The Hispanic Nations of the New World [17]
of Ferdinand VII to absolute power crossed the ocean and split the royalists into opposing factions. Quick to seize the chance thus afforded, Bolivar marched over the Andes to the plain of Junin. There, on August 6, 1824, he repelled an onslaught by Canterac and drove that leader back in headlong flight. Believing, however, that the position he held was too perilous to risk an offensive, he entrusted the military command to Sucre and returned to headquarters.
The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could save them. They must overwhelm Sucre before reinforcements could reach him, and to this end an army of upwards of ten thousand was assembled. On the 9th of December it encountered Sucre and his six thousand soldiers in the valley of Ayacucho, or "Corner of Death," where the patriot general had entrenched his army with admirable skill. The result was a total defeat for the royalists--the Waterloo of Spain in South America. The battle thus won by ragged and hungry soldiers--whose countersign the night before had been "bread and cheese"--threw off the yoke of the mother country forever. The viceroy fell wounded into their hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news, the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusiasm. A Congress prolonged his dictatorship amid adulations that bordered on the grotesque.
Eastward of Peru in the vast mountainous region of Charcas, on the very heights of South America, the royalists still found a refuge. In January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz undertook on his own responsibility to declare the entire province independent, alike of Spain, Peru, and the United Provinces of La Plata. This action was too precipitous, not to say presumptuous, to suit Bolivar and Sucre. The better to control the situation, the former went up to La Paz and the latter to Chuquisaca, the capital, where a Congress was to assemble for the purpose of imparting a more orderly turn to affairs. Under the direction of the "Marshal of Ayacucho," as Sucre was now called, the Congress issued on the 6th of August a formal declaration of independence. In honor of the Liberator it christened the new republic "Bolivar"--later Latinized into "Bolivia"--and conferred upon him the presidency so long as he might choose to remain. In November, 1896, a new Congress which had been summoned to draft a constitution accepted, with slight modifications, an instrument that the Liberator himself had prepared. That body also renamed the capital "Sucre" and chose the hero of Ayacucho as President of the republic.
Now, the Liberator thought, was the opportune moment to impose upon his territorial namesake a constitution embodying his ideas of a stable government which would give Spanish Americans eventually the political experience they needed. Providing for an autocracy represented by a life President, it ran the gamut of aristocracy and democracy, all the way from "censors" for life, who were to watch over the due enforcement of the laws, down to senators and "tribunes" chosen by electors, who in turn were to be named by a select citizenry. Whenever actually present in the territory of the republic, the Liberator was to enjoy supreme command, in case he wished to exercise it.
In 1826 Simon Bolivar stood at the zenith of his glory and power. No adherents of the Spanish regime were left in South America to menace the freedom of its independent states. In January a resistance kept up for nine years by a handful of royalists lodged on the remote island of Chiloe, off the southern coast of Chile, had been broken, and the garrison at the fortress of Callao had laid down its arms after a valiant struggle. Among Spanish Americans no one was comparable to the marvelous man who had founded three great republics stretching from the Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. Hailed as the "Liberator" and the "Terror of Despots," he was also acclaimed by the people as the "Redeemer, the First-Born Son of the New World!" National destinies were committed to his charge, and equestrian
The royalists had now come to realize that only a supreme effort could save them. They must overwhelm Sucre before reinforcements could reach him, and to this end an army of upwards of ten thousand was assembled. On the 9th of December it encountered Sucre and his six thousand soldiers in the valley of Ayacucho, or "Corner of Death," where the patriot general had entrenched his army with admirable skill. The result was a total defeat for the royalists--the Waterloo of Spain in South America. The battle thus won by ragged and hungry soldiers--whose countersign the night before had been "bread and cheese"--threw off the yoke of the mother country forever. The viceroy fell wounded into their hands and Canterac surrendered. On receipt of the glorious news, the people of Lima greeted Bolivar with wild enthusiasm. A Congress prolonged his dictatorship amid adulations that bordered on the grotesque.
Eastward of Peru in the vast mountainous region of Charcas, on the very heights of South America, the royalists still found a refuge. In January, 1825, a patriot general at the town of La Paz undertook on his own responsibility to declare the entire province independent, alike of Spain, Peru, and the United Provinces of La Plata. This action was too precipitous, not to say presumptuous, to suit Bolivar and Sucre. The better to control the situation, the former went up to La Paz and the latter to Chuquisaca, the capital, where a Congress was to assemble for the purpose of imparting a more orderly turn to affairs. Under the direction of the "Marshal of Ayacucho," as Sucre was now called, the Congress issued on the 6th of August a formal declaration of independence. In honor of the Liberator it christened the new republic "Bolivar"--later Latinized into "Bolivia"--and conferred upon him the presidency so long as he might choose to remain. In November, 1896, a new Congress which had been summoned to draft a constitution accepted, with slight modifications, an instrument that the Liberator himself had prepared. That body also renamed the capital "Sucre" and chose the hero of Ayacucho as President of the republic.
Now, the Liberator thought, was the opportune moment to impose upon his territorial namesake a constitution embodying his ideas of a stable government which would give Spanish Americans eventually the political experience they needed. Providing for an autocracy represented by a life President, it ran the gamut of aristocracy and democracy, all the way from "censors" for life, who were to watch over the due enforcement of the laws, down to senators and "tribunes" chosen by electors, who in turn were to be named by a select citizenry. Whenever actually present in the territory of the republic, the Liberator was to enjoy supreme command, in case he wished to exercise it.
In 1826 Simon Bolivar stood at the zenith of his glory and power. No adherents of the Spanish regime were left in South America to menace the freedom of its independent states. In January a resistance kept up for nine years by a handful of royalists lodged on the remote island of Chiloe, off the southern coast of Chile, had been broken, and the garrison at the fortress of Callao had laid down its arms after a valiant struggle. Among Spanish Americans no one was comparable to the marvelous man who had founded three great republics stretching from the Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. Hailed as the "Liberator" and the "Terror of Despots," he was also acclaimed by the people as the "Redeemer, the First-Born Son of the New World!" National destinies were committed to his charge, and equestrian