Francisco Bilbao, the Independence of the United States, 1858

Francisco Bilbao, The Independence of the United States, 1858

Francisco Bilbao was one of the most well-known Latin American intellectuals of the mid- nineteenth century. Born in Chile, he spent many years living in Peru, Argentina, and France. The following excerpt is from an essay he wrote in 1858 celebrating the independence of the United States.

The old world wisdom, and the youth of South America, turn their gazes time and again to Washington’s homeland. All of the schools, religions, and systems seek to assimilate with the spirit of the United States. Every political institution and all the constitutional theories tend to rely upon the foundations of the American city. All examples of progress, all evidence of truth, all imaginary harmony between liberty and order; centralized government and federalism; the spirit of being united and independent, between life in your neighborhood, community, city, or country, and life as a nation, point to the exemplary spectacle, the grandiose spectacle that is the United States, in peace and liberty, conquering a continent, controlling the goods, scattering moral, intellectual, and material happiness over 30 million people, children of every climate and every race, of every nation and creed.

It is the nation that pontificates, it is the nation that pioneers, it is the nation that lives up to its word.

In the past the people turned to the intermediary, to the prophet, to the consecrated man, to hear the revelations of the Eternal.

Today they turn to the people who prophesize with deeds, to the nation that creates utopias, to the working people who erect the most magnificent temple, to the citizen who builds the city that is most universal in its principles, that has extensive territory, that is most practical in its notions, and is the happiest in its results.

These are not daydreams or visions. It is the UNION that confirms and responds to this truth with its very existence.

This attention, then, that the civilized world pays to each of the steps the giant takes is warranted.

But what is the cause of this social marvel unknown to history?

We seek to imitate, to avail ourselves of this example: we constantly invoke the name of the United States, and imitation has almost always been a lost cause; federation, anarchy; local independence, tyranny; freedom of the press, unrestraint; republic, one word to save the mere appearance of the dignity of man.

We take on the mores, laws, institutions, and in our hands those forms become a double-edged sword, a legal weapon political factions wield to prevail.

This, then, constitutes a problem that warrants examination, and which today—on the anniversary of the model nation’s independence—we endeavor to explore in a newspaper article.

III

Liberty-Order.—Federation-Unity! Behold the two poles of all politics.—Both are constants. Both coexist in social consciousness. This is the root of the problem.

Why is there order and liberty, Federation and unity in the UNITED STATES?—Why is there not order, nor liberty, Federation, nor Unity, in the DIS-UNITED STATES of South America?

This is the practical problem.

There is liberty and order, federation and unity in the United States: because THERE IS RELIGION;

And it does not exist in South America, because there is NO RELIGION.

Every type of society relies on a belief system. Corporations rely on the accuracy of contracts, on the religion of credit. The political system, on the moral connection between sovereignty and obedience, on the religion of man’s liberty.

Hence, any radical attempt to organize relies upon a CREDO, a BELIEF, a CREDIT, and this is what they call RELIGION.

The United States has sought to craft the vastest, freest, and most universal society. What would be the CREDO of the most universal and free society? Sovereignty of reason, the basis being the right to free thought; the acknowledgment of this reason and this freedom to think for all God’s children, as a relationship of equals, and the mutual, supportive bond of all reason, of all that we think, unbreakably united by the identity of our common nature and the love of human unity. Such is the foundation of the sovereignty of the people.

Give me this foundation, this fulcrum, and like Archimedes we can say we have the leverage to raise the world.

Why has the United States been made the keeper of this religion? This is the problem of its history.

The reign of the old world tradition has divided the despotic principle and the emancipating principle.

The despotic principle was the Roman tradition. The emancipatory principle was the Saxon tradition. Both temperaments are personified in two races and in two geographical sections of Europe: Southern Europe and peoples of Latin descent embody the idea of authority, unity, centralization, and despotism. Northern Europe and the Saxon people represent the idea of the individual, the sovereignty of man, of family, of the tribe, of the clan, the foundation of future federations. In every age, from Romulus to Pope Pius IX, the Latin religion has been the credo of authority personified in a king, in a senate, city, council, church, or in a pope. The Saxon religion, from Arminius to Luther and Washington, has been liberty for all men, alliance of the sects, of the people or the confederation of the individual and social elements.

These are the two great reasons, the two notions, if we can express ourselves in this way. The unitarian aspiration of the South and of the Latin people: The federalist aspiration of the North and the Saxon people. The idea of authority particularized in individuals is the Roman religion. The idea of authority universalized in all is the Saxon religion.

These two currents of history divided Columbus’ world. The Saxon religion seized the North and produced the United States. The Latin religion seized the South and produced the Dis-United States.

Now do you see the root of the essential differences between both worlds?

These have thus been the two ideas, two systems, two nations, two races, which have divided the American continent. The historic battle of the past, traversed seas, and within a magnificent palisade and with a brand new conflict, with warriors rejuvenated by the baptism of a new era, the perennial dualistic battle of history is reproduced.

There is a difference that is important to remember; there has been an idea that has served as an intermediary and mediator between both worlds. THIS IDEA IS THAT OF THE REPUBLIC.

The republican ideal, whichever shall be the religious dogma of those who accept it, carries with it the idea of SOVEREIGNTY, and it is because of this that logic, by the sheer force of events, inclines the republican to the religion of sovereignty or liberty.

In Europe, France—for obvious reasons—represents the preeminent symbol of the confluence between the races, the North and the South; between Saxon individualism and Latin collectivism. South America, awakening from her 300-year-long dream to the dazzling light of the French revolution, could not logically free herself from the political control of Spain, but rather remained under the Republican ideal.

The Republic in South America, although without profound roots in the temperament of the races, and much less by the education she had received, was truly the mediator between North and South America. They were not two hostile worlds. Between them lies an idea that prepossesses them toward alliance and that sheds the continent’s history of the radical opposition that the histories of Northern and Southern Europe present. A successful outcome naturally followed.

The Republic prevails on the American continent. After independence a dualism was revived, one no longer personified in two geographical sections and in two races, but rather in the hearts of the young nations. The battle is not waged abroad; between Rome and Germany; between Pope Gregory VII and Luther, between King Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein, between Protestants and Catholics. No. Today it is at home within communities, within Latin peoples, within mankind’s own thoughts. We do not fight against the Spain of Ferdinand or of Isabella, but against the Spain of Phillip II that we carry within us, like the skin of a centaur clung to the backs of the symbolic Hercules. And we remain in the purifying pyre of that hero of old.

The pilgrims who founded the New World colonies embarked on their journey at an auspicious time. They guided their fledgling society with hymns of the prophets that heralded the rise of a New Jerusalem in the wilds of the North American continent. They fled Europe to avoid subjugation, to maintain their identity, and to escape Latin centralization, a force that threatened to devour Northern European liberty in fire and blood. With the colony’s first word, freedom, it brought rise to a free world.

The conquistadores who founded the southern colonies set sail at a particularly ill-fated time. They erected their cities upon the primitive societies that they summarily sacrificed for their own ends. The conquistadores hailed only the gold in the mines, which added to the wealth of the Spanish crown. These were not enlightened men in search of liberty, but rather the base emissaries of tyranny. Deep in their souls, they brought with them all the pagan fanaticism of the religious wars, in which Spain, serving as the strong arm of religious and political tyranny, eradicated both uprisings and privileges, avowing to exterminate liberty, which they have identified as the seed of all evil.

Thus, it is evident that these two conquering races embodied the two essentially different ideologies and temperaments that divided the world.

This period of colonization solidified the tensions between these two philosophies. The tradition of freedom seeking was established in the North with the translation of the Bible.

Meanwhile, the tradition of all-conquering tyranny was established in the South with the mandate absolute monarchy and the Council of Trent excommunications.

VII

The united colonies instilled and cultivated the liberty that favored the development of their own education, lifestyle, and the pilgrim tradition. In the soul of this race were the values of intellectual freedom, religious schooling, and a strong work ethic, as well as the promise of future salvation, a focus on the present, personal accountability, an appreciation for the fruit of good works and direct communication with the Holy Spirit. Divided in isolated groups, they governed themselves and managed their own affairs, finding that they were capable of performing the basic functions of society with respect to religious life, civic affairs, and governance without outside religious guidance, political influence, or sacrificing their individual identities to a central power that would eradicate their vision and devour the fruit of their labor. Thus, these colonies were born to be a nation; like Minerva born from the head of Jupiter, they emerged armed and clad in armor.

These colonies possessed their own spirit as they followed the religion of liberty and availed of intellectual freedom, local sovereignty, and the ability to govern themselves and their own affairs. These traits are rooted in the Germanic and English traditions that have brought the world the modern parliament, the right to vote on taxes, trial by jury, and of liberty in all pursuits.

When England, victorious among European nations, but burdened by war debt, resorted to despoiling its colonies by levying taxes that the colonists had not voted on or authorized, it offended the colonies’ inherent sense of freedom, which precipitated the drafting of that act of emancipation that we remember on this day.

United by this common cause, the colonies assembled. Their convention triumphed as a coming together of virtuous men, and among them was a general who was most deserving of the title of Father of the Nation. He was the immortal Washington: soldier, victorious general, statesman, peacemaker, and symbol of virtue and of the solidarity of the New World.

After their victory, the colonies were united under a Confederation. However, without the unifying impetus of battle, the States ruled supreme, which was the most imminent threat faced by the young nation.

The States had no sense of belonging to a larger nation. The legislatures had little to do with the Congress. Government leaders could not appreciate the idea of a strong presidency. Common struggles were not enough to bring unity to the nation. There were cities, but no citadel. The new central authority had no direct contact with its citizens, but rather with the States. From this anarchy rose the need for a new pact that would reclaim some of the independence possessed by these individual fragments, and elevate the federal, central power above all other authorities. This new national authority assumed the direct power that the states had had over their citizens. Federal law could now directly affect all people. Thus, the threat of anarchy was strangled in its cradle: federal law reigned supreme. Americans were then subjects of the federation before subjects of their respective states. It was the analysis of the failures of the confederation that led to the coming together of the States in a federation.

VIII

The United States relied on the culture of the North, which is the belief in liberty, or the creed of liberty.

We citizens of South America lack this creed of liberty, but we seek it in a way that is antithetical to that of the United States. There, liberty was born of individual belief. Here, it is believed to come from of the implementation of a Republic.

There, liberty is an idea. Here, liberty is equated with power. Therein lies the difference.

We believe that freedom implies exercising power, and to be free in the use of this power. Thus, the truth arises that the liberty we obtain breeds either tyranny or anarchy. We define intellectual freedom as our ability to force others to think as we do. Freedom of press is regarded as a personal affront.

Authority is not a shared power; it is explicitly the power of the ruling individual, coterie, or party. Local, municipal, and provincial freedom is but isolation and caudillaje, or simply the mark of a place that has tried to exert its influence. The cabildos, their influence epitomized by Doctor Lopez, instead of standing as paragons of local government, often degenerate into independent entities that contradict the idea of nationhood. In all respects, this power is defined by passions, egotism, the reigning tradition of rule by force, and the idea that he who is not with me is against me.

And why is that so? It is due to the fact that we lack this religion of liberty, a culture of equality, mutual respect, and fraternal solidarity. Therefore, we must question the manner in which things are carried out. If we see the Republic of Argentina today, with its federation, as the fruit of its tradition of local rule, let us not forget that a federation cannot be successful without first securing the peace that allows the seeds of the creed and culture of liberty to take root.

Until then, we turn our gaze to the nation whose voice is heard above all others. Today, from the humble position that we occupy, we remind the United States of the promise of President Washington that has yet to be fulfilled. Washington freed his slaves.

Noblesse oblige. Without putting forth all that we wish to see from the United States, we will take the opportunity to point out to them that the old world nations of Europe, when they avail of no argument against republican ideals, often bring up the issue of slavery in the southern states. It is therefore necessary to rid them of this excuse, which is incidentally the only stain on the flag of stars and stripes that waves proudly over the Capitol as the beacon of the New World.

March on, you free and united nation. Your brethren of the South, encumbered by the weight of tired traditions and ancient passions, look to you as the Palladium of modern liberty. The day will come when the southern nations, from Panama to The Strait of Magellan, will reach out to the colossus of the North who, seated between its two great oceans, will offer up to the world the Arc of the Covenant, salvaged from the flood of history. The day will come when the American continent will give rise to two great nations, an event which will symbolize the nuptials of all humanity. All races and beliefs will have a seat at this table, and the victorious hymns that announce this union shall proclaim to the world, “The prophecies have been fulfilled. New Jerusalem has descended from the heavens. Truth shall reign.”

Francisco Bilbao, “4 de Julio - 1776. Independencia de los Estados Unidos,” Obras Completas, Segundo y Ultimo Tomo (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Buenos Aires, 1865). Translation by Meredith Cannella and Katie Newton.