Chapter XII: The Defence of Rivas (8)

Salazar was executed as a traitor on the Plaza of Granada late in the afternoon of the 3d of August. It was Sunday, and the people of the town gathered in numbers to witness the execution. They regarded Salazar as the author of most of the misfortunes they had undergone during the civil war. It was his money had fitted out the democratic bands which had burnt the Jalteva, and robbed the shop-keepers of the suburbs; and they regarded it as a special providence that he should be taken by a schooner he had himself owned, and be executed by the Americans he had first used and then attempted to betray. There was the same joyful feeling shown by the old Legitimists at the death of Salazar as had been shown by the Democrats at the execution of Corral.

Among the letters taken in the gulf was one from Manning, the British vice-consul at Realejo, to his correspondent at San Miguel, D. Florencio Souza. It was dated at Leon, on the 24th of July, and is so characteristic that the most of it deserves insertion as an instance of British conduct and British policy. He pathetically begins: “Dear Friend; I am here without knowing where to go, since Walker will not give us a passport to pass through Granada. I understand the man is furious against me, attributing to me the change. It is certain that all his acts are rapid: and we have not passed here without great apprehensions that he will make an attack on Leon. He came as far as Managua, and all we know is that he returned to Granada. If this man receives forces and money, I assure you it will not be so easy to drive him out of the State; for as the forces come from the other States in handfuls of men nothing is accomplished, and the expenses and sacrifices are made in vain. I am much afflicted to think that under these circumstances no more activity is used in so serious an affair. At the present there are 500 men from San Salvador, 500 from Guatemala, and 800 belonging to this place, and according to my judgment double that number is required.” Then from public affairs the wily trader comes to business. “Altogether affairs are wretched in Nicaragua and very distressing, and if I remain here much longer I shall not have a shirt I can put on. Already you can suppose how much I have suffered by these convulsions.” He prepares to make Souza useful to himself by seeming to have a care for the interests of the Salvadorian: “It is known,” he writes, “that a certain Fabens has sailed to Boston with the gold quartz, and that with one Heiss he has bought the mine from Padre Sosa. You need not be afraid but I will do all I can for your interest in this affair with all earnestness; and you should write to Davis in Boston via Omoa, inquiring whether the ore Fabens and Heiss took was from the mines of Bestaniere.” At last, and like a lady’s postscript, comes the gist of the letter: “The troops here are altogether naked. If you have any drilling you can sell at 12½ cents per yard, I will take ten bales. Don’t forget my request in favor of my adopted son, Mr. George Brower, to have him appointed to represent San Salvador in Liverpool.” Much as the vice-consul sympathized with the cause of the allies, he could not let the chance slip of making some money from the drilling the soldiers required.

When the friends of Salazar at Leon heard of his capture in the gulf, they immediately arrested Dr. Joseph W. Livingston, an American long resident in Nicaragua, and sent a courier to Granada saying they would hold him as a hostage for Salazar’s safety. The British vice-consul did not disdain to write a letter to the American Minister entreating him to save the life of Salazar in order that Livingston might go unharmed. But the courier arrived several days after the execution of the Leonese traitor; and Mr. Wheeler was not a man to be startled from his propriety by the cunning devices of Mr. Manning. In his reply to the British vice-consul the American Minister draws the distinction between Salazar and Livingston in such words as probably little suited his correspondent. “Salazar,” he writes, “was one—and a most prominent one—of a faction revolting against the lawful government of the Republic, and a general in their forces. He knew that he was liable to the penalty of treason. Dr. Livingston is an American citizen, much loved and respected, and owes no allegiance to the authorities of Nicaragua, much less to a disappointed faction; nor has he ever been mixed up with the parties by any overt or belligerent act.” At the same time he answered Mr. Manning’s letter, Mr. Wheeler wrote to General Ramon Belloso, commanding-in-chief the Allied forces, informing the latter that if any harm befell Dr. Livingston, the government of the United States would promptly hold the governments of San Salvador and Guatemala to a strict accountability. He concluded by saying, that “if one hair of Dr. Livingston’s head is injured, or his life taken, or that of another American citizen, your government and that of Guatemala will feel the force of a power which, while it respects the rights of other nations, will be ready and is able to vindicate its own honor and the lives and property of its citizens.” Brave words these; and they might have resulted in worthy deeds if Mr. Wheeler had controlled the necessary force; but when read with the gloss of after events, they are turned into a biting sarcasm on the government he represented. The life of Livingston was, however, probably saved by the energetic words of the Minister; though he was ordered from the State in which he had been living for ten years.

Some days after these events occurred, Hon. Pierre Soulé arrived at Granada. He went thither with the object of securing some modifications in a decree which had been published by Rivas a few days before his flight from Leon to Chinandega. The decree authorized commissioners to negotiate a loan of five hundred thousand dollars, to be secured by a million of acres of the public lands. The modifications suggested by Mr. Soulé were soon made, and S. F. Slatter and Mason Pilcher became the commissioners to act under the decree. The bonds issued under this decree are the only legal bonds of the Republic ever sold in the United States, and the common impression that large quantities of Nicaraguan obligations are afloat is altogether erroneous.

But, although the decree for the loan was the immediate object of Mr. Soulé’s visit, his presence in Nicaragua had other beneficial results. His fine head and noble air made a deep impression on the people of the country, peculiarly sensitive as they are to the charms of feature and of manner; and then he spoke the Castilian with such lofty elegance, and addressed the common people with so much kindness and insight into their wants and feelings that all listened to him with mingled delight and reverence. The docility of the native Nicaraguans, especially of the Indians, is great, and when approached with gentleness and persuasion they may be led in almost any direction. The influence of such words as Mr. Soulé spoke to them remained for a long time, and often after he left they used to ask when His Excellency, a title they give to persons they consider of rank, would return to Nicaragua.

During the month of August not many persons arrived in the country, either for military service or for civil pursuits. A new and more dangerous disease, also, began to make its appearance in the army; desertion, more fatal than cholera, commenced its ravages in the ranks. The first notable desertion was that of one Turley with a whole company of Rangers. They were sent from Managua by the commandant, Capt. Dolan, with orders to examine the road along the southwestern shore of the lake, as far as Tipitapa. For several days Dolan anxiously awaited their return; but news reached Granada of their being seen on the Malacatoya river. It was not until many days, however, that their purposes and fate were known. They appear to have deserted with the intention of proceeding through Chontales, robbing and plundering as they went, and of finally reaching the sea by the Blewfields river. Some circumstances indicate that the plan was formed before Turley and his men reached Nicaragua; for on their arrival they were very urgent in the request to remain a company by themselves, and they had been in the service only a few weeks when they deserted. Their plan, however, whether long meditated or the result of sudden resolution, met with the punishment it deserved.

Many days after Turley’s disappearance a French trader, from the mining town of Libertad, came to Granada to inform Walker of the fate of the deserters. When they first appeared in Chontales the people supposed they were on duty, but their violent and rapacious acts soon betrayed their true character. They passed into the mining district, and near Libertad they tied up and flogged a Frenchman, in order to make him disclose the place where he kept his gold. Then the French of the district, composed mostly of those discharged from the army at Rivas in the March previous, acting together, raised a number of the people of the country and attacked the robbers. Turley’s party was, it seems, short of ammunition, and they finally agreed to give up their arms if they were furnished with a guide to conduct them to the Blewfields. Their arms were given up, and soon thereafter, while they were being marched, by their captors, toward the town, fire was opened on them, and they were all, except two, slaughtered on the spot.

With the exception, however, of Turley’s company, desertion among the Americans was, at that time, rare. The desertions, though not many, were principally confined to the Europeans in the ranks. Many of these Europeans had gone to Nicaragua with the idea of enlisting for the mere pay they were to get; and without the foresight or patience which might enable them to wait for time to enhance the value of the lands they were to receive, they became dissatisfied with the scarcity of money, and sought means of leaving the army and the country. New-comers, also, were frightened by the reports constantly circulated as to the number and strength of the enemy; and it was among those who knew least of the land that the disposition to despond was greatest. In addition to these causes, tending to diminish the strength of the army, a large proportion of the men going to Nicaragua at the expense of the State, were found unfit for military service. As they could not be examined surgically in the United States, their defects were not known until they came under the eye of the surgical staff at Granada. Those familiar with medical statistics, may readily imagine how many of the men were rejected for the single disease of hernia.

The enemy, however, were not without causes of weakness and dissension. Some of the faults of their force arose from its allied nature. The soldiers in Leon were drawn from Guatemala and San Salvador; and besides these, Rivas had pressed numbers of laborers about Leon and Chinandega into the ranks. The Guatemalan contingent was made up entirely of Indians, and fierce was the feud between them and the Leoneses. Not unfrequently collisions would occur between the Guatemalans and the people of the town, at the numerous liquor shops scattered through the suburbs of Subtiaba; and in the quarrels knives would be drawn, and blood spilled. So pressing was the evil that the Guatemalan soldiers were finally ordered to remain in their quarters, and it was necessary to keep them out of the streets, in order that the insults of the people might be avoided. The Salvadorians were tolerated by the Leoneses; but the local authorities could not prevail on the latter to regard the former as their deliverers from tyranny and oppression.

The allied troops had not been many days at Leon, before fever and cholera attacked them. The Guatemalans especially suffered from this disease; and so great was their loss, that many among the soldiers, and some even of the officers, attributed the malady to poisonous substances mixed in their food. But it was easy for a medical eye to perceive sufficient causes for the mortality of the troops in their sudden removal from the highlands of Guatemala to the plains of Nicaragua, and in the total want of comfort and cleanliness about the quarters and persons of the soldiers. As Manning wrote, the troops were almost without clothing; and this was a severe deprivation to the Guatemala Indian, accustomed to the use of the thick woollen jacket, which protects him from the cold of his native hills. And woollen covering at night is indispensable to the health of the soldier in Nicaragua. The warm days, followed by the clear cold nights, render blankets necessary at all seasons of the year; and it was the want of care in sleeping which produced much of the disease, not only among the Guatemalans at Leon, but also among the Americans at Granada. When you add to these causes, the little attention Central American officers pay to the health of their soldiers, and the small skill of their surgeons and physicians, it is not difficult to understand the mortality among the Allies.

While disease was destroying the soldiers and dissensions were spreading between the people and the troops, the leaders were not more friendly in their feelings toward each other than were their followers: the consequences were divided counsels and conflicting conduct. The chief command of the allied force had been given by the provisional government of Rivas to General Ramon Belloso, the commander of the San Salvador contingent. But Paredes, who commanded the Guatemalans, was little disposed to obey the orders of a man he regarded as altogether his inferior in knowledge and capacity, and he also thought it unworthy of his Republic to yield the control of her forces to the general of a much feebler State. The Guatemalans consider theirs the best organized and the leading State of Central America; and the pure Spanish race, which maintains its supremacy at the seat of the old captain-generalcy by the aid of Carrera and his Indians, regards, with some disdain, the irregular governments the mixed races attempt to establish. On the contrary, the self-styled liberals throughout Central America have a bitter hatred toward Carrera and his minions, as they call the Aycinenas and the Pavones, who really direct the affairs of the Republic, under the nominal presidency of the illiterate Indian. And it was jealousy of Guatemala which induced Rivas and Jerez to place the command in the hands of the Salvadorian general. Paredes, however, seems to have retained the privilege of refusing to obey Belloso whenever he thought proper, and the latter was not in the position to enforce obedience or to dispense with the services of the Guatemalans.

Besides the dissensions in the allied camp, there were two authorities in the upper part of Nicaragua claiming the supreme executive power. At Leon, D. Patricio Rivas and his cabinet asserted their right to be esteemed by the Allies the sovereign authority of the Republic; while at Somoto Grande, in Segovia, D. José Maria Estrada had set up his government, and issued orders in the name of the people of Nicaragua. Each of these cabals ridiculed the claims of the other, and their contentions were like to involve the allied States in new difficulties. Estrada had sought refuge in Honduras after the treaty of the twenty-third of October, and had published a pamphlet, claiming a right to be chief executive of Nicaragua, because he had written a private decree, declaring null and void the treaty made by Corral under the absolute power he had conferred. Everybody laughed at the idea of giving force to a decree which was unheard of until published in Honduras; but when the defection of Rivas took place, Estrada entered Segovia under the protection of a few Legitimists, commanded by Martinez. The latter proceeded toward Matagalpa, in order to press the Indians of that region into his service, while the Senator-president, as Estrada called himself, remained at Somoto Grande.

The Legitimist pretender was now in the way of his own party. He had not the discretion to perceive that by thus placing himself as an obstacle to the union of the two factions against the Americans, he made his removal from Nicaragua an object with his friends as well as his enemies. The idea of his being purposely left at Somoto Grande without any adequate guard, seems not to have entered his mind. But the fact of Estrada’s defenceless condition was soon known at Leon—known in so short a time as almost to preclude any explanation, save that the information was sent by some of his own adherents. Immediately, a violent Democrat, who had been imprisoned at Granada during the civil war and was released by Walker on the thirteenth of October, 1855, collected a band of some forty-five or fifty armed men and hurried on toward Somoto Grande. This man, by name Antonio Chavis, could scarcely have acted as he did without the knowledge and assistance of the Rivas administration. Chavis reached Somoto Grande without Estrada hearing of his approach, and while the Granadino was indulging his dream of regaining power in the Republic, the Democrats from Leon surprised and murdered him in the streets of the mountain village.

The murder of Estrada reminds us of the dark craft which marks the history of the Italian Republics during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The same causes which in Italy produced the Carraras of Padua, the Viscontis of Milan, and finally the master-piece of the school, Cæsar Borgia, Duke of Urbino, have brought forth the same type of character in the politicians and soldiers of the Spanish American Republics. It is true, there is wanting in the latter the exalted intellect and refined taste of the former, and the mixed race of Central and South America could never produce a Machiavelli capable of depicting with terrible truth the principles, if such they may be called, controlling the political action of his countrymen. But the Spanish American is as dark, though not as deep and wise, in his craft as the Italian. And long civil war seems to have the power of creating this type of politicians, even among races least affected toward it; for the English wars of the Roses produced the subtle genius of the third Richard, who vied with the best Italian of them all in his adherence to the maxims of the illustrious author of The Prince.

Thus, by the death of Estrada, the old Legitimists who had emigrated after the treaty of the twenty-third of October, were led to acknowledge the authority of D. Patricio Rivas. Thenceforth Martinez who had, with a few men and some arms, penetrated as far as Matagalpa acted under the orders of the provisional government at Leon. It was easier, however, for the leaders to settle their differences and to agree on a common plan of action than for them to extinguish the hatreds and animosities they had kindled and fed among their respective followers. They did not venture for some time to place Legitimists in the same camp with the Democrats they had either inveigled or forced into their service, and it was necessary, during the war, for them to keep the soldiers of the two factions as widely apart as possible.

Toward the close of the month of August the arrangements of the Walker administration with Garrison and Morgan, for bringing Americans to Nicaragua, were completed. The commissioners appointed to investigate the indebtedness of the old Canal Company to the government had reported in July; and the dues from the company, according to the report, amounted to more than four hundred thousand dollars. Some payments, had, however, been made, but the report did not estimate them, because the company had failed to appear, and the judgment against them was by default. After deducting all payments, still the indebtedness was upward of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and this was much more than the value of all the property on the Isthmus. The property was, therefore, sold to Garrison and Morgan, they paying therefor in the bonds they had received for advances made to the Rivas government. In the meantime the American minister, obeying the instructions of his chief, examined the facts which led to the revocation of the charters of the Canal and Accessory Transit Companies. Besides the explanations given by the Nicaraguan government, and the facts brought out in the report of the commissioners, Mr. Wheeler examined a number of witnesses, whose depositions he forwarded to the State Department at Washington. The facts reported by the minister were so conclusive as to the legality and justice of the proceedings against the companies, that Mr. Marcy never wrote another word on the subject.

In fact the Accessory Transit Company had itself furnished the American government with the most satisfactory evidence of its own unscrupulous and criminal character. On the 8th of April, while Mora was yet in Nicaragua, Thomas Lord, the vice-president of the company, wrote to Hosea Birdsall, authorizing him “to ask for the assistance of the commander of any man-of-war of Her Britannic Majesty’s navy in the port of San Juan.” “The object of the Transit Company,” so its vice-president wrote, “is to prevent accessions of filibusters to Walker’s force, pending his hostilities with Costa Rica, and to effect this purpose, no pains must be spared or effort left untried.” In conclusion he adds: “Unless our boats are seized by the filibusters on the Orizaba and Charles Morgan they cannot get into the interior, and without large accessions Walker must fail and Costa Rica be saved. To this result Her Majesty’s officers in San Juan can materially contribute, by protecting American property in the manner indicated.” It was made clear, by such acts, that the company was afraid to trust the justice of its own government.

It was the necessity for completing the arrangements about the Transit, no less than the rainy season, which kept Walker from moving against the Allies. It would have been folly to advance against Leon without having the Transit secure and communication with the United States certain. Leon was well barricaded, and the Americans had not numbers to spare for an assault; neither had they artillery to aid their attack, even if the roads had admitted of its easy transportation. Besides, disease and dissension were weakening the Allies; and it was only after the death of Estrada that they got even an appearance of unity. It was early in the month of September that events occurred to encourage the Allies in an advance toward Granada. But before narrating these events, it may be well to mention the celebration of the 1st of September, at the capital, as it displays an element which entered into the war in Nicaragua.

At different times a number of Cubans had found their way to Nicaragua; and after Lt. Col. F. A. Lainé was appointed aide-de-camp to the general-in-chief, they were formed into a body-guard for the President. The Cuban company consisted of about fifty members, and their familiarity with the two languages—Spanish and English—made their services valuable. Early in the year the Cuban element in Nicaragua had attracted the attention of the Spanish authorities in the island; and in June, 1856, General Morales de Rada, who naturally disliked those called “filibusters,” because his running away from them had made him the laughing-stock of all the Havana wits, was sent to San José for the purpose of advising with President Mora in reference to the war against the Americans of Nicaragua. The Cubans with Walker were well known for their devotion to the cause of independence. Two of the aides of the general-in-chief, Lainé and Pineda, had been engaged in revolutionary schemes on the island, and the prefect of the Oriental Department, D. Francisco Aguëro, was a native of the disaffected district of Puerto Principe. Hence the interest with which Spain watched affairs in Nicaragua.

On the 1st of September, a mass for the repose of the soul of Lopez was celebrated in the parish church at Granada, and the day was in other respects observed by the Cubans in the service. The ardent minds of these southern youths dreamed, however, more of the future than they meditated the past; they thought more of the time when they should sail for the island to avenge the death of Lopez and his followers, than of the dark and painful scenes which attended their execution. And it is this reluctance of the southern imagination to dwell on the gloomy side of affairs which fits its possessors less for the real work of revolution, than the robust children of the North, whose fancies do not fly from the grave and its surroundings.

Chapter Eighth.

THE WALKER ADMINISTRATION.

The policy of the Walker government was, of course, the same as that of Rivas, so far as the introduction of the white race into Nicaragua was concerned. But the administration of Rivas was, from its nature, transitional. It sought to increase the American element without inquiring what place the new people were to occupy in the old society. Rivas and his cabinet felt that Nicaraguan society required re-organization, but they knew not how it was to be accomplished, nor would they have adopted the means necessary for the end even if the proper measures had been pointed out to them. Hence, when the re-organization, not merely of the State, but of the family and of labor, became necessary, another executive than Rivas was not a matter of choice. Not merely the secondary form of the crystal was to be modified, but the primary form was to be radically changed, and for this a new force was to be brought into play. It may be that the re-organization in Nicaragua was attempted too soon; but those who have read the foregoing pages may judge whether or not the Americans were driven forward by the force of events. Sooner or later the struggle between the old and the new forms of society must inevitably have occurred.

The difference of language between the members of the old society and that portion of the white race, necessarily dominant in the new, while it was a cause keeping the elements apart, afforded also a means of regulating the relations between the several races meeting on the same soil. In order that the laws of the Republic might be thoroughly published, it was decreed that they should be published in English as well as in Spanish. The reason of this was apparent to every one; but the object of another clause in the same decree, “That all documents connected with public affairs shall be of equal value whether written in English or Spanish,” was not noticed except by the careful observer. By this clause the proceedings of all the courts, and the record of all the deeds in the State, might be made in English. It was not necessary to decree that all such records should be in English—the mere permission was sufficient to accomplish the object. Lawyers will readily see what an advantage such a clause gave to those speaking both English and Spanish, over those acquainted only with the latter language.

The decree concerning the use of the two languages tended to make the ownership of the lands of the State fall into the hands of those speaking English. But in addition to this, a decree was published declaring the property of all enemies of the State forfeited to the Republic, and a Board of Commissioners was named “to take possession of, direct, determine upon, and sell all such confiscated or forfeited properties.” The Board was given the ordinary power of courts for citation, for examining witnesses, and for enforcing obedience to its orders. All property declared confiscated was to be sold soon after the rendition of the judgment, and military scrip was to be received in payment at the sale of such property, thus giving those who had been in the military service of the State an opportunity to secure their pay out of the estates of the persons engaged in the war against them.

The land titles in Nicaragua were in a very unsettled condition, and the same system prevailed there as in other Spanish American States. The limits of grants were indeterminate, and there was, of course, no registry law. Accordingly, in order to fix the number of outstanding grants from the Republic, a decree was published requiring all claims to land to be recorded within six months, and it was further decreed that after a certain date no conveyance or mortgage should be valid against third parties, unless duly recorded in the district where the land lay. This was a substitution of the English and American system for the rules of the Roman and Continental law. The recording of titles is undoubtedly for the public advantage, and those possessed of good titles to land in Nicaragua would in virtue of this decree have held their possessions by a tenure more certain than ever. But the system was fatal to the bad or uncertain titles. It also gave an advantage to those familiar with the habit of registry.

The general tendency of these several decrees was the same; they were intended to place a large proportion of the land of the country in the hands of the white race. The military force of the State might, for a time, secure the Americans in the government of the Republic, but in order that their possession of government might be permanent, it was requisite for them to hold the land. But the natives who had held the lands for more than a generation admitted that the cultivated fields had diminished in number and extent every year since the independence, for the want of a proper system of labor; hence, according to the admission of all parties, the re-organization of labor was necessary for the development of the resources of the country.

In order to command the labor already in the country a decree was issued for enforcing contracts for terms of service. A stringent decree against vagrants was also published, and this was a measure of military caution as well as of political economy. When Martinez set about recruiting in Matagalpa the men scattered on the farms of Chontales and Los Llaños repaired to Granada in order to escape the press-gang. But these men had nearly all been in the employ of Legitimist masters, and when gathered in the city there was danger of their being used for bad purposes. Few of them had any visible means of livelihood, and hence most would have come under the provision of the decree concerning vagrants. As they had little disposition for work they soon disappeared after the publication of the decree, and thus a population which at the time might have proved dangerous around Granada was got rid of.

The decree of the 22d of September was, however, the measure from which most was to be expected for organizing the labor of the country. This was the act around which the whole policy of the administration revolved; and as it has been much criticised it may be well to give the decree entire. It reads:

“Inasmuch as the Constituent Assembly of the Republic, on the
30th day of April, 1838, declared the State, free, sovereign,
and independent, dissolving the compact which the Federal
Constitution established between Nicaragua and the other States
of Central America:

“Inasmuch as since that date, Nicaragua has been in fact free
from the obligations the Federal Constitution imposed:

“Inasmuch as the Act of the Constituent Assembly, decreed on
the 30th of April, 1838, provides, that the federal decrees
given previous to that date shall remain in force unless
contrary to the provisions of that act:

“Inasmuch as many of the decrees theretofore given are unsuited
to the present condition of the Republic, and are repugnant
to its welfare and prosperity as well as to its territorial
integrity: Therefore it is

“DECREED:

“ARTICLE 1. All acts and decrees of the Federal Constituent
Assembly, as well as of the Federal Congress, are declared null
and void.

“ARTICLE 2. Nothing herein contained shall affect rights
heretofore vested under the acts and decrees hereby repealed.”

One of the earliest acts of the Federal Constituent Assembly was the abolition of slavery in Central America; and as this, among other acts, was repealed by the decree of the 22d of September, it was generally supposed the latter re-established slavery in Nicaragua. Whether this be a strictly legal deduction may be doubted; but the repeal of the prohibition clearly prepared the way for the introduction of slavery. The spirit and intention of the decree were apparent; nor did its author affect to conceal his object in its publication. By this act must the Walker administration be judged; for it is the key to its whole policy. In fact the wisdom or folly of this decree involves the wisdom or folly of the American movement in Nicaragua; for on the re-establishment of African slavery there depended the permanent presence of the white race in that region. If the slavery decree, as it has been called, was unwise, Cabañas and Jerez were right when they sought to use the Americans for the mere purpose of raising one native faction and depressing another. Without such labor as the new decree gave the Americans could have played no other part in Central America than that of the pretorian guard at Rome or of the Janizaries of the East; and for such degrading service as this they were ill suited by the habits and traditions of their race.

The difference between the colonial system of the English and Spanish Crowns explains the different results of the English and Spanish settlements in America. The colonies of Great Britain founded their own forms of society; they made for themselves all the rules and regulations their new situation required, and hence they built firmly the foundation of a peculiar and original civilization. Their institutions sprang from their necessities, and were hence adapted to the climate and the soil they found on the new continent. But it was far otherwise with the Spanish possessions. The laws of the Indies were decreed by the Crown; and the regulations, sometimes for good but oftener for evil, were the result of monarchical will. In the case of Cuba the resolution of Isabella was swayed by the counsels of the benevolent Las Casas; and Spain owes her possession of the island at the present moment to the wise philanthropy of the simple-hearted priest. Negro-slavery is, without doubt, the cause of the present prosperity of the island as well as of its continued colonial government; and Cuba offers a fine contrast to Jamaica and St. Domingo, and displays to advantage the superior wisdom of Spain when compared with the false humanity of France and England. On the continent, however, Spain was not so fortunate as on the ever-faithful isle. Her conquest of force was there followed by no radical and permanent change in political organization. She carried thither the Roman law; but it did not inform the new society or breathe a fresh spirit into its institutions. The only real changes in Mexico and Peru, for example, were wrought by the church. The pagans of the continent were converted to Christianity and the mission fathers reclaimed the wild tribes from their savageism, teaching them agriculture and the ruder arts of life. Beyond the protection the Crown afforded the church in its labors for the re-construction of society, the Spanish government did little for its vast continental possessions. Slavery on the continent was not more than what the physiologists call a “trace;” and it soon yielded to the passions which followed the independence of the colonies.

The men who framed the Constitution of the United States were not beyond the control of the influences which in France led to the horrors of Hayti and in England to the miseries of Jamaica. The wits and philosophers of the constitutional convention—the strong reason of Franklin and the brilliant genius of Hamilton, as well as the lofty soul of Washington—were not unaffected by the errors of the French reformers of the period. The mad rhapsodies of Rousseau, the sharp keen sarcasm of Voltaire, had infected the readers of that time with a sort of hydrophobia—a mortal aversion to the word _slavery_. Hamilton and Washington, though struggling against French notions, were still under the influence to some extent of the Genevese ravings about equality and fraternity. Mr. Jefferson not only yielded to the French fashions of thought and feeling, but actually cherished them as if they were the fruits of reason and philosophy. While such causes operated on the American leaders of the time, the people of the period were tainted with the notions of the English Buxton and Clarkson. The dissenters of Great Britain infused their opinions about the slave-trade into their religious brethren in America; and thus, by the union of French philosophy with English humanitarianism, the constitution of 1787 was burdened with clauses of which the evil effect is now constantly felt by the slaveholding communities of the United States.

If the strong, broad minds of the constitutional convention of 1787 were not able to resist entirely the opinions prevalent in France and England concerning slavery, how much less were the poor, imitative creatures Spanish policy left to her American colonies after their independence able to withstand the prejudices of the European world. Spain had, in fact, left them with too little slavery to preserve their social order. Instead of maintaining the purity of the races as did the English in their settlements, the Spaniards had cursed their continental possessions with a mixed race. Hence it would have been little less than a miracle if the Spanish American States had at the moment of independence decided to retain slavery in their midst. It is only of late years that the really beneficial and conservative character of negro-slavery has begun to be appreciated in the United States.

For a long time it was the fashion, and with many it still is, to regard the Northern States of the Federal Union as the conservative element of American society. It is true that the Northern States are the conservative element of the federal government; because the Union is nearly altogether the creature of their will and of their interests. Therefore, on all occasions they have sought to strengthen the federal power through tariffs and banks and large schemes of internal improvement. But such conservatism as this does not touch the organic structure of society; it merely determines its external form and appearance. The conservatism of slavery is deeper than this; it goes to the vital relations of capital toward labor, and by the firm footing it gives the former it enables the intellect of society to push boldly forward in the pursuit of new forms of civilization. At present it is the struggle of free labor with slave labor which prevents the energies of the former from being directed against the capital of the North through the ingenious machinery of the ballot box and universal suffrage; and it is difficult to conceive how capital can be secured from the attacks of the majority in a pure democracy unless with the aid of a force which gets its strength from slave labor.

The Spanish American States, after their independence, aimed to establish Republics without slavery; and the history of forty years of disorder and public crime is fertile in lessons for him who hath eyes to see and ears to hear. Carried away by his imagination, or rather by his sensibilities, Mr. Clay pleaded the cause of Spanish American independence, and anticipated good government as the result of the movement. The policy he urged was undoubtedly wise both for the United States and for England, inasmuch as it opened the old Spanish colonies to other commercial nations. But the effects of independence have not been beneficial on the people of the colonies themselves. Spain gave order, at least, to the possessions she held in the New World; and order, attended as it was by exaction, sometimes even by extortion, was better than the anarchy of so-called Republican rule. In Nicaragua whole tracts which were cultivated under the Spanish dominion have gone to waste since the independence; and the indigo of the Isthmus, which even ten years ago was a valuable article of export, has disappeared almost entirely from trade.

If Spain, then, failed to leave her colonies with the internal force or the system capable of re-organizing their independent society, the plan immediately suggests itself of applying to them the rules which have constructed a firm and harmonious civilization where the Anglo-American has found himself on the same soil with one of the colored races. The introduction of negro-slavery into Nicaragua would furnish a supply of constant and reliable labor requisite for the cultivation of tropical products. With the negro-slave as his companion, the white man would become fixed to the soil; and they together would destroy the power of the mixed race which is the bane of the country. The pure Indian would readily fall into the new social organization; for he does not aim at political power, and only asks to be protected in the fruits of his industry. The Indian of Nicaragua, in his fidelity and docility, as well as in his capacity for labor, approaches nearly the negroes of the United States; and he would readily assume the manners and habits of the latter. In fact the manners of the Indian toward the ruling race are now more submissive than those of the American negro toward his master.

Some, however, may urge that the climate of tropical America is unfavorable to the African negro. This idea has been set afloat by some statistics a British officer has published in reference to the comparative vitality of the European and negro regiments in Jamaica. The figures, as given, go to show, that the average mortality is greater among the negro than among the European regiments; and even Dr. Josiah C. Nott has been led to quote the statistics with approval, and to infer that tropical America is not suited to the African. But the figures of the British officer may be read in another sense, and probably with a nearer approach to natural laws. It is not the climate, but the profession of soldier, which destroys so rapidly the negro regiments of Jamaica. No avocation of life requires so much intelligence, so much knowledge of the laws of life, and so much resolution and self-denial in adhering to them, as that of the soldier. The great difference between a veteran and a raw recruit is, that one knows how to take care of himself, and the other does not. But you never can make a veteran of the negro; he remains always in the condition of recruit, and hence negro regiments will have the health and vitality of regiments of recruits. No one, who has seen the negro in tropical America, will, for a moment, allow the accuracy of the deduction, hastily drawn from the regimental returns of Jamaica.

In Nicaragua the negro seems to be in his natural climate. The blacks who have gone thither from Jamaica are healthy, strong and capable of severe labor. They were much employed by the Accessory Transit Company on the San Juan river and at Virgin Bay; and even on the bungos of the lake and river, they bore the toil and exposure to the sun as well as the natives of the country. In fact, the negro blood seems to assert its superiority over the indigenous Indian of Nicaragua. Some of the negro and mulatto officers in the Legitimist army were remarkable among their fellows for courage and energy, though with these qualities were generally joined cruelty and ferocity.

The advantage of negro slavery in Nicaragua would, therefore, be two-fold; while it would furnish certain labor for the use of agriculture, it would tend to separate the races and destroy the half-castes who cause the disorder, which has prevailed in the country since the independence. But there are many who, while admitting the advantage of slavery to Nicaragua, think it was impolitic to have attempted its re-establishment at the time the decree of the 22d of September was published. This brings us to consider the decree in its relation with the question of slavery in the United States.

At the time the decree was published it was clear that the Americans in Nicaragua would be called on to defend themselves against the forces of four Allied States. Their cause was right and just, but it then appeared to touch themselves only. Up to that time there was no American interest in the country, save that of the army and of the Transit Company; hence it was expedient by some positive act to bind to the cause for which the naturalized Nicaraguans were contending some strong and powerful interest in the United States. The decree, re-establishing slavery while it declared the manner in which the Americans proposed to regenerate Nicaraguan society made them the champions of the Southern States of the Union in the conflict truly styled “irrepressible” between free and slave labor. The policy of the act consisted in pointing out to the Southern States the only means, short of revolution, whereby they can preserve their present social organization.

In 1856, the South began to perceive that all territory hereafter acquired by the federal government, would necessarily enure to the use and benefit of free labor. The immigrant from the free labor States moves easily and readily into the new territories; and the surplus of population being greater at the North than at the South, the majority in any new territory would certainly be from the anti-slavery region. Besides this, the South has no surplus labor to send westward or southward. On the contrary the Gulf States are crying out for more negroes; and the uneasiness of Southern society results from the superabundance of its intellect and capital in proportion to its rude labor. It is impossible, in the present condition of affairs, for the South to get the labor it lacks; and the only means of restoring the balance to its industry is to send its unemployed intellect to a field where no political obstacles prevent it from getting the labor it requires.

There are, however, some people in the Southern States who condemn every effort to extend slavery, because they say, it irritates the anti-slavery sentiment, and thus feeds and strengthens hostility to Southern society. With them, the great cure for abolitionism, is rest and inaction on the part of slaveholders. But such are the shallowest of thinkers. It is impossible to keep down the discussion of the slavery question in the United States. The question is one which touches the whole labor of the country, and involves the vital relations of capital with labor.[1] And this is the question which in all ages, and in all countries, has divided states and societies. Hence it is idle to speak of the question being settled; from the nature of things the contest between free and slave labor is “never ending, still beginning.”

In September, 1856, the canvass for the presidency was developing the passions and the prejudices of the several sections of the Union; and one of the great parties of the country, in convention assembled, had declared its sympathy and pledged its support to the efforts then being made to regenerate Central America. These promises and pledges were made by the party which relied on the slave States for its success, and it should have looked with favor on a measure which tended to strengthen slavery in the Southern States. But the manner in which the free labor democracy of the North received the decree re-establishing slavery in Nicaragua, is a proof of the hollowness of its professions of friendship for Southern interests. There was scarcely a voice raised in defence of the measure north of the Potomac; though the free-labor States may find, when it is too late, that the only way to avoid revolution, and a conflict of force between the Northern and Southern States of the Union, is by the very policy Nicaragua proposed to establish.

It is true the author of the slavery decree was not aware, at the time it was published, of the strong and universal feeling which exists in the Northern States against Southern society. He did not know how thoroughly anti-slavery sentiments prevail in the free-labor States; that they are taught in the schools, preached from the pulpit, and instilled by mothers into the minds of their children from infancy upward. But the knowledge of such a state of feeling would have made the publication of the decree a matter of sacred duty no less than of policy. To avert the invasion which threatens the South, it is necessary for her to break through the barriers which now surround her on every side, and carry the war between the two forms of labor beyond her own limits. A beleagured force, with no ally outside, must yield to famine at last, unless it can make a sally and burst through the enemy which confines it.

While the slavery decree was calculated to bind the Southern States to Nicaragua, as if she were one of themselves, it was also a disavowal of any desire for annexation to the Federal Union. And it was important, in every respect, to make it appear that the American movement in Nicaragua did not contemplate annexation. This idea constantly haunted the minds of the public men of the Union, little accustomed to regard political questions except from party points of view. It disturbed the mind of Mr. Pierce, when he wrote his message at the reception of Father Vigil; it worried Mr. Marcy, when he contemplated the future fate of the democratic party. And it was, without doubt, the uncertainty the Secretary of State felt in regard to the effect the Nicaraguan movement might have on party action in the United States which prompted him to frown on the enterprise from the beginning. Mr. Marcy was an old man, ambitious of yet higher station than he had held under the federal government; and his long experience enabled him to calculate with nice accuracy the weight of old party issues in conventions and popular elections. But here was a new element about to be thrown into the politics of the Union; and to the distrust of new things common to age, was added the inability of the Secretary to estimate precisely the force and direction of the Nicaraguan movement. To show the spirit of Mr. Marcy, it is only necessary to state when the decree repealing the acts of the Federal Constituent Assembly and Federal Congress was published in Nicaragua, Mr. Wheeler advised his government of the fact, and merely remarked that he thought it a measure of advantage for the Isthmus. The despatch of Mr. Wheeler was, according to excellent authority, discussed in a full meeting of Mr. Pierce’s cabinet. Mr. Marcy and Mr. Cushing insisted on the immediate recall of the minister; while Mr. Davis and Mr. Dobbin defended Mr. Wheeler, saying he had done nothing but his duty in advising his government of the decree published in Nicaragua, and of the effect it was likely to produce on the country. The Secretary of State insisted on the dismissal of Mr. Wheeler to the last; and only the day before he left office, he required of the President, as a personal favor, that he should procure the resignation of the minister.

The decree of the 22d of September was intended to destroy the delusion of the public men of the United States as to the desire of Nicaragua for annexation. To a thinking mind it was apparent that to enter the Federal Union would be to defeat the object of the decree; for the federal law prohibits the introduction within the limits of its authority of any persons held to labor for a term of years. Nicaragua could not expect to draw her negro labor from States already complaining of the deficiency of their own supply; and the Southern States would themselves have opposed the annexation of a territory which might drain from them the labor they so much need. In the heat of party passion, however, such views were not appreciated by the politicians, of whom Mr. Marcy was a type. They were too much absorbed in watching the currents of popular opinion and in distributing the spoils of party warfare, to devote any time to the consideration of the public weal or of a true and just public policy.