic American peoples, that supine dearth of political and industrial ability that has them worried and twisting and turning with no fixed north, no precise object, no knowing why they cannot find a day of rest, nor what enemy hand tosses and pushes them into the fatal whirlwind that drags them, against their will and without being able to evade its evil influence? Was it not worth knowing why in Paraguay, a land cleared by the wise hand of the Jesuits, a wise man educated in the classrooms of the ancient University of Córdoba turns a new page in the history of the aberrations of the human spirit, encloses a people within the bounds of its primitive forests, and, erasing the paths that lead to this hidden China, conceals and hides its prey for thirty years in the depths of the American continent, without letting it utter a single cry, until, dead from old age and the still fatigue of standing motionless trampling on a submissive people, it may in the end say, in a weary and barely intelligible voice to those who roam his environs: I am still alive!, but how I have suffered! quantum mutatus ab illo!4 What a transformation Paraguay has suffered; what bruises and sores the yoke has left on its neck, which put up no resistance! Does the spectacle of the Argentine Republic deserve study, which, after twenty years of internal convulsion, of experiments with organization of all kinds, produces, in the end, from the depths of its bowels, from the depths of its heart, the same Doctor Francia5 in the person of Rosas, but greater, more self-possessed, and more hostile, if that is possible, to the ideas, customs, and civilization of the peoples of Europe? Is not the same rancor against the foreign element discovered in him, the same idea of government authority, the same insolence to challenge the disapproval of the world, and in addition, his wild originality, his coldly fierce nature, and his obstinate will, even to the sacrifice of the fatherland, as in Saguntum and Numantia;6 to the abjuration of the future and the rank
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of a cultured nation, like the Spain of Philip II and Torquemada?7 Is this an accidental whim, a mechanical deviation caused by the appearance on the scene of a powerful genius; just as the planets leave their regular orbits, attracted by the approach of another, yet without quite escaping the attraction of their center of rotation, which then resumes its preponderance and brings them back into their regular course? M. Guizot8 has said from the French rostrum: “There are two parties in America: the European party and the American party; the latter is the stronger”; and when alerted to the fact that 108 Frenchmen have taken up arms in Montevideo and have joined their futures, their lives, and their welfare to the triumph of the civilized European party, he merely adds: “The French are most meddlesome, and compromise their nation with other governments.” God be praised! M. Guizot, the historian of European civilization, who has determined the new elements that modified Roman civilization, and has penetrated into the tangled labyrinth of the Middle Ages to show how the French nation has been the crucible in which the modern spirit has been elaborated, mixed, and recast; M. Guizot, minister of the king of France, as the only solution to this expression of deep sympathy between the French and the enemies of Rosas just says: “The French are most meddlesome!” The other American peoples who, indifferent and impassive, look on this struggle and these alliances of an Argentine party with any European element lending its support, filled with indignation in their turn, exclaim: “These Argentines are very friendly with the Europeans!” And the tyrant of the Argentine Republic takes it upon himself officiously to finish their sentence, adding, “Traitors to the American cause!” True! they all say; traitors!, that is the word. True! we say; traitors to the barbarian, absolutist, Spanish, American cause! Have you not seen the word savage fluttering over our heads?
There’s the rub: to be or not to be savage. Is not Rosas, according to this, an isolated incident, an aberration, a monstrosity? Or is he, on the contrary, a social manifestation; is he a formula for the way of being of a people? Why do you insist on fighting him, then, if he is inevitable, necessary, natural, and logical? My Lord! Why do you fight him! … Because a venture is arduous, is it therefore absurd? Because the evil principle
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triumphs, should the field be abandoned with resignation? Are civilization and freedom weak in the world today because Italy groans under the weight of every despotism, because Poland wanders the face of the Earth begging a loaf of bread and a little freedom? Why do you fight him! … Are we not alive, those of us who, after so many disasters, still survive; or have we lost our awareness of what is right and of our homeland’s future because we have lost a few battles? What! are ideas also left among the remains of the fighting? Are we able to do something different than what we do, precisely as Rosas cannot stop being what he is? Is there nothing providential in these struggles
