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MOHAGAS AND PAEZ

BEING

A BRIEF VIEW OF THE LATE EVENTS

0 . IN

VENEZUELA

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I 'J* ' *

NEW YORK:
PRINTED BY S. ,W. BENEDICT, 16 SPRUCE STREET.
1850.

MONAGAS AND PAEZ :

A BRIEF VIEW OF THE LATE EVENTS

VENEZUELA.

NEW YORK:
S. W. BENEDICT, 16 SPRUCE STREET.
1850.

\/ey»ez,w«?/a

MONAGAS AND PAEZ.

For the last three years the press of the United States has
been teehting with1 articles^ emanating from a party in Vene
zuela which had been long accustomed to monopolize to itself
all the- first offices of a country1, that it had' ruled over solely
with a- view to its own selfish interests : this party, we say, on
finding the reins of government falling from its grasp, made the
most strenuous efforts to recover its lost power, and both in
Venezuela and in the United States have used every means to
vilify those Who had overthrown them. The facts are simply
these. From the period that Venezuela separated from Colom
bia, Paez has been the virtual President of the country. He: was
twice elected to' that high office, and the othetf persons nomi
nally raised- to that dignity were entirely subject to his influ
ence, or, as in the case of Dr. Vargas, were obliged to with
draw from1 it. ft was, therefore, Paez who, for seventeen years,
actually governed the country . At the election of 1847 he gave
his support to the nomination of General Monagas, in the
expectation that he would prove as submissive to his domina
tion as other Presidents had been, but he was fearfully mistaken.
General Monagas was well disposed towards the party who had
elevated him to power, but their pretensions were so ex
aggerated, the policy they required him to adopt was so
unconstitutional, the measures they insisted upon were so san
guinary, that he resolved to free himself from the shackles they
attempted to impose upon him and govern for himself. Paez,
on finding that Monagas was not the puppet he had expected—

and that he could no longer pull the wires as he had so long
done, was determined to rid himself of so unexpected an ob
stacle to his views, and raised the standard of rebellion. The
result of this has been seen. Paez has been sentenced by the
Congress of his country to perpetual exile. The people of
New York, misled by the pretended facts and arguments they
had so constantly read in a few journals of this city, looked upon
him as a martyr to his patriotism, and received him with open
arms. The Paez party had styled themselves Constitutional
ists, when every act of theirs was an attack upon the constitu
tion they had sworn to defend ; but the people of the United
States having heard only one side of the question believed these
unfounded assertions. Within the last few months a portion of
the press of the United States, having obtained more positive
information with regard to these matters, has placed it fairly
before the public, and has produced some change in public
opinion. It is for the purpose of entirely dispelling the mist of
error which has sp sedulously been raised, that we present a
review of the occurrences which compelled Venezuela to
banish from her soil one of her leading men. The act was
necessary for her own tranquillity and the security of her
institutions, which were threatened with destruction by the in
ordinate ambition and self-will of one who ought to' have been
the foremost to sustain her freedom and defend the Law. The
greater part of the following pages have been extracted from
the work of a Venezuelan, who was, for many years, the
friend and adherent of General Paez, one who has long been
intimately connected with the administration of the Republic,
having held some of the highest offices in the State, and who
was consequently in a position to obtain more accurate infor
mation on the events in question than almost any other person.
The work is entitled " Apuntes para la Historia," or " Notes
for History, on the Conspiracy of Paez against the Institutions of
his Country."

We also present sketches, drawn by the same hand, of the
character of Monagas and Paez, that all their antecedents may
be fully understood in this country, and because they answer
satisfactorily many of the charges brought by the latter against
the former, in his letter to the Tribune of the 23d October.
We might have much enlarged upon the subject with regard to
Paez, by bringing forward matters which were even contained
in the sketch we mention, but as they were not purely political
we have refrained from doing so. What we now give will
enable every unprejudiced person to judge correctly of the
public life of these two men.

NOTES FOR HISTORY,

At the opening of the electioneering campaign of 1846, Gen,
Paez publicly declared that he had no candidate, that he had
no one to propose, and that he would obey any one the nation
might select according to the constitution. He remained firm
in this idea until the month of June, when, on his return from
Apure, perceiving that Guzman's chance of being elected had
greatly gained ground, and having a decided terror of such an
event, he thought that he ought to favor one of his opponents,
and the one who was the most likely to succeed. Being in Ca-
labozo, he there first manifested his inclination for the election
of General Jose Tadeo Monagas, then remembering that this
General had said to him in 1839, that thenceforward their two
swords should be but one, or something to that effect.
Public opinion manifested itself still more openly towards
September, when it appeared divided between Monagas,. Guz
man and Salom. Guzman being set aside by the revolution of
September, Blanco became the third candidate ; the latter and
Salom were both utterly offensive, to Paez, for they were per
haps the only two chiefs in Venezuela who would not in any
way recognize his influence and preponderance. To this being
added the appointment of General Monagas by General Sou-
blette as second in command of the constitutional army, and in
dubitably by agreement with Paez, gave additional importance
to the Monagas party, and the conduct of the latter in the Sep
tember crisis turned the scale of public opinion completely in
his favor.

It would be most curious to expose all that then took place ;
we cannot flatter ourselves that we know all the secret springs
which wereset in motion at that period ; we shall, however,
set forth that which we are positive is correct.
General Paez was convinced that the Presidency of General
Monagas was the- most suitable to his views, and this from many
•special personal considerations which were important to him,
and that he possessed sufficient popularity to insure success ; he
-was also convinced that the result of the election of senators and
representatives was such, that either he himself, or some of his
friends, Could influence at least the half -and one more of the
members of Congress to return the candidate' he favored. An
gel Quintero, whom he had retained near him1 after the events
at Yuma, saw with alarm that' Monagas was a candidate for the
presidency, and offered, in a thousand ways, to make up mat
ters between Salom and Paez. His offer, which many thought
judicious caused, the question to be settled in another man
ner. It-was necessary, above all, to ascertain what was the feeling of
Monagas with regard to the fate of Guzman,* and how he would
conduct himself towards Paez,' and with this view commission
ers were sent to him to promote an interview. Their meeting
in the plains was twice prevented by the sudden illness of Gen
eral Monagas, and at last it remained as an understood thing,
that Paez was to go to La Guaira to receive him on his land
ing there. General Monagas, who could not comprehend that
a man was to be killed merely because a party desired it, point
ing him out as a necessary victim ; a party at the head of which
was Paez,' and who, seeing things only from a distance, judged
of them from -what he had read in the public papers, con
sidered Guzman as the most guilty man in all Venezuela, and
* During the: progress of the election, an insurrectionary movement took
place. Guzman was accused of being the chief instigator and leader of it,
and was condemned to death by the oligarchical party, then in power.

so considering him, his language would necessarily be the ex
pression of his opinion. He had seen General Paez supporting
the government, he knew that he was aiding his election, had
received flattering letters from him ; he could not, therefore,
express himself in any other terms than such as would be
pleasing to Paez, and the commissioners would necessarily
repesrt to him what Monagas said. AU this was very natu
ral, and notwithstanding the suspiciousness of Quintero and
of many of the Oligarchists of Caracas, who had been alarmed
at the non-realization of the proposed interviews, yet as they
were obliged to vote for somebody, and the moment had ar
rived for doing so, they determined to stand the hazard of the
die and to vote for Monagas. It was not in the hands of the
President whom they elected that they thought they were
placing the reins of government, but in those of Paez, whom
they thought capable of fascinating Monagas, and of making
him bend to all his caprices. Monagas was not the President
for whom they voted ; it was Paez ; and all that they have
written attributing to the President a breach of faith and want
of consistency, because he did not follow out the views of the
party who had elected him, is without any species of founda
tion, for Monagas well knew that they had not elected him of
their own free will, but that being compelled to choose be
tween men who were not of their own exclusive faction, they
inclined towards the one who appeared to them as the most
likely to be managed by Paez ; so that this very election of
Monagas was an insult offered to him, and a further proof that
they thought not of the welfare of their country, but merely
how they could most securely continue their abominable dom
ination. But let them say what they will, let them allege
what they may pleasp, this is the naked truth, divested of all
the ornaments with which they have sought to conceal it, and
General Monagas is not, as they have imagined him, so dull of
comprehension as not to have seen through them. To prove

that which is above written, if it require proof, it will suffice
to cite facts which are abundantly notorious, and which cannot
in any way be denied, and these are : Firstly, the interest which
was evinced in endeavoring to get Monagas to see and com
promise himself with Paez before the election took place, and
the excessive displeasure with which the party received the in
telligence that.the interviews had not been effected. Secondly,
the missions for that purpose, and also with that of ascertain
ing the opinions of Monagas. Thirdly, the great pomp with
which they prepared the entrance of Paez into the capital on
the 7th of February, 1847, he appearing as a man superior to
the government, to the President elect, and as the only support
of the country and of its institutions. Fourthly, the subsequent
conduct of Paez, who stationed himself at La Guaira, with
Quintero and others, to surround the President on his arrival,
and to keep at a distance from him all persons not connected
with the domineering club. For about a month was he thus ly
ing in ambush, notwithstanding that his duties as General-in-
Chief of the army, which was operating against Rangel, called
him elsewhere. Fifthly, all that was done after the President
did arrive. It was disgraceful to see how a few men pretended
thus to take possession of the first magistrate of a Republic,
and to hear them flattering themselves that he would act only
as they desired. Sixthly, the administration which in this man
ner they succeeded in getting General Monagas to appoint, an
administration that had been rejected by the great majority of
the Republic, by many of these very oligarchists, by Soublette
himself, by Dr. Alegria, and so many others. Seventhly, the
plan which Paez and Quintero unfolded, for restricting the pop
ular suffrage, and of appointing Paez general-in-chief of the
militia, even to making him independent of the executive
power. Are more facts than these required ?
The tie which bound together all this tissue of abomina
tions was at once shameful and horrible. It was necessary to

10
have seen and been acquainted with Paez and Quintero many
years previously, and also at this: period, to feel assured that
they were the same men who had in former days thought of their
country's welfare, although they did so white taking care of
their own ; intractable pride, a decided resolution to preserve
their own dominating power, at any cost Whatsoever, and even
a ferocity till then unknown in our annals, all this could have
been discerned in them by any acute observer. We know
many worthy men, many who are reputed oligarchists, but
who in reality were impartial between the parties, who
solely from the force of certain circumstances, and from fear of
the power of Paez, appear to be oligarchists, who have lament
ed in conjunction with ourselves the reality of the facts to
which we have referred. Unfortunately they were not so in
timately persuaded as we were that the ideas of Paez and
Quintero ' tended to a real conspiracy : against our institutions,
that it was necessary to oppose the realization of their plan be
cause it involved the ruin of the country, that there was no
cause to fear the phantasma with which they strove to ' ter
rify the unwary, and that everything Well considered, it was
the duty of every good citizen to continue to support the legi
timately constituted Government, which moreover clearly ap
peared to be sustained by an immense majority, a fact not
very frequent in history, and which those alone would pretend
to overlook who aspired, at all hazards, to domineer over the
country, or men who dared not venture to set aside Paez and
look calmly at both sides of the question. It was sufficient to
hear them, to know that the point they aimed at, was, that a
small junta of men should concentrate, and secure to themselves
unlimited power over the nation, and for ever. These men, in
their own estimation, alone were patriots : they alone had un
derstanding, and possessed feelings of honor, they alone could
serve for all, and nothing more was wanting but that they
should actually swear to each other not to permit any one

11
who was not so sworn to be appointed to any public office,
whether the making such appointment was in the province
of any public authority, or depended on popular election. It
will scarcely be believed that in a republic like Venezuela
such a project could have been conceived by only a few indi
viduals, although for seven years it had been rumored that
such a plan existed ; and yet these are the facts, and such
had been the abuse of power in the elections, that it was
impossible that the. eyes, of the great national majority could be
any longer blinded, and more especially when it was seen that
an administration, composed of these very men, preferred
throwing up thejr places rather than agree that the President
should have the right of nominating men to office who did not
belong to the circle, of the adepts.
The Quintero administration fell, because he and his clique
alone could not perceive that such, an administration was im
possible ia the , existing state , of opinion in Venezuela, and
General 'Monagas began to govern of his own free will; he
made himself independent of Paez, and this sufficed to induce
the latter to declare war against him. The cpnspirators, (for
they deserve to be so called,) had decreed the death of Guz
man, .and insisted that it would be the salvation of the country,
because, doubtless, accordina; to their erring and atrocipus mode
. .©f viewing, things, the blood of Guzman dividing forever the
few who wished to shed it from the . remainder of the nation,
would insure the continuance of power in the hands of those
who, held ,it, from the close union jnwhjch they would be
bound - together ; they also meant ; to realize their ..plan , for
restricting the popular suffrage and that of an extra constitu
tional militia Government. The President, who was in Aragua,
and ignorant of the state of public affairs, had believed Guzman
to. bethe prompter pf; great evils, and that he had been theactiye
chief of the conspiracy, soon discovered that in reality the facte
were not as they had been reported ; but nevertheless respect-

12
ing three consecutive sentences which had been pronounced
against him,* and believing that vengeance would be satiated
and angry passions calmed, by removing from the scene of com
bat the man who occupied it so entirely, commuted the penalty
of death to which Guzman had been condemned for that of
perpetual exile ; and here we have his great crime, — here we
have the great reason for calling him a traitor, and accusing him
of a breach of faith — here we have^the motive for declaring
war against him to the death, and for immediately commencing
to conspire against his authority — here we have the true cause
of all that subsequently ensued. We recollect that talking at
the time when this commutation took place, with men who
were conversant with the intentions of the conspirators they
frequently repeated to us, a Monagas will infallibly fall, there is
no possible reconciliation with him : there is no remedy, he will
fall, he will fall, he will fall! they will overthrow him, irremedi
ably they will overthrow him /" and we have besides many
other private reasons for believing that from that moment was
concerted the conspiracy which we have seen unfold itself in
January and February 1848.
* Guzman had been condemned to death by the judge of first instance
at the instigation of Quintero ; then, on appeal to the superior court, com
posed of three judges — all being members of the oligarchical party, and
appointed by this same minister of the interior and of justice, the sentence
was confirmed, as it was also by the supreme court ; but the latter, being unable
to commute the penalty which had been pronounced by two courts, strongly
recommended the prisoner to the mercy of the Executive. ~Z'JZ^.
The party felt so certain that Guzman would be shot that they caused
a communication to be opened through a wall of the church of San Jacinto, that
the prisoner might be conducted to the public square of that name without
being led round through the streets, fearing that the people might attempt
to rescue him. One of the representatives (Juan Garcia, a carpenter,) sponta
neously constructed a bench upon which Guzman was to be shot, and made the
coffin in which he was to be buried. This man was one of those who
rushed from the hall of Congress in the melee of the 24th of January; and was
killed. Singularly enough, he was buried in the very coffin he had prepared
for Guzman.

13
It is true that Paez ostensibly spoke and wrote letters advis
ing that the constitutional President should be sustained ; but
as it is not from mere words that history is to judge, but from
facts, we shall continue to relate the most notorious ones,
and which prove that Paez at first said one thing but thought
another. This is by no means a rare occurrence : on the. con
trary it is one that frequently happens, particularly with men of
his crafty nature, and it is known that history will never
be able to absolve even Bolivar from having aspired to the usurp
ation of sovereign power, notwithstanding his protestations to
the contrary, and this only because his intimate adherents acted
as if in reality Bolivar had formed such intentions . When men
like Bolivar, Santander and Paez, who really exercise an all-
powerful influence over those who are attached to them, and of
whom they are the sole hope and rock of salvation— r-when, we
say, such men really and positively desire a thing they know
how to act and express themselves so that their real desire
shall be understood ; they know how to select a Pedro Bri-
ceno Mendez, a Soto, a Pena, or a Quintero who are deserv
ing of their entire confidence, who have publicly the reputa
tion of enjoying it, and who, notwithstanding, boast that they
act and speak with perfect liberty, but are the most fitting instru
ments through whom they can insinuate their real desires with
all the sagacity which is necessary to avoid giving any explicit
or tangible proof against them. This method of proceeding is
already so old, it is moreover so natural to act in this way, that
it is difficult to comprehend that ambitious men should be
so dull as to imagine that the people, so deeply interested
in observing them, do not see through it. Of what service
then these letters and these formal conversations in favor of the
Government, if a man's acts contradict them in the perception
of those who can appreciate them ? Let us proceed, then, to
the facts. It may be said that all Venezuela has heard Quin
tero boast that he enjoyed in the most intimate and absolute

14
degree the confidence of Paez, and what he said was support
ed by undoubted facts. Paez begin in 1846 by pardoning the
whole of the insurgents in the plains, and in doing so exceeded
his powers, for it was not within his province to pardon the
chiefs ; notwithstanding this he pardoned the Herreras, Cabeza,
Ledesfna, and Martinez, who were not only chiefs of the fac
tion but criminals of an atrocious nature'. When Quintero saw
this he flew to his patron's gide, and instantly Paez changed his
conduct, a thing of Which Quintero also boasted, without re
flecting that Paez by such measures; had completely and effica
ciously tranquillized the plains.
Paez sent Colonel Austria to Caracas upon a mission of peace
and the reconciliation of all parties, the' result of which wag to
b'e the saving the life of Guzman and perfect intelligence and
cordiality between men of all opinions. Austria took the
necessary steps to fulfill his mission, and his first measures
were attended With success ;- but Quintero arrived and soon
after Paez, and then, in unison with those who in Caracas de
manded the blood of Guzman,- undid all that Austria had effect
ed and forced Paez into a sanguinary path, which until then he
had avoided. Quintero followed Paez as his' inseparable
Shadow, and carried this so far as not to allow him to speak to
any one in Caracas, excepting those who supported his own
views. Quintero Was Minister of Justice, and he dictated to
the judges the sentence to be passed on Ghizman, and after leav
ing the Government house he would call on Paez, whose face
would become radiant with delight at the audacity With which'
the minister (Quintero) effected Such surprising things. l{ O !
What a minister !" would Paez exclaim, and the members of
the Cabal would repeat in chorus and with ferocious joy, " Oh !
what a minister ! This is indeed a minister !" Quintero re
signed his portfolio that he might not fail in the minutest
particle of his plan of exclusive domination, and Paez reproved
him for not being sufficiently pliant so as to keep in till be Saw

15
whether it: would not be possible to prevent the. commutation of
Q-uzmar,'^ sentence. Quintero and, the directorial Cabal de
clared the President an enemy to the country, from the moment
qf;the commutation; ; whaj they undertook was not a cpnstitu-
tional opppsition, but: an attack, a. factious conspiracy; the lan
guage of " Lo\ Prensa," and of the: " Espectadm" from the
moment of their publication, was easily discerned to be the
language of disappointed rage, of the moat concentrated indig
nation;, which admitted, no medium, and which had no other
object, than to- prepare, the coalition against the President in the
Congress in order to depose him and get rid. pft him, no mat
ter by what means ; and Paez, whether speaking with Quintero
or in correspondence and continual contact with the directors
of the intrigue: in Caracas, could do nothing with any of them ;
they acted, if we are to believe him, even contrary to the desire
of Paez, who wept like, a crocodile over the.evils which the press
.occasioned, and this, notwithstanding their editors proclaimed
him "the centre of politics and the sentinel, of the country," and
openly excited certain men and; certain districts of the country,
which they supposed to be favorable to Paez, to prepare them
selves to sustain him in an enterprise against the first magis
trate. And Paez remained silent although he was entreated
in e-very way to reprove these manifestly factious tendencies,
and the friends of Paez, in Caracas were constantly saying that
there was no semedy, that if he did not capitulate with Paez
the. President must fall, and other similar sayings, and Quin
tero went and came from Maracai to Valencia, and " El Es-
pectador'''' continued more and more acrid, more and more irre
concilable, and the principal leader? of the conspiracy in Caracas
went to Valencia to concert measures with Quintero and to
agree in the sight of every body, to plans and projects of
death ; and Paez was tranquil, and Paez approved everything
after his own fashion, although he was always talking of obedi
ence to the President and of his respect for the Constitution;

16
and the conspirators, notwithstanding, showed themselves more
and more confiding in Paez. Can the evidence of a conspiracy
be clearer than this ?
The party asserted that the conduct of the Government, in
placing arms in the hands of those whom they called their ene
mies, was the cause of the progress of the conspiracy; that the
President gave offices only to Reformers or Guzmanites, the
enemies of Paez, whose intention it was to militarize the coun
try, and many other similar stupidities ; and these assertions serve
only to confirm what we have already said as to the true cause
of the conspiracy, that is to say, the aspiring to retain, at any
cost, the reins of power, and the desire to secure exclusive
domination in the hands of Paez and his adherents. As they
had lost all public opinion, as they did not calculate upon the
people whose right of suffrage they pretended to restrict, they
could not act in the usual legal manner, they could not think
of contending for power by succeeding in the . elections, and
they were compelled to intrench themselves in the last elected
Congress, in which they could hope for a majority, a ma
jority which had been obtained by innumerable abuses in the
preceding elections. Why did they not in imitation of the
conduct of the liberal party propose to refer to public opinion
to determine whether they, should remain the arbiters of the
nation's destiny by means of a triumphal election ? Had they
not before, their eyes the noble and republican example of a
party which, during the space of seven years, had gone on
steadily gaining ground in public opinion until it had at length
completely dispossessed its oligarchical opponents? If the
irregular conduct of the Government was the cause of theirs,
would it not have been an easy matter for them by means of a
dispassionate and decorous discussion to have enlightened the
nation and thereby have triumphed in the elections ? No, this
was not the cause ; they had lost their power and were resolv
ed on regaining it immediately^ not by the means of public
opinion, but by a conspiracy.

17
It is true that the Government sought for those men who
stood highest in public opinion in order to give them places
under it ; but in this, far from failing in its duty, it acted with
due regard to truly republican principles, and it mattered little
whether they had been reformers in 1835 or Guzmanites in
1846, if the people had confidence in them ; but it was pre
cisely this that the conspirators could not tolerate, it was this
that most irritated them, and in proportion to their erroneous
wanderings it was necessary the vigilance of the Government
should increase, for the public welfare, demanded that it should
not trust to any of those who had leagued with the conspira
tors, and from not having rigorously adhered to such a line of
conduct, the Government has frequently been deceived and im
posed upon. It is necessary to repeat over and over again
that the real and unpardonable crime of which the Government
was guilty in the eyes of the conspirators, was the not having
acquiesced in the parricidal and atrocious plan of Paez and Quin
tero, to sacrifice Guzman, diminish the popular suffrage, and to
raise in the person of Paez a military dictatorship, superior to
the Government itself. When they found that they could not
obtain the sanction of Monagas to such a plan they declar
ed that it was necessary to rid themselves of him at any cost,
and as no fraction of power remained to them excepting through
the Congress, they appealed to it, although in order to meet
their views it was necessary that it should commit an abuse
of its power.
But let us riot anticipate. We have already reached the 20th
of January 1848 ; it is necessary we should refer to other pre
vious acts. The morality and pretensions of the conspirators
may be judged of from the following. Thinking men of all
parties disapproved of the excesses of the press anterior to the
factious movements of September 1846, and an universal clamor
was raised for the reformation of the law. It would have been
thought that forming the jury of men having the qualifications
2

18
of Senators, would have offered sufficient guarantees that abuses
of the press would not be tolerated, and although the law
remained extremely restrictive, General Monagas "himself,
without being much influenced thereto by Quintero, ordered it
to be enforced under the persuasion that it was necessary to
prevent such abuses as had previously taken place. The law
being passed, the domineering club selected their jury from
among the most prominent men of their party, and no one could
have imagined that such men would ever have committed the
same abuses which they had so much reprobated in the Guz-
manites ; but it was seen, and with astonishment, that- the
predictions of many of the liberal party were verified. Two
accusations were made against " La Prensa :" they were clear
and demonstrated with admirable reason and justice, and not
withstanding this, these men declared that there were no
grounds on which to form an action, and that the press could,
with impunity, serve as a public instrument of conspiracy, de
famation and contemptuous ridicule. Can the factious tendency
of this party be made more evident ? Could the President rely
upon the justice and impartiality of the chamber ? And this
party proceeding, as it did proceed, by factious measures with
out any respect whatsoever to law, morality, or justice, had it
any right to pretend that consideration for it should be retained ?
That which, they still enjoyed they abused by using it to de
ceive, and the better to prepare the plans for their conspiracy.
We were placed in a favorable position for observing all that
was going forward, our heart free from hatred and rancorous
passions — with ardent patriotic feelings, and an earnest desire
to harmonize the contending parties and thus prevent a civil
war ; we did not omit to use every means in our power, that
could contribute to breaking up the conspiracy, and particularly
with regard to its chief or principal head and sole support,
General Paez, who is essentially responsible for the evils which

19
now afflict the country ; and in proof of what we have asserted
we will also refer to facts.
The first is, that being the acknowledged and faithful friend
of General Paez, as soon as we saw the turn affairs were taking,
and not yet believing in those who so strenuously asserted that
he was incapable of tolerating any one who would not conduct
himself according to his will, we addressed ourselves to him in
private, and with the most cordial friendship expressed to him
our views upon the subject, demonstrating to him that Quin
tero was conspiring — that Quintero was much injuring him in
public opinion, and that if he did not publicly reprove the use
made of his name by representing that he was the head of a
factious opposition, he would be irretrievably lost, and would
appear to all the world as the servile imitator of Santander.
We endeavored to prove to him that he ought to side with
the community at large, and not with a faction, however
wealthy it might be ; that it was the people who had aided him
in acquiring his glory, that the people did not support the con
spirators, and that his duty and his interest, if he wished to
save himself, called upon him to place himself at the head of
the people and oppose the faction who were conspiring against
the President. He replied to us in a careless, negligent man
ner, and defended Quintero. We again wrote to him with
still more energy, and with facts and incontestable arguments,
but n6t being able to deny the truth of the facts nor to disprove
the correctness of the arguments we brought forward, the only
answer he made to us, was to tell several persons in Maracai
that we had lost our senses.
Now for the, second. Not being altogether undeceived by
the disappointment we had undergone, and it appearing to us
that General Paez might desire to withdraw himself with honor
from the public arena, we took advantage of a circumstance
that occurred, to ascertain whether His Excellency, the Presi
dent, would appoint him to undertake a very honorable diplo-

20
matic mission in Europe, and having found that H. E. was very
favorably disposed to such a measure, we Wrote to General
Paez, stating to him that we were authorized to assure him
that he would be appointed to such a mission, if he were dis
posed to afford this new service to the country. He replied to
us that he could not say whether he would accept it or not,
because there were family occurrences which occupied his
mind entirely, and as no formal nomination had been made, he
could not engage to think upon the subject. In consequence,
the President, who did not wish to give an appointment which
might be scoffed at, deputed a respectable person of Caracas
to go to Paez, and in his name make him the offer of the
appointment, and the result was another disappointment.
And for the third. During the few days which General
Juan Jose Flores remained in Venezuela, seeing that the state
of society threatened a civil war, from the exaggerated pre
tensions of the conspirators against the President of the Re
public, he endeavored to bring about a meeting between General
Paez and the President, at which they might devise some
means for putting an end to the agitation which existed in men's
minds. The sole fact that any one should conceive it necessary
for the first magistrate of a republic to implore the influence of
a citizen in order to restrain a small portion of the people at
whose head was this same citizen, is in itself a mournful and
degrading fact to the whole nation — a proof that there existed
a citizen superior to the government, to the institutions, to the
laws, and even to the nation itself; a proof that this citizen is the
real and sole arbiter of the fate of the nation, and as soon as
such a state of things manifests itself, the nation can no longer
be deemed a nation, but a miserable congregation of men inca
pable of being free and governing themselves ; because at any
given moment this man might disappear from the face of the
earth — this man, who alone is the people, the government, the
nation, the everything — and the nation might believe itself

21
to be, or be really, in a state of utter anarchy. Paez was,
according to his partisans, with regard to Venezuela, ten times
more necessary than Bolivar to Colombia, in 1829, according
to the Bolivarians. In such a state of things we also thought
it a patriotic duty, rather than be exposed to a civil war — that
the President should not refuse to see Paez, if such a meeting
could be efficacious in preventing such a calamity. General
Flores engaged, no doubt, because the conspirators exacted it,
that the President should go as far as Las Cocuizas* to meet
Paez, and we could not induce him to desist from this preten
sion,- although we considered it a very extravagant one. The
President's consent was obtained to go that distance : but a fit
of illness, which was in reality severe, whatever may have
been asserted to the contrary, prevented him from undertaking
the journey. We felt much the miscarriage of this interview
for the country's sake ; however, when we were informed of
the manner in which Paez presented himself at Las Cocuizas,
we were highly delighted that General Monagas had not been
able to meet him there. Paez had come to meet the Presi
dent accompanied by Quintero, one of the men who weekly
vomited forth the most atrocious insults against the President
in his newspaper, the " Espectador," and with the knowledge
and sufferance of Paez. Could there be a more uncourteous
act or one less likely to promote the object of the interview ?
Could Quintero be an element of union or of concord in such
circumstances ? However, this was not the only scandalous
and insolent incongruity in the conduct of Paez. It is positive
that he was accompanied by a hundred men, the greater part
of whom were armed ; whereas, the negotiator of the interview
had engaged that neither of the parties should take with him
more than from four to six friends. Paez desired to present
himself to the President at a distance of fourteen leagues from
the capital, as a man superior to him, to the government, to the
# A place about forty miles distant from Caracas.

22
institutions, and to everything ; as the arbiter of Venezuela, as
the representative of a power which came to impose conditions
on the President of the Republic, if he meant to continue in
that office. And is there a Venezuelan Republican who could
witness this insolence with cold blood ? Is there a man with
any feelings of dignity who believes that it is honorable to be
long to a nation in which a citizen can thus ostentatiously show
himself superior to its first magistrate ? Is it not disgraceful
even that this should be a question between republicans ?
Venezuela had flattered one of her sons, honoring him and re
warding him far beyond what his services had merited, and in
return he was preparing vexations for her, and threatening to
reduce her to ashes if she did not submit to him. However,
it is very rarely that the judgment of a nation goes astray.
From all quarters of Venezuela, numberless addresses were
received deploring the projected journey of the President to
Las Cocuizas, and afterwards rejoicing that it had not taken
place, and announcing to him that its realization would have
produced a deplorable effect on public opinion ; so natural is the
feeling of national dignity, and so clear was the necessity for its
demonstration on this occasion ! ! !
Each of these three important facts we have just narrated is so
complicated, and involves a series of many others so intimately
bound together, that to a man of impartial judgment either of
them would suffice effectually to convince him that General
Paez was seriously combining a conspiracy that should indefi
nitely insure to himself supreme power. This was clear, most
clear ; however, that which placed the seal of evidence on the
existence of the conspiracy was the fact which we are now
about to add.,
Paez had precautiously obtained from the Soublette govern
ment permission to absent himself from the country ; for he
had said, that if the administration which was to follow should
not be favorable to him, he would prefer to expatriate himself

23
rather than oppose it, or remain in the country at the risk of
his life. This sole fact demonstrates the importance which he
assumed, and as to how far he considered it necessary that the
new President should adopt his ideas for governing the country,
or, what is the same thing, should be subjected to him. That
an administration should act against the opinion of a man like
Paez, who was at the head of a party, essentially intolerant and
exclusive, was equivalent to being an insurrectionist ; and he
could not consider that his life was exposed without insulting
and throwing discredit on the government, or establishing a
pretext to rebel against it ; so that Paez could see no mezzo
termine between the country being governed by himself and his
party, or his absenting himself from it in order not to become a
factious oppositionist ; offering, nevertheless, by his absenting
himself for such a reason, a new insult to the government and
to the whole republic. These fears and these precautions on
the part of Paez, show clearly that he thought more of himself
than of his country ; for, had it been otherwise, had he not
entertained these misgivings, had his conscience been clear,
such ideas would never have occurred to him ; but the
man who aspired to impose his policy upon an administration
could not be altogether tranquil, as it might happen that he
would not be able to succeed in his designs/; and this was the
reason for which Paez had taken the precaution so long before
hand of asking from General Soublette a permission to leave
the country. We shall now see what use Paez made of this
permission. It is a fact that in the month of December, 1847, he appeared
in the eyes of the whole of the republic to be at the head of the
virulent and factious opposition formed against the administra
tion ; and that he had not only time to withdraw himself, but
had offered to him a most honorable means of absence, which
he refused to accept. It was at that time, under the pretext of
some cattle business, that he requested permission to go into

24
the province of Casanare (New Granada,) and he gave to this
object all the appearance of a political estrangement from Ve
nezuela, in order that his adherents might have the opportunity
of entreating him to remain, and thus obtain a public document
which should implicate all those who desired his political pre
dominance. And, in fact, all the conspirators fulfilled the de
sires of Paez ; for they drew up, on the 26th December, at
the same time they were urging the interview at Las Cocuizas,
an exposition which they got some individuals to sign, who did
not at all understand the importance and factious tendency of
the step they were taking.
In this exposition it is asserted that those who drew it up
knew that Paez was thinldng of abandoning the country ; it
is clear that such news must have emanated from himself; for,
that which he had solicited of the government was, not to be
allowed to abandon the country, but a permission to go into the
New Granadian territory, should he have occasion to do so,
and for only a very few days, if the motive he alleged had been
the true one ; and, therefore, the request he had addressed the
government was merely a pretext by which to give publicity
to his feigned absence, and to give a color of some sort to the
petition which induced him to favor us by remaining to direct
the conspiracy. In this document the predominant idea was,
wholesome and pernicious doctrines were in deadly contest, that
the latter being supported and extolled, while the former were dis
credited from their appearance of weakness ; that is to say, that
Paez and his party were in deadly contest with the govern
ment and the people ; was not this insinuation clear enough ?
Is it not evident that Paez and his party considered themselves
in deadly contest against the government and in favor of those
wholesome doctrines, that is to say, supporters to the death of
those which they called wholesome .doctrines, by means of
deeds, of arms, and of conspiracy ? And we say that Paez ac
knowledged this, not merely from the exposition having been
addressed to him, but because in his reply he accepted the

25
whole context of such manifestation, "i have before me,"
he says, " a picture, of the Republic most gloomily sketched;"
(the deadly contest between good and evil doctrines, between
Paez and the -government of the nation) ; and then he adds,
that the sole feeling he could express, was that he only desired
to live that he might be useful to his country ! and this he says
in relation to the idea that the government was sustaining evil
doctrines and that they were in deadly contest with the good
ones; therefore it is clear that he proposed to himself to be
useful to his country in this deadly contest, and this in what
ever light it might be considered, may surely be termed de
claring himself in open rebellion.
In the whole of this manifestation nothing more is done than
to develop this idea of the deadly contest in which it is said
were engaged the good and the evil doctrines, assuming, before
it had ever met, that the^Congress was in combat with the Ex
ecutive Power. And this was said by an infinitisimal portion of
the Venezuelan community, which had arrogated to itself the
right of declaring war by anticipation between the national
powers ; this was said to a citizen who was General-in-Chief of
the Republic ; who ought to have been, from many reasons,
the most obedient of all citizens ; and this was said to the very
face of the Government ; this citizen thus recognized as the
chief of a party and assenting to be so recognized, instead of
calling his partisans to order, and telling them that he could not
accept the declaration which they had made of the national
powers being in contention, that this was anticipating the
decision of Congress upon the subject, prejudging its determi
nation, and divesting its decisions of all justice, and impartial
character, and in short, instead of saying to them, we are not
the judges of the Government, you speak the language of a
faction and I cannot approve your language without being com
promised myself ; instead of acting thus, we say, he comes out
with an offer of his services to the country, assuming as posi-

26
tive and actually existing,) all that a factious club had been
pleased to assert. It is seen, therefore, that Paez and his par
tisans were openly conspiring before the meeting of Congress,
and from all this may be clearly deduced that the plan of the
manifest, and the reply to it, with the pretext of his absence,
were all combined and agreed upon with two objects which are
extremely evident a 1st. That Paez desired that his partisans
should compromise themselves in an explicit manner, and by
their signatures, that he might have that support and pretext,
and that this declaration of the conspiring club being echoed
throughout the Republic, the party in all points of it might
prepare themselves to second the views of the director. 2d.
Paez wished to say to his partisans in Congress, Be not alarmed,
my friends, I have already given you the example, I have com
promised myself, now do you finish your part of the work by
giving me the power, and we will divide the prize between us ;
I have a rope round my neck, will yon leave me in that position ?
Can there be any doubt that members of Congress, partisans of
Paez, could be otherwise than conspirators ? On the 13th of
January the party in Calobozo repeated the same farce which
had been played by the 200 in Caracas with regard to the man
ifesto ; the same ideas were prominently brought forward by
them, the supplication as to the absence of the only centre of
union, the support of all good doctrines, of all hopes of salvation,
the threatened death which the administration was about to in
flict on the institutions, and its contention with the Congress not
yet assembled, fyc. But it is to be observed that in the exposition
of the Calabozo party, and this history will duly note, the lan
guage is more explicit, more resolute, much less obscure ; and
this was because the time was drawing nearer and Paez was
already in campaign in the Llano. They no longer talked
merely of the legislative and executive powers being in
contention, but said that it was necessary that Paez should
hold himself ready to execute the orders of the Congress.

27
What then were these orders the execution of which was not
to be confided to the Executive Power ? They could be no
other than those of the conspiracy. Paez answered in the
same sense as to the address from Caracas, and also with more
freedom, less concealment. " The picture you have drawn to me
of the actual state of the Republic is a mournful one. The Re
public cannot be lost," he says, " Providence has not denied to
us its protection, and within six days the Congress will have
assembled ; from its enlightened knowledge, its patriotism and
energy, we may expect every benefit. My duty is to sacrifice
myself for the country, fyc." We have here the same ideas,
more openly avowed, in order to animate the Congress, or his
partisans who formed a portion of it, that he might not be left
entirely to his own resources. What would have become of
Paez after these answers, if the Congress had not responded to
his hopes ?
It is clear that he would have been a lost man, and it is also
clear that for men who were compromised and wished to be
consistent, there was no other course to take than to execute
the plans which such answers referred to. And the represen
tatives, who were about to arrive, to be judges under such
influences, would they have their souls free and their hearts
tranquil, as the proper fulfillment of their duty required they
should be ? Were they or were they not members of the fac
tion ? And let it be observed that the exposition from Cala-
bozo and the reply to it were published in "La Prensa"^ of the
23d of January, the very day on which the Congress was
installed, and to which were added games of the self-same
nature, played between the inhabitants of San Sabastian and
Paez, and between some few children of Calabozo and Paez.
In a Republic which possessed a Constitution and Laws and
Government and People, children were taught to say to Paez,
" It is enough for you to know that we are Calabozians, to be
assured that we are lovers of order, and that Paez is our pre-

28 <
dominant idea." That children should proclaim a man to be
their predominant idea ! Was ever such prostitution heard of, or
a greater relaxation of wholesome principles ? Were these the
good doctrines they were defending ? Could they venture to
say so without shame ? It is, however, demonstrated by
conclusive arguments that the circulation of the notice of Paez's
intended withdrawal from the country was but a stratagem
which should afford his partisans an opportunity of addressing
factious manifestoes to him, to which he might reply in terms
which conveyed this meaning to the Representatives : ' " Do
you but act according to my wishes and you may rely on me
and on all those who are thus implicated ;" and consequently
it is also proved that a Chamber, the majority of which was
composed of men intimately connected with Paez and his faction j
and many of them active coadjutors in the preparatory measures
of the conspiracy, was not in reality what the Constitution re
quired a legislative chamber should be, that is to say, dispassion
ate, just, impartial ; but, on the contrary, a gang of partisans
resolved on abusing the power which had been confided to them
for the good of the country, under the pretext that the Presi
dent was upholding evil doctrines, but in reality trumped up in
order to favor the usurpation of public power meditated by the
man who could not tolerate that the country should be
governed without consulting him.
Another public and scandalous act was performed by Paez
and Quintero that no doubt might remain as to their inten
tions, and that the representatives who were compromised
should not vacillate, from being alarmed at the enormity of the
criminal attempt they meditated. The act was this : The
former sent his family to Caracas, recommended to the protec
tion of a foreign diplomatic agent, in order that he might
give them an asylum in his house should it become necessary,
and taking measures in a public manner to obtain lodgings for
them as near as possible to the house of the said diplomatic

29
agent ; and Quintero acted in much the same way, giving
orders that his family should embark for Curazoa, while they
both marched together toward Calabozo. And can any one
doubt, after all that has been stated, that when Paez and Quin
tero, in the early part of January, proceeded toward Calabozo,
they were at that very moment in insurrection against the
government and the institutions ? And we will again ask,
what would the fate of Paez have been if the Chamber of
Representatives, even without consideration to the justice of
the case, had at least paused before the idea of launching Ven
ezuela into civil war, the only motive for which was, that the
administration would not adopt the ideas of an exclusive and
cruel club ? What would have been the situation of Paez who
had defied the government, and had commenced the rebellion
as a power capable of itself to command in Venezuela, and to
prevail over government and people, and who had carried this
to such a point that it was already impossible for him to retro-
cede with honor ? We do not know how he would have acted
in such a case, but this is perfectly clear, that his friends and
partisans, seeing their chief, their only hope, thus rushing
onward, would have considered themselves no longer at liberty
even to deliberate, and their only alternative would have been
either to sacrifice him or to follow him in the rebellious path
he had pursued : and it could not be doubted that in the ex
cited state of passions at that moment, and which they them
selves had so much aided to produce, they would have adopted
the latter course. They called themselves the intellectual
party, and in truth they showed no lack of skill in plotting the
conspiracy. Profound impressions are still produced upon our mind by
even the recollection of what we saw and heard between the
15th and the 24th of January, and we nevertheless feel a cer
tain species of intimate conviction that it would be difficult
to find any other person whose soul and heart were so com-

30
pletely disposed to observe with perfect impartiality the conduct
of all the parties, and to judge'which of them acted with most
reason, most justice, and most prudence. Being connected with
persons who were intimately acquainted with the operations
of the one and the other, and enjoying their confidence, we are
in a position to estimate the part which each took in all that
then occurred ; but our Notes cannot enter into all these de
tails ; it is necessary, at the present moment, to omit the
names of individuals and to refer only to acts of public noto
riety ; time will withdraw the veil which we now leave
over a part of the events.
As soon as it was seen that Paez and Quintero had set out
for the Llano, in the early part of January, and the arrange
ments they had made for their families became known, there
remained not the slightest doubt that they had resolved to rise
in rebellion against the Government, and that they evidently
calculated on the necessary majority in the chambers to realize
their views. But, however clear this might appear, it was not
possible that men of sound judgment could persuade them
selves, that the perturbation, which passion pioduces, could
reach so extreme a point as to blind the most sagacious, nor
that confidence in the omnipotence of Paez could extend so
far as to induce them to suppose that a handful of satellites and
some 500 or 1000 men at the utmost, who would follow him,
could subjugate such a Republic as Venezuela. We, who
knew Venezuela, and knew the state of public opinion at the
moment; ventured to speak of it to some of the representa
tives and senators among those who were reputed hostile, and
those who did not impute our doing so to unkindness, carried
their blindness so far as to assure us that we were altogether
mistaken, that we should see the property of General Mona
gas razed to the ground, and the Republic completely under
the dominion of Paez ; some of them even going so far as to
make reflections on our own individual position, and advising

31
us to save ourselves. We must confess, that as to those who
knew the circumstances, they inclined to believe that public
opinion would maintain itself with firmness and unanimity ; but
it was of no use whatever for them to prognosticate what
would happen, as it occurred to ourselves, for example, re
garding General Mufioz upon whom the partisans pf Paez ven
tured to calculate, although we never for a moment had the
slightest doubt as to the fidelity of General Munoz, and this
we declared to every one with whom we spoke upon the sub
ject ; however, and it is melancholy to relate it, derision was
the only answer we received from some of them, so fascinated
were they by the prestige of a man ! This raised a feeling of
pity in our breast for these mistaken individuals, but bitter
grief as it regarded our country, for it convinced us of the
tenacious and even stupid blindness of the conspirators. Un
fortunately, neither reason nor reflection were of any avail with
men who, when they were asked what was the chief motive
which could have occasioned this accusation of the Presi
dent, replied immediately by uttering some gross stupidity,
as for instance, one which we cannot avoid recording, " the
death of Alexander the Great," and if they were spoken
to of the opinion of the people, added, in a tone of security,
perfectly astounding, " Oh! they can be. managed with whips."
It was certainly unquestionable that the conspirators were very
determined to strike at all, institutions, country, property,
honor and life ; because they were persuaded that the only
difficulty which existed was in Paez's finding a pretext for
taking up arms ; they wished to bring about this result, let
the means be what they might, it appearing to them impossi
ble that they could do otherwise than triumph ; and thus, and
only thus, can be explained the conduct of the conspirators.
We however repeat, and it is a fact that cannot be subjected
even to a doubt, that the opinions and plans of the conspira
tors from the moment of the breaking up of the Quintero min-

32
istry and the commutation of Guzman's sentence, were founded
only upon the knowledge which they had of Paez's mode of
thinking, and on the persuasion of his infallible omnipotence.
Setting out upon this basis, and that of the hostile position
which Paez had already assumed, the conspirators considered
themselves certain of a triumph^ and that within a very few
days ; and they did not at all question the legality of their pro
ceedings ; " we have," said they, " more than the number of
votes required to suspend a president ; and now we have only
to do so :" and because some of them called themselves the
Chamber of Representatives, they imagined that this was not
as factious and unconstitutional an act as those of Ranjel, the
Herreras, &c. ; it was, in our conception, much more criminal,
since they were intentionally committing an abuse of that
power which was conferred upon them solely that they might
act justly and always with due regard to the welfare of their
country, whereas they were endeavoring to light up the flames
of civil war because it tallied with the views of a very scanty
number of partisans and those of an ambitious man, who was
their leader.
It is afflicting to remember the fury which possessed the
minds of the conspirators for some days preceding that of the
24th January, and it was impossible for a philosophic, patriotic
and just man to recognize in those madmen the judges of an ad
ministration, which might have committed errors, but which
had never omitted to respect the Constitution, even when in
the midst of circumstances that rendered necessary the adop
tion of strong measures in order to avoid infinite disasters. It
is therefore a well ascertained fact, that thirty-two members
of the Chamber of Representatives had agreed on deposing the
President, and on removing their sittings to some other city, if
they should judge proper so to do, that they might strike the
blow with greater security. And to this had Paez led them
by the tortuous paths which we have now exposed. They

33
were not the conscript fathers of the country who came with
tranquil hearts, and bandaged eyes^ holding the scales of just
ice to deliberate upon his fate '; but the inveterate, furious
and public enemies of the President who had engaged to de
pose him. Itis a pity that they had not the opportunity of
unfolding the whole of their plan, for we have the intimate con
viction that they intended to turn against the Vice-President
of the Republic also, iri the event of his not blindly adopting
their projects, which consisted 'in giving Paez a dictatorial
power while they were judging and assassinating the President,
and this being done, to maintain him in it during1 the whole
time that Providence should please to preserve his life. The
conspirators had reached such a degree of excitement as to the
necessity for altering the institutions of the country; that they
spoke' of it with barefaced effrontery, and they looked upon
the deposition of the President but as a means by which they
should attain that object. This is the truth in all its splendor^
let them now say what 'they please; at all events, it is the
truth with regard to the few conspirators who directed the
manoeuvres which were to produce as their result the establish
ment, during his life, of the power of Paez, and this was what
was perfectly understood by the President, and by the whole
people of Venezuela, when the Congress was installed on the
23d of January, 1848.
In the eighteen years of national life which Venezuela has en
joyed under its present Constitution it has been observed that
in all periods of conflict the deputies attended Congress with
great punctuality ; but on this occasion it was remarked that
there was a visible reluctance, and we who know the personal
character of the tardy ones, may venture to assert that the de
lay in their attendance arose from, either their being forewarned
of the attempt about to be made, in which it was intended to
implicate them, or being acquainted with the arrangements and
plans of their co-members, and feeling that they had not suffi-
3

34
cient resolution to oppose them, they did not desire to participate
in such a responsibility ; and thus it was that at the installation
of the 23d January, 1848, nineteen of the representatives failed
to attend, of whpm nearly the whole have stated to us that
they were either friendly to the administration, or that they
were impartial ; that they were not prejudiced, but were resolved
to act with the independence and justice of faithful representa
tives. But for the clamorous proceedings of the conspiracy, at
such a period, the whole of the representatives would have has
tened to the Congress, and the conspirators on finding that
they could not have calculated positively on two-thirds of the
votes in favor of the accusation, would perhaps have changed
their course and listened to some virtuous and learned men, who,
like the unfortunate Santos Michilena, constantly opposed these
traitorous views. It moreover was part of the plan of the con
spirators, not only to give confidence by their preparatives to
those who supported their ideas that they might remain firm,
but also to retard the attendance of the timorous, and by those
means securely gain the required majority in the Chambers, to
carry out their object. As to ourselves, notwithstanding all
this, we remained, up to the 23d, in the belief that a feeling of
duty would have more weight upon the minds of the delegates
of the nation, than the influence of the omnipotence of Paez,
and we frequently discussed the matter with this feeling, calcu
lating, we must aqknowledge, on the declarations of some per
sons, which, from subsequent facts, we infer were not sincere.
Although we were assured that such a one and such a one
were implacable enemies of the administration, we maintained
that certain men should not be judged of lightly, and we advis
ed those who spoke with us upon the subject to wait the result,
which we imagined would be very different.
And therefore was it, that when we were informed on the
33d, that out of forty-four representatives thirty-two had
voted for the removal of the sittings to Porto Cabello, we were

35
perfectly astounded. It appears that the people of the capital,
for the most part, felt as we did with regard to the Chambers,
and that sincerely and affectionately attached to the President
of the Republic, they had relied on the justice and impartial
ity of the majority of the legislative body, and that it would
prevent the realization of the threats of the inconsiderate writ
ers of the furious opposition. However, the vote of the 23d
for transferring the sessions, and the measure of the chamber
by which it voted for itself a guard, indefinite in number and to
be selected by itself, opened the eyes of every one, and it was
seen that a revolution was commenced which threatened to in
volve the Republic in numerous disasters. Under the pretext
that the Chambers had by the constitution the exclusive right
of regulating the police in the place where it was in session,
the Chamber of Representatives, on the same night of the 23d,
authorized the assembling of all men they could gather, well
armed and provided with ammunition and carefully selected from
the so-called order party ; and it is clear that the Governor of
Caracas, on seeing so great and so imminent a threat against
public tranquillity, which the law enjoins him to preserve, was
bound to call into service a great portion of the militia. Thus
is seen in what strange manner these very conspirators com
pelled the government to place in the hands of the people,
whom they appeared to fear, the very arms by which their
plans were to be defeated. More than three thousand men in
stantly responded to the call of the Governor, and that very
night the conspirators would have received an exemplary pun
ishment, but for the great efforts made by the authorities to
moderate the indignation and impetuosity of the people. But
the torch of discord was already blazing, already were the men
of one and the other party resolved to come to blows ; all had
reflected, each in his own fashion, upon the consequences of a
civil war, and had determined to incur them ; the one party
confiding in Paez and in the moral importance which they

36
imagined they derived from the Congress being in their favor ;
the others confiding in, the general opinion of the people,
which is the definitive criterion in a Republic, and in the just
ice of their cause. All was prepared; the opposing armies
had taken their respective, positions ; the chiefs, officers and
soldiers all. fully understood the nature of the question, the
cause they were about to defend, and were moreover enthusias
tic in it : and with arms , in their hands, both parties were only
anxious for the moment when they should make use of them.
The conspirators, to color their attempts with a lustre of lega
lity, pretending .that thirty-two excited, fanatical and implicated
citizens, some of them deluded and confiding in Paez, calling
themselves the representatives of the nation, had a right to
suspend the President of the Republic. Ignorant men ! Had
they not insolently presented themselves before the nation as
the implacable enemies of the President ? How could they pre
tend that the nation should consider their decrees as those of
impartial judges ? They had lost all prudence, all impartiality,
all regard to justice, and they imagined that the result of their-
machinations would be respected ! Madmen — madmen ! — not
to apostrophize them in severer terms. There was but one thing
certain which they saw before them, and that was civil war ;
and they boasted of it, saying that this* was what they were
seeking, that there was no other remedy, and with that their
triumph was assured. Ignorant and stupid men ! And why.
were they surprised at the event of the 24th of January ?
They desired to launch the people into civil war, and they are
amazed at their picking up the gauntlet which they had impru
dently thrown down to them ! If the 24th of January is to be
lamented, it was to you, conspirators, exclusively, that it was
owing. These are the fruits of your passions, of your injust
ice, of your hatred, of your exaggerated pretensions to do
minion, of the white sheet which you extended in the public
press to blacken, revile, calumniate public authority, and to

37
excite and provoke, by every means in your power, public ha
tred against it. This is your work ; that which you so ardently
desired ; can you be astonished at it ?
The terrible night of the 23d afforded no instruction to the
conspirators, and the Chamber of Representatives met at day
break on the 24th, to approve the provocation which some three
hundred men, whom they called their guard, had given the
previous night. The news of this fresh scandal had scarcely cir
culated, when all the citizens appeared seized with sudden fury ;
some of them were in favor of the resolutions of the Chamber —
others in favor of the executive power and their own rights ; the
former, and the greater portion of the latter, assembled with
Weapons of every description they had been able to pro
cure ; and there were many more, who, not having the
means of procuring arms, were going about entreating to be
furnished with them, and who meditated getting possession of
the 'park.* The aspect which the city presented at eleven
o'clock in the morning was altogether frightful, and particularly
to those who, like ourselves, had constantly reproved the idea
of an appeal to arms and the exaggerated views of all parties.
It was evident that the critical moment was closely approach
ing, and the only question was, what would be the occasion
that would bring it on. One soon occurred which sufficed to
bring about a collision, and this was the detention in the Cham
ber of Representatives of the Secretary of the Interior, who,
after having presented the accustomed message of the Presi
dent of the Republic, was preparing to leave it to present one
also to the Senate. This was considered as an arrest of the
secretary, and as the two other secretaries were sent for at the
same time, it was immediately rumored that they were about
to get the whole administration into the chaihber, while they
voted the suspension of the President, to prevent him having
any legal organ through which to transmit his orders. This
was sufficient ; some of the people flew to save, as they said,
* The place in which the government arms are stored.

38
the Secretary of the Interior, and at the moment that they
drew near the door of the edifice, a shot fired from a window
situated above this door killed citizen Miguel Riverol, an old
and distinguished Liberal. The combat then commenced. A
few minutes subsequently, another Liberal, Juan Maldonado,
was also killed, and the exasperation of the people reached its
acme.* The guard of the chamber did not disperse till they
had fired frequently ; however, many of the conspirators within
the edifice, who were armed, lost their self-possession, were
filled with terror, and fled by the roofs and through the win
dows. They found that they had altogether deceived them
selves ; the people whom they had thought to drive with whips,
obliged them to return to their duty with musket balls ; and
when they were persuaded of the reality of this fact, all their
valor at once, fortunately for themselves, left them, and their
only thought was, how they could save their lives. At that
moment, the Chamber of Representatives presented scenes
which we will not venture to describe ; it suffices to say, that
in it was a depot of arms of every sort similar to those worn by
the conspirators ; that one of its members and two of the con
spirators, who were not members, ferociously threatened the
Secretary of the Interior with death, whom a few minutes af
terwards they supplicated to save them, and which effectively
he succeeded in doing, and others, in their turn, overcome with
fear, also sought in flight a remedy against the effects of their in
justice and their own arbitrary and unprecedented proceedings.
Three of the representatives were killed, and three individuals
engaged in the conspiracy, by rushing out of the building. N
At that moment all the authorities combined, including the
Executive, were not, nor could they be, sufficiently powerful to
stay the popular action, which brooked no control, although they
* They then rushed to the park, a distance of only a few squares, broke
open the doors, armed themselves, and hastened to the assistance of their
fellow citizens, who were endeavoring to save the Minister of the Interior.

39
had only to oppose with efficacy the -proceedings of some few
men who pretended to arrogate to themselves the supreme
power The people of the capital had patiently looked on while
the conspiracy was being plotted even before their eyes, be
cause they confided in the impartiality and prudence of the
Chamber of Representatives, but from the moment they were
convinced that two-thirds of the members present were resolv
ed on making an abuse of their legal power, and from being re
presentatives of the nation had converted themselves into mere
instruments of an ambitious man and his miserable party, and
comprehending the feelings of all the people of Venezuela, which
were well known to them, they declared ia the face of the whole
world that these representatives had transformed themselves
into a handful of conspirators, and defied them to prove the con
trary by appealing to the nation.
We have recorded these facts after a careful examination,
in the manner we believe that they occurred, and have concealed
nothing : a very small portion of the militia composed a part of
the throng of people who hastened to liberate the Secretary of
the Interior ; the greater number were not armed militia, they
were the people armed with all sorts of weapons, and also with
muskets taken from the depot which had been forced by them,
in spite of the authorities, and for the reason that these same au
thorities had not the power to prevent them ; because the mili
tia was the force which had charge of the depot, — because it
was the force in which the government had confidence — the
force which the conspirators could in no way bribe nor gain
over to their party, — and this militia was the people with its
ideas and connections and its enthusiasm in favor of the govern
ment and against the conspirators, so that it was impossible that
the government could have thought of confiding the arms of the
nation to other hands.
The conspirators and those who thought and desired as they
did, have, in consequence of these very acts, brought charges
against the government without reflecting that there never yet

40
has been a government which has committed knowingly a sui
cidal act, that it was but too apparent that the conspirators in
tended to depose the President, and plunge the country into a
deadly civil war, and that the latter having an intimate convic
tion of such a conspiracy, was bound in the most imperious
imaginable manner to prevent the conspirators from carrying
their project into effeet ; he, therefore, from precautionary mo
tives called out a portion of the people, and the conspirators who
thought of driving them with whips, and who eagerly sought the
shock of parties and a civil war, despised the armed people and
provoked them to the combat, calculating that they were
either imbecile or cowardly ; they had deluded themselves on
every point, and then became furious against the President,
who they imagined ought to have allowed them to do all they
would without attempting by any means in his power, to save
society from the excesses which they meditated ; and they. dare
how to attribute to the President the event of the 24th.
Unfortunate would it have been for the conspirators and their
accomplices in the chamber of deputies if they had been able to
effect even the suspension of the president ! A thousand thanks
to the people who prevented them from precipitating themselves
into the abyss ! what would have been their fate ? what would
have been the fate of the country ? For ourselves, we utterly
despise calumny, and we trust that impartial men who read
this production will acknowledge that the things happened pre
cisely as it was natural they should happen ; that taking in view
the antecedents of which we have spoken, the consequences
went on following each other in a logical and necessary man
ner : that the President took no other part in the event of the
24th, than that which he was bound to take ; glorious it was,
highly glorious, for not having been willing to give Paez the
satisfaction of submitting to his will, subjecting to it as he
desired, the independence of the Executive power in exchange
for the influence he exercised in the presidential election ; and
glorious also because he had adopted efficacious means to pre-

41
vent Paez from deceiving the nation. What necessity was
therefor the President to excite the people to attack the cham
ber of representatives, when the people were of themselves so
much excited that it was impossible to make them retrocede ?
The President, it is true, did intervene in trie affair of the 24th
of January ; but it was to moderate the impetuosity of the peo
ple, and personally to save and to induce others to save many
of the -conspirators ; these are the orders which the President
gave ; nor could he give othe.rs, for they were not necessary,
unless indeed that the conspirators pretend he should have or
dered the people to fire upon the people to restrain them.
Ungrateful men ! his most gratuitous and. atrocious enemies
owed their lives to him upon that day, and they employed the
ifollowing one in attributing to him the fury of the people, of
which they alone were the first cause. Was it not seen how
eagerly they rushed forward by tens of thousands to take up
arms solely because it was against Paez and his party, for had
the government been authorized to do so and had muskets
enough, it might have placed fifty thousand men under arms in
thirty days ? Was it not seen with what satisfaction thousands
of men crossed the country in every direction, supporting with
admirable patierice, hunger, want of clothing, the rigors of the
rainy season, and all descriptions of suffering ? Did tbe con
spirators calculate that the magic name of Paez would serve
against our institutions as it had done in their favor ? Did they
confound the goodness of the people with that which they un
reflectingly called their imbecility ? Were they ignorant that
th.e power of opinion, when it is so uniform and enthusiastic
as it was throughout Venezuela in favor of the institutions
and the Monagas administration which sustains them, supplies
the place of thousands of dollars and thousands of elevated
intellects ? Did they imagine that an assembly of thirty-two
men could be called a Chamber of Representatives, when they
did not really represent their constituents, but merely a millesi
mal portion of society which had conspired against the great bulk

42
of the nation ; and finally, was it that they were so headstrong,
so blind, so obstinately bent on a conspiracy that they stood in
need of such a chastisement as they received on the 24th, and
such a reproof as that they have undergone since the public
and barefaced rising of Paez ?
Within a few days it will appear, sanctioned by History,
that the Venezuelan nation had seen with profound grief, but
at the same time with horror and indignation, the public plots
which a small number of conspirators were contriving, whereby
to give a color of legality to the most manifest usurpation and
most abominable pretensions. That the nation being placed
by the furious will of those it had elected to be its delegates
within the august precincts of the legislative chambers, in the
dreadful alternative either of sanctioning the degradation and
assassination of their President or the death of these same
traitorous delegates, decided on adopting this last extreme
measure, for so it has been asserted by Paez and his partisans ;
they have inundated the Republic with emissaries, with letters
from Paez and from private individuals, and pamphlets containing
addresses and letters from Paez to the President, and decla
rations from Chaguaramas and Maracaibo. That Paez and
his party did not calculate on any support from public opinion,
and consequently had no other reason for their exaggerated
pretensions to domination, than because they were occu
pying certain official stations which they were determined to
abuse in order to maintain themselves in power in contradiction
to the will of the people. That Paez, disregarding the great
duties he owed to the country, considered only how he could
insure his own power, and has been the principal author
of all the evils which the Republic is now suffering un
der. That by such reckless and criminal conduct he has
entirely forfeited all the merit he had acquired by his former
good services, has blackened and defaced his glory, has entailed
upon himself a reproach which will adhere to his name through
all posterity. And finally, that henceforward no personal
power can ever be substituted in Venezuela for the will of

43
the majority of the people, for the empire of the Constitu
tion and the Laws. Fallen is the Colossus, and the devasta
tion which he has spread wherever he has passed, and the
innumerable evils he has inflicted on his country, besides ac
companying him forever as a terrible reproach, will serve as
a constant and eloquent lesson to the people never again to
raise another personal power in Venezuela.
Ambitious men like Paez are the real cause of great evils
and of the ruin of their country ; while virtuous and moderate
men like Washington are the founders of great nations.
From the year 1848, the people of Venezuela will be the
true arbiters of their own destiny. They will have a thousand
difficulties to surmount, whether it be to repair the effects of
the domination of Paez, or to prepare and open to themselves
the road to wealth and happiness. But they will never
attain these ends excepting by dint of virtues, and especially
those of industry, tolerance and moderation.

We copy from an article which appeared in the New York
Tribune of the 15th of November last, a sketch of the events
which occurred after the 24th of January, 1848, although it is
deficient in many details which cannot now be given from not
having the whole of the official documents before us. We, hav
ing been eye-witnesses of them, can, however, vouch for its
being an accurate account of the events mentioned in it ; and it
is, at the same time, sufficient to give a clear view of the cir
cumstances which led to the banishment of General Paez and
some of his followers, from the territory of Venezuela.
" On the 26th of January, the Chambers again assembled, not

44
as we have reason to believe, because the Senators and Repre
sentatives were -compelled to meet by force, but because they
were convinced that Congress ought to continue its sittings, in
the first place, to pass a measure of clemency which should
exonerate its own members who had participated in the boot
less conspiracy, and to determine on other measures demanded
by the actual state of circumstances. It is true that in a few
days afterward the Sessions were suspended, because these
very conspirators, believing themselves to be already perfectly
safe, thought to favor the cause of Paez, which was their own,
by the dissolution of the legislative body. But their project was
frustrated, and after an interval of some days the Congress re
sumed its labors, calling in the supplementary members in place
of those who had abandoned the country. When some of the
latter protested from Curacoa against the violence which they
asserted had been employed in order to compel them to assem
ble on the 25th, they were contradicted by some of their own
companions, who stated that they had attended the Chamber of
Representatives freely and spontaneously. This was also
proved by numbers of other persons who had seen them go to
the Chamber without any species of compulsion being used
towards them.*
*Mr. Acevedo says in his answer to the Revisor on the subject : " We can
not but honor many of these representatives for the considerations which we
afterwards heard them declare had principally influenced their minds. They
were as follows : Firstly : they confessed that a turn had, undoubtedly,
been given by their party to political affairs which could only lead to a civil
war, and they lamented having been the victims of such a tendency, which
in no case, in no country, in no age, has been productive of order, of civiliza
tion, or improvement, and much less could it be conducive to the assuring of
a republican political system on a solid basis j and from this they deduced the
necessity of avoiding the evils of such a war by not giving their concurrence
to the Congress. Secondly : they also confessed that they desired to save
Paez, who was compromised with them, and they hoped on seeing their new
line of conduct that he would have changed his course. Paez was guided
more by the strength of the position in which he had placed himself, and
the instincts of his own ambition, than by the suggestions of patriotism, and

45
We say then, that this affair of January 24th grew primarily
out of the conspiracy of the Paez party to overthrow the Pres
ident whom they could not make recreant to his duty. The
people of Caracas hated that party as much as they had become
attached to the President, and accordingly rose in spontaneous
opposition to their outrageous intentions. It is said that Mon
agas or his friends stirred them up and set them on to murder
the -opposition Members of Congress. Now in the entire
melee only three Representatives were shot ; one of them,
Sefior Salas of Maracaibo, was a friend of the President, and
had vpted steadily in his favor ; he was killed near the outer
door ; but had the attack been designed and executed under
the direction of Monagas, 'he certainly would have taken care
that. his adherents should not perish in it.
The other representatives killed in the firing were Garcia and
Argote, the latter a colored barber of Caracas, and a blind instru
ment of the Oligarchy, That party was in the habit of nominat
ing illiterate men of the laboring class on its ticket in order to
strengthen itself at the ballot box. If this man were not killed
by mere accident, which we have no doubt was the case, he
must have perished from the indignation the people felt toward
him personally, for having betrayed their cause.
One more Representative only fell a victim on this occasion;-
and he was universally regretted: We mean Sefior Santos
this it was which caused his fall. Thirdly : they clearly saw that the disso
lution of Congress might augment the moral power of Paez ; but they also
knew that the popular action against them and their party would be increased
tenfold, and that the results, besides being fatal to themselves; would be so, in
a great measure, to the country, and they thought it their duty to avoid them
as : far as in their power. Finally : the minds of many of them were im-r
b'ued with a sense of gratitude towards the President, who had saved them
and their companions in the terrible day of the 24th, and they cast far from
them the idea, after that event, of entertaining feelings of revenge against a
man, who, by his conduct in that conflict, and by the love which the people ;'
manifested for him, was the sole guarantee for their lives, and those of their
families, as he was also of those of all the oligarchists in the Republic

46
Michelena. On the first alarm he jumped from one of the
windows of the Representatives' Chamber, and was badly
hurt by the fall. Just as he struck the ground a party of citi
zens charged down the street with fixed bayonets, and one of
them wounded him, though had they recognized him, the uni
versal esteem in which he was held would have saved him
from any injury. He died a few days afterward, whether from
the wound or the fall is a disputed point in Venezuela, which
seems to us of little consequence.
Moreover, it should be remembered that the President's sons
were in the building, as was Sanavria, the Minister of the Inte
rior, and several others of Monagas's best friends. They were
there with no protection from the pistols and poniards with
which the hostile representatives were known to be armed.
With these weapons, as we are assured by credible persons
who were eye-witnesses of the scene in the Chamber, Sanavria
was actually threatened, and had there been any reason at the
time to suppose that the attack without proceeded from the
President, the lives of these persons would undoubtedly have
been taken as an act of desperate vengeance. Besides, they
were in equal danger with the others from the mob, as is
proved by what happened to Salas and Michelena. In the ex
citement and exasperation of the moment the mass of people
could not distinguish between friends and foes, and had the
firing been continued and the contest carried into the building,
few of its occupants could have escaped. Now it is not cred
ible that Monagas would have exposed so many of his friends
to danger of such a nature. The man who would not consent
to the execution of persons legally accused, but unjustly
condemned, would hardly let loose such bloody destruction
upon the heads of his children, his political and personal ad
herents, and his enemies altogether. -The supposition is too
absurd for any mind not heated and distorted by party spirit.
One thing more in this connection : Gen. Paez states that
Monagas, in a circular dated Jan. 22, speaks of the event of the

47
day previous as "a scandalous and lamentable crime." We
have before us the Gaceta de Venezuela containing that circu
lar; the words, in it are un suceso lamentable y escandaloso, a
scandalous and lamentable event. And this refers to the attack
caused by the firing of the guards. This remarkable fault in
translation does not speak well for the ^integrity of the Defence
in general.Another decisive evidence that there was a conspiracy
against the Government and Constitution, is found in the dec
laration of Sefior J. V. Gonzales, editor of La Prensa, a repre
sentative and one of the chief plotters. He was taken into the
presence of the President by the friends of the latter, who had
saved him from the fury of the people. He confessed that the
conspiracy had been planned for many months, in the first place
for the purpose of intimidating Monagas and inducing him to
resign the presidency, and afterwards with the object of carry
ing out the threats they had made. He also said that they all
counted on the cooperation of Paez, who had engaged to be
their chief. — But it is time to look a little at the personal
movements of that gentleman. '
Some months previous to Jan. 24th he had been offered by the
government an. important mission to Europe and had declined
it. As the epoch approached for the conspiracy to come to a
head, he asked and obtained leave of absence on the pretence
of going to New Granada. The elements of the plot all being
duly organized, and the support of Congress being, as the Olir
garchists supposed, insured, he set out in the direction of New
Granada, but evidently with no design of going there. The
following facts are conclusive on this point. He left Maracai
on the 3d of January, 1848, and went to the plains, in order,
as he gave out, to visit a cattle farm of his called San Pablo,
which required his personal inspection. There he already had
assembled his horses, his guards, and a number of his partisans.
Travelling slowly, as'is usual in that country, he had time to con-

48
fer with the most prominent persons in Calabozo, the capital of
the plains. With them we have ample reason to believe he
negotiated for aid in the rising soon to take place against the
government. And why should he take to New Granada a route
leading through dense forests, and an uninhabited country
where difficulty and privations of every sort must be met on the
way, when he might have reached Maracaibo by sea in an easy
voyage of three or four days, and thence have gone, without
any inconvenience, to San Jose de Cficuta ? It would seem as
if there were only one reason, namely, the conspiracy. Ap
parently his purpose was to remain in the plains, where he
already had some preparations made, where he could find
among the inhabitants the most serviceable soldiers in Vene
zuela, and whence he could best strike an unexpected blow in
any direction.
For some time Paez remained at San Pablo, with a consider
able number of followers, waiting the news that Monagas had
fallen, so that he might return in triumph to Caracas. But in
stead of this he learned that the plot had signally failed. Now
but one resource remained ; he had conspired to overthrow the
government through the Congress ; now he could only hope to
overthrow it by open rebellion. Intrigue and hidden treason
had lost their potency. He at once unfurled the standard of
revolt. His head-quarters were at a place named El Rastro.
He succeeded in inducing the population of Calabozo, Orituco,
and other portions of the neighborhood, where he had partisans,
to revolt also.
At the same time some of' the conspirators who after the
24th January had left Caracas for Maracaibo, deceived the in
habitants of that city by false accounts of the events which had
taken place, and as, unfortunately, Sefior Salas, the representa
tive of that province, had fallen on that day, they managed to
excite the minds of the inhabitants against the government, to
which they attributed all the evils which had occurred. Ma-

49
racaibo having declared itself, they induced the provinces of
Merida and Truxillo to imitate its example.
They also contrived to cause the rising of some districts in
the province of Oumana. Paez had presented himself to the
Republic as the restorer of the constitution and the laws, which,
he said, had been destroyed by the President. He employed
every means within his own reach or that of his partisans, to
induce the people to follow him, but in vain. He succeeded in
deceiving only these portions of the country above indicated,
while all the remainder rose in one mass to sustain the govern-"
ment and defend the institutions of the country. And they
rose so spontaneously and with such enthusiasm that had the
Executive desired it, it could have placed 50,000 men under
arms. Paez, seeing the inutility of his efforts to unite sufficient
forces in Calaboza, and those of the government having ad
vanced toward that city, withdrew into the province of Apure,
with the idea of seducing Gen. Cornelio MuSoz from his alle
giance ; but that loyal veteran of the War of Independence, in
stead ef listening to his perfidious insinuations, marched upon
him, although with an inferior force, and meeting him in the
savannas of the Araguatos attacked and completely routed
him, Paez flying until he reached the territory of New Granada.
{See Appendix A.)
It will be remembered by those who have paid attention to
these details, that the Paez party for a long time held the
castle of San Carlos, in the lake of Maracaibo, and that they
besieged the town of that name, which was defended by Gen.
Castelli for several months. The government at that period
had not a marine force of sufficient strength to force the bar of
Maracaibo, the Paez party having several vessels to defend the
entrance. At length the government mustered a few sailing
vessels, which, together with the steamer Libertador, entered
the bay, and on the 13th December, 1848, came to actipn with.
4

50
the Paez fleet, defeated them, raised the siege of Maracaibo,
took possession of the castle of San Carlos, which the Paez
party had abandoned, and then pursued the fugitives into the
river Zulia. There they took the remainder of their ships,
together with the steamer General Jackson, then called the
Buena Vista, on board which they took seventy prisoners, mostly
officers. At the same time they routed the land forces, which
had taken possession of the small town of San Carlos, and sent
the prisoners to Puerto Cabello. As an illustration of the
bloodthirstiness of the President of the Republic, and his
tyrannical severity, we may mention that these prisoners were
released and allowed to return to their homes, on giving their
parole that they would not again serve against the government
of the Republic. Among them were two of Gen. Paez's sons !
The General himself was during the whole of this time at Cu-
racoa, with his friend Quintero, quietly watching the course of
events. On the 21st of June an attempt was made to assassinate the
President. A party of men, instigated by and belonging to the
Oligarchical party, came from Chaguaramas, rode up, favored by
the darkness of the night, to the President's residence, and at
tacked the guard, attempting to force their way into the house,
crying " Muera Monagas!" Fortunately, at the very onset
the horse of the leader of this party, Belisario, was shot down,
and the confusion occasioned by this gave the guards time to
rally to the defence of their general. The assassins were in
stantly repulsed and took to flight. On the 22d the towns of
Guarenas, Santa Lucia, Calabozo, with others of minor import
ance, took up arms against the government, imagining that the
President had fallen a victim to this treacherous plot, and show
ing clearly that the whole affair had been regularly- combined
and organized. Had any one in Venezuela before doubted the
popularity of Monagas, he would at once have been undeceived,
for the whole population of Caracas spontaneously rushed to

51
his defence. Addresses of congratulation from all the provinces
were also sent to the government house.
In the month of July, 1849, Paez resolved on again trying
his fortune on the soil of Venezuela. He landed at Coro,
where his adherents raised about 1,200 men, surprised the
authorities and took the town, and then advanced into the in
terior of the country, spreading desolation wherever he passed.
The country people fled at his approach, till at last they as
sembled in numbers, arming themselves as they, could, and
together with the militia surrounded him in a place called
Campo Monagas, where, finding his position desperate, he sur
rendered at discretion, throwing himself upon the clemency of
the government.* Paez was taken to Caracas, where the Presi
dent, with the consent of the Council of Government — the
Congress not being then in session — instead of handing him
over to the regular tribunals to be tried for treason, granted him
an amnesty ; but for the security and tranquillity of the Repub
lic, exiled him from its territory. In the mean time addresses
poured in from the provinces urging the government to allow
Paez to be tried by the common tribunals — not as a conspira
tor merely, but for the excesses, murders, incendiarisms, and
rapine alleged to have been committed by him and his follow
ers during his last expedition. The President fearing some
outbreak of the people, who, stirred up by all these addresses,
might have been led into some excesses fatal to Paez, had him
removed from Caracas to the castle of San Antonio in Cumana,
where he remained until the Congress of the Republic passed
a decree banishing him for ever from the territory of Venezuela.
He proceeded to the island of St. Thomas, and thence found
his way to New York, by way of Philadelphia.
Among the officers who surrendered at Campo Monagas were
many of those who had been taken at San Carlos de Zulia, and
liberated on their parole. In most countries- such a breach of
* See Appendix B.

52
faith would have been punished with death; but Monagas,
true to the principles which he had adopted on assuming the
reins of government, merely exiled the most prominent among
them. During the whole of his presidency there has not been
a single execution throughout Venezuela for political offences.
The two following papers are extracted from an answer
written by Mr. Acevedo in 1849, to some observations which
had appeared in a paper called " El Revisor," in Curacoa.
They will be read with interest, as they give a succinct review
of the career of both Generals Monagas and Paez. From them
the people of the United States will be able to form an opinion
of the character of the two men who have been so prominent
in the affairs of Venezuela.

MONAGAS.

However little the editor of the Revisor may know of the
revolution which secured the independence of Venezuela, he
ought to know in what manner, and by what honorable and
imperishable titles, the name of General Jose Tadeo Monagas
has been inscribed in the annals of our country. His life con
sidered in every point of view up to the year 1831, is shielded
from every species of attack; immaculate patriotism, approved
valor, firm and intrepid character, unshakable morality, and
important services not- only to the cause of liberty and indepen
dence, but to that of order ; such are the principal features in his
biography to that period, and for these he deserved to be gra
dually elevated to the highest rank which he obtained in the
militia. . From that time until 1847, he held no public office,
but lived in retirement, giving examples of morality, laborious-
ness and probity. In 1831, he for a few months was at the
head of an insurrection, and in 1835 of another. Paez also ac-

53
cases him of treason in the exercise of his presidential powers.
I will take a rapid survey of these charges, in order to enter
duly into the discussion.
It is known that there existed a Republic of Colombia, which
in 1829 was presided over by the Liberator, Simon Bolivar,
that Venezuela commenced a revolution headed by Paez, to
ward the end of that year and the beginning of 1830, to dis-
acknowledge the Liberator, and separate herself from Colombia,
and that at the end of the latter year was promulgated the con
stitution, which was the product of that revolution. A revo
lution and a constitution are not slight matters, and men like
General Monagas, who had labored to found themselves a coun
try, who were really grateful to Bolivar, who had sworn to
support Colombia, and who were enchanted with her, are in no
way culpable, because they could not at once cast from them all
these noble feelings. Venezuela was alarmed at the idea of
the establishment of a monarchy, and tore asunder the great
Republic, the constituent Assembly consummating the work,
by banishing Bolivar. Many men recovered from this first
Stupor. Bolivar caused his voice to be heard throughout Vene
zuela, and half the country repented of their levity and the
measures whieh had been taken, and thought of once more
submitting to Bolivar. General Monagas refused to take the
oaths to the new constitution, and placed himself at the head
of the party who opposed it. Was not such conduct highly
noble and praiseworthy ? Had not Bolivar died, the constitu
tion of Venezuela would indubitably have ceased to exist, for
the reaction was tremendous ; but he expired while it was be
ing organized, and as soon as General Monagas was conwnced
of the truth of this fact, he believed that the re-organization of
Colombia was impossible, and thought only of the means by
which he could honorably withdraw from so critical a position.
The Revisor says that Paez conquered him, but I cannot com
prehend how there could be a conquest where there was no
struggle, combat, battle, contention, skirmish, nor anything of

54
that nature. On the contrary, it is proved that many of the
military men who had accompanied him, were of the same opin
ion with himself, because they submitted in the Valley of La
Pascua without a combat, and one of them was the valiant An
tonio Belisario, whom Paez has just caused to be killed, so
wickedly in Maracaibo, and this Belisario with all the cantons
of Chaguaramas were then following General Monagas. The
latter, who had entertained no personal or anti-patriotic views in
the movement he had made, and who was convinced he could
no longer effect the good to which he had aspired, would not
allow Venezuelan blood to be shed on his account, and obliged
all his companions in arms to submit. Paez pardoned him be
cause he could not, nor ought not to have acted otherwise, and
Monagas and all the Republic were convinced of this. What
then was condemnable or reproachable in the conduct of Gene
ral Monagas in all this matter ?
And now to 1835. It was not General Monagas who caused
the insurrection of that year, and it is proved that he adopted
it as the only means of saving the Republic, which he believed
would otherwise be lost. Maracaibo, Caracas, Valencia,
Puerto-Cabello, Cumana and Barcelona, took the initiative in
this movement before Aragua where General Monagas resided,
and at the end of July 1835, the General was intimately con
vinced that the great majority of the whole of the Republic
had the same feeling. From the same principle and against all
that he most loved, he had in the early part of 1830, joined in
the revolution of Venezuela against Colombia and the Libera
tor ; and then it was that being undeceived and perceiving his
error he remained in arms only three months and some days,
the time which was indispensably necessary to persuade him
self that the great majority of Venezuela did not desire to change
her institutions.
Paez well knows that had General Monagas chosen to con
tinue in arms, it would not have been very easy, and perhaps
impossible to overcome him, that much blood would have been

55
shed, and that the Republic would have suffered incalculable
evils ; and he knows also that it was a highly patriotic feeling
which determined General Monagas to compel his companions,
for the second time, to lay down their arms without a combat.
From that time until 1846, General Monagas continued to
lead his usual life of a laborious and pacific citizen, giving to
Paez an example of circumspection and obedience, which a
man of his character and circumstances ought to observe. In
1846 the Republic was no longer that which Paez had govern
ed so many years, and it was clearly evident that a new epoch
was about to commence. They sought the man necessary to
the times, and this man, by Paez's own confession, was Gene
ral Monagas. I remember holding a conference with him at
Artiz, in ihe month of October of that year, at which he said
to me, " Some people are thinking of Salom, but what contin
gent aid can he bring with him to the Presidency ? Monagas
brings his great party in the east, a partyt whose concurrence it
is necessary to obtain, under present circumstances, for the salva
tion of the Republic.
Therefore the error of Paez was not in thinking of Monagas ;
because he who has so many reasons for well knowing Vene
zuela, independently of his ulterior intention, thought that the
election of Monagas was a necessary election, and I for my
part declare that I so considered it. Had Paez continued thus
to think without allowing himself to be led away by the adula
tion of flatterers and his own ambition, the Republic would have
remained tranquil, the presidency of General Monagas would
have produced lasting advantages, and a great part of the credit
thus obtained would have been apportioned to Paez. The
error Paez committed was in believing that because he had
been the instrument by which the amnesties of 1831 and 1835
had been granted to Monagas, the latter would have made
himself subordinate to him in the presidency. Up to that time
he had not received from General Salom even a friendly look,

56
and there was nothing to authorize him to infer that the said
General would be more condescending towards him than
General Monagas. I, who believe I know somewhat of the
feelings of Paez, had formed an opinion that between Salom and
Monagas, Paez would decide for the latter ; and in this I was
not mistaken. Many were the efforts made by Quintero to
wean Paez froin this determination ; but he could not succeed
in doing so, and from no other reason than that which I have
just explained. And in fact, in this Paez did not deceive him
self : if he had always followed his own instincts he would at
this time be in a very different position. Had General Salom
succeeded in obtaining the presidency, he would not, as General
Monagas did, have shown him such a mark of deference as
that of appointing such a ministry as he did at the onset. The
Guzman question would have been brought forward, and
General Salom would never have consented to become the in
strument of his own dishonor by ordering Guzman to be shot,
and after that things would have taken the same course as
under the presidency of Monagas. All these conjectures are
founded on the most solid basis which under the circumstances
can be advanced ; and I can appeal to the events which have
occurred, should any proof of their correctness be deemed ne
cessary. The charge of treachery against Monagas, is founded by Paez,
in the first place, on his not having governed the country with
the men and in accordance with the doctrines of the party who
had raised him to the presidency ; and, secondly, on his being
the author of the attack on the Chamber of Representatives, on
the 24th of January, 1848. Upon this ground, and in the
legal sense which is alone admissible with regard to the first
charge, it cannot be said that General Monagas is a traitor be
cause he did not govern with the men and according to the
doctrines of that party ; but I maintain that neither in the po
litical republican electioneering sense can such a charge be

57
brought against General Monagas, and that if he did not carry
on his government with the men and according to the doctrines
of the party who principally decided his election, the fault was
that of the party, and not of General Monagas.
I have the conviction that the conduct of the liberal party
up to the end of 1846, was the cause that General Monagas,
when he ascended the presidential chair, entertained unfavor
able impressions towards that party ; but notwithstanding, well
disposed and prepared to bring about a peace between the
parties, and thus give tranquillity to the Republic. He found
it ripe for civil War, devoured by fierce hatreds and furious
passions, in consternation at the imprisonment and trials of
hundreds of its citizens, and afflicted by the sufferings of all the
working classes and the critical position of the public treasury ;
it cannot be supposed that the idea could ever have occurred
to him of breaking off with the party which had raised him to
power ; for, supposing it to be rational, he also supposed it to
be just and moderate. But what was his astonishment when
he perceived the excited state of their minds, the violent irrita
tion of their passions, the exaggeration of their pretensions, the
intolerance of their ideas, the extravagance of their projects !
In the liberal party he certainly met with nothing of this nature ;
the liberal party knew its own position, which ought to be that
of supplicants, and for that reason mild, gentle, tolerant, and
very limited in its pretensions. It mattered little to it whether
the oligarchical party continued to govern the country, provided
that the candidate it had brought forward for the presidency in
opposition to General Monagas, should be saved from death ;
that the sufferings of those who had compromised themselves
in a revolution, of which not the whole party had approved,
should be alleviated ; and that guarantees should be given to
them that they should be considered (as they did in fact,) as
composing four-fifths of the Republic. But the directors of the
oligarchical party did not think that proceeding in such a man-

58
ner would be in the least degree fitting. No : they spoke only
of the death of Guzman as being necessary to the existence of
the Republic ; of punishing those who had been implicated in
the revolution ; of diminishing the right of suffrage ; of a species
of militia which being exclusively subjected to the command
of Paez, should render even the Executive Power subordinate
to him. The men were not to be taken from every class, but
selected from among those who were the most furious against
the liberals ; and the latter were to be treated in all and every •¦
thing with harshness and disdain, and as being capable of every
evil action. In a word, the directors of the oligarchical party
strove to introduce in legislative and administrative measures,
a system of violence, terror and partiality, making the first
magistrate of the State an instrument of their passions and their
revenge, plunging him into a tortuous career which could con
duct him only to ignominy or to despotism. This is a slight
sketch of what presented itself to the view of General Monagas
during the first three months of his administration.
Such exaggerated and irrational pretensions, caused him in
the first instance to vacillate, and as at the same time he was
becoming duly informed of the increase and number of the
liberal party, and of the justice and moderation of their de
mands, the conclusion which such a man would come to who
desired the welfare of the Republic, was perfectly natural and
logical, namely : to render himself independent of the oligarchical
party, and act with justice. Could they be called doctrines,
those which that party wished to pursue ? Could the men
who formed that party inspire him with confidence ?
General Monagas did therefore render himself independent of
it, in the first place by ridding himself of the ministry which had
been formed entirely to the taste of Paez, and determined to
govern thenceforth of himself ; but very shortly afterwards, and
even before the commutation of Guzman's sentence, he found
that those disappointed passions would be directed and with all

59
their virulence against him ; that those men aspired at nothing
less than domineering over the Republic, be it by what means
it might, that they wpuld not be satisfied with half measures,
that all his political creed was to be reduced to them and to
their purposes, and that all he might do, which could be con
sidered in accordance with the sentiments of these frenetics,
would produce no other effect than that of weakening the faith
and dampening the enthusiasm of the liberal party which could
be opposed to them, and induce them to laugh at and deride his
blindness and his condescension. He therefore determined on
obtaining the support of the men and doctrines of the liberal
party, and thus has been explained and justified the whole of
the conduct of General Monagas, in 1847. Many, many are the
facts which might be cited in proof of what I have here stated,
but should this be required of me, I would appeal only to the
columns of uLa Prensa" and " ElEspectador," which were the
periodicals that served as organs to the oligarchists to color their
projects and to unite their party.
They from the first moment spoke only of the treason of the
President, of the necessity for his accusation and deposition, of
the organization of their party into a faction with a man at its
head whom they would erect into a 'principle, and of the pos
sibility of doing all they might think fit, calculating, as they did
calculate, on positive majorities in both chambers. Many of
the principal movers who thus spoke out and plotted, were
Members of Congress, and they were so bitter in their expres
sions, so exaggerated in their ideas, so confident in their chief,
that it was impossible not to» be convinced from their whole
conduct that they were resolved to act as a faction which only
desired to find a pretext, be it what it might, for Paez to take
up arms. Could the President, could the nation, view such
conduct in any other light than as that of a. faction 1 And could
the President fail to adopt such measures as those within his
power, that they might see, should they continue in this
course, the impossibility of carrying their projects into effect ?

60
The President of the Republic could not, without disgrace to
his own reputation, and without degrading the power which
the nation had confided to him, submit to the conditions whieh
a party that had so conducted itself, insisted on dictating to
him ; this, indeed, Would have been treason, and in the very
fact a real change in the institutions, which from that moment
would have ceased to exist, substituting for them the will of a
few men with a military chief at their head ; and to nothing less
did they aspire. This is the truth in all its purity ; the nation
saw it, even the dullest comprehended it, and now they come to
us with their stupidities, insisting that the Representatives had
the right to judge the President, and that it was a crime to
prevent them doing whatever they might please to do. The
Representatives who wish to enjoy such a right, and to use it
as the constitution has ordained and the nation desires, the
Representatives who would not see such acts as that of the
24th of January, begin by saying to themselves, that they do
not represent a party, much less the passions and exaggerations
of such a party ; they are the first to call to order those who
have anti-constitutional pretences, and never declare them
selves the personal enemies of the President, nor organize
themselves into a faction, uniting with a military chief to real
ize his plans. The members of this faction remember no other
action than that of the 24th of January, and forget all that pre
ceded it and co-existed with it. If the leaders of the party
who organized the plans which were defeated by the 24th of
January, had known what it is to govern, to legislate, and duly
exercise the elevated functions of representatives of the peo
ple, they never would have consented to allow the press, the opin
ions they themselves uttered and the policy they attempted to
inculcate, to have taken so virulent, insulting, vulgar, im
moderately partial and factious a direction as was observed in
almost all their actions, writings and conversations of the year
1847 ; for they ought to have remembered that such proceedings

61
had been reviled by them during the preceding sixteen years,
and that they were irremediably conducive to civil war, that no
party capable of governing upon principle either could or ought to
give such a direction to its policy ; for, as El Revisor says, It
is natural that tow should burn when fire is thrown into the midst
of it. This fact reveals with the clearness of the mid-day sun,
that the said leaders wished for war as the last resource which
they could efficaciously employ to recover their lost power,
calculating on the prestige and qualities they supposed
their chief to possess, and on the abuse which they in
tended to make of the rights conferred on representatives by
the constitution. The leaders and many of the second order
said publicly, that what was most necessary to them was some
means of placing arms in the hands of Paez, that to attain this
end all means were good, and that the decision once left to
the fate of war their triumph was certain and indubitable, for
the people of Venezuela could be driven with whips. They
could not have found a pretext more to their taste for declar
ing such a war, than the event of the 24th of January ; and
what has been the result to them ? Will they deny that the
President might have placed fifty thousand men under arms, if
he had had sufficient arms, and had believed it to be necessary?
When was it ever seen in Venezuela, that thousands of men
presented themselves to go forth to combat, as was the case
after the 24th of January ? And does not all this reveal the
conviction which the people felt of the reality of the libertici-
dal plans of the oligarchists against the President and the con
stitution ? Why, then, should they be astounded at'the event
of the 24th of January and all that followed it ? Did they not
ask for war ?
Clearly, most clearly could it be foreseen from the month of
May, 1847, what must necessarily occur in 1848 ; and the 24th
of January was nothing more than one of a hundred means of
outbreak which must ensue between the parties, and assuredly

62
they could not have found a more suitable one ; and yet it has
been said, and repeated in a thousand different ways, that the
deed of the 24th of January was not that of the people of Ca
racas, but of the reserved militia, armed and commanded by the
President, who had previously disarmed the active militia. Let
us examine this.
Much importance has been given by Paez and his party to
this fact of disarming' the active militia, which they say was
composed of the better class of society, of men of the greatest
morality and education, who had more to lose, &c. &c, but
they do not say of this militia that there were not in the whole
of the Republic, and this in the capitals of provinces and some
few cantons, more than five thousand men, the major part in
capable of serving in the field ; that two-thirds of this militia
composed the real and only oligarchist party, and that it was
the most palpable testimony which could be given that society
was divided into a dominant and a subjected class ; they do not
remember that some of the active militia were the principal
agents of the plots against the government, of the provocation
to war, and they do not deduce from this that to leave them
armed would have been rendering the war much more san
guinary and disastrous. This party who wished to lead mat
ters to arbitrariment, by means of war, ought to have foreseen,
that the Government which defended the institutions against
whoever might attack them, would not leave arms in their
hands in order that the struggle might be so much the more
deadly. The President therefore disarmed them, but only in part,
for many of them did not deliver up their muskets, he did
this not to sacrifice them, but only to render them obedient ; he
disarmed them for the same reason that you would deprive a
child or a mad person of a poniard, a razor, or a pistol ; and if
the active militia found therhselves without Government arms
on the 24th of January, it was from their own fault, it was for

63
the welfare of the capital, it was to see whether the conspira
tors would desist from their liberticidal plans. These militia
men composed but a minute portion (about five hundred) of
the population, and a government, above all a republican one,
relies only on the majority. Therefore, the charge brought
against the President is of no weight in this respect.
By the militia law every Venezuelan between the age of
nineteen and forty-one years is liable to be enlisted, and as
the qualifications required for an active militia-man are rare ;
it is indubitable that the reserve militia is composed of what
may be properly called the people, (artisans, workmen, agri
culturists,) and it is known that in Caracas there are more
than five thousand of the latter militia. In consequence of the
Chamber having decreed that it should have a guard, thereby
committing a serious abuse of its power, about three hun
dred men assembled in the edifice, in which the Congress
held its sittings, completely armed, and no government in the
world could have viewed such an assemblage otherwise than as
an armed faction ready to strike a blow. Notwithstanding this
General Monagas and the administration on that night (23d
January) avoided coming to a rupture ; however, they desired,
and it was their duty to desire it, that the Government should
appear prepared and capable of preventing any attack what
soever, and it was with this motive that the Governor called
into service a small portion of the militia of the capital ; those
from Petare and other places in the immediate vicinity came
in spontaneously, on receiving the alarming news of what had
happened on the night of the 23d. If the leaders of the insur
gents had not been so blind and so much implicated, they would
have perfectly understood from the appearance of the streets,
and the expression of the features of the people, that the gen
eral feeling condemned their criminal attempts ; but I have
already said that all they were seeking for was an open rup
ture, and far from being forewarned by what they saw, they
only panted for the moment of attack. If such were the

64
thoughts of men who called themselves intelligent, and said
they had something to lose, and were the elite of society,
what must those have thought who were insulted by being ac
cused of being deficient in these qualifications ! And then why
accuse the President as being the author of the feelings and
actions of the people ? The fact is, that with the exception of*
the houses of the oligarchists, there was not one in Caracas,
or the environs, the inhabitants of which did not desire the
total destruction of the men who had placed the community in
such a state. In the park there were not muskets enough for
even a third part of the people who assembled in the neigh
borhood of the church of San Francisco, all armed with every
description of weapons, their own property ; and if it be cer
tain that the first attack made upon the guard of the Chamber
was by a company armed with muskets, and a group of the
people, it is so likewise that more than three thousand men,
who were not at that time formed into companies, nor had
they muskets, hastened to support their companions ; and that
the companies who were regularly armed were occupied in re
straining the general irritation of the people and in saving those
very conspiring representatives ; the small number of deaths
which ensued can only be explained in this way. General Mona-'
gas observed the lowering of the storm, and he believed that the
best mode of averting it, or of rendering it less destructive, was
to organize the reserved militia and to keep it ready to act and
in good subordination ; I also thought so, and the result has
proved it. But these men have pretended that the militia
should have fired upon the people and that it was the duty
of the President to have died defending the representatives !
Facetious fools ! they had been provoking the people to open
war, had wished to shoot the President, and then they
attribute the fury of the people to the President, and they
demand that the latter should go forth and fire upon the
people, get himself killed and endanger all society to save them
from the peril which they themselves had sought ! Facetious

65
fools ! In what country in the world could things have been
combined as they had been in this instance by the oligarchists
without producing, precisely the same results ? Has not the
Revisor told us that tow will burn when fire is thrown into the
midst of it ? Men only who could have been blind enough not
to see that they were provoking one-tenth of the population to
combat with the other nine-tenths, and who could conceive
that such a war was the best that could be undertaken for the
welfare of the country, only such men, I say, could have doubt
ed that they were bringing on themselves the. whole mass of
the people from the very moment that they commenced their
liberticidal operations ; and then, to vent their impotent rage,
they attribute to the President that which they had themselves
provoked, or it may be said, actually organized. The Presi
dent's only exertion was to moderate the ardor of the people,
to inspire them with confidence in themselves, and in the mea
sures of the administration, that they might not give loose to
their exasperation, that they might listen to him, and in their
turn confide in the President ; there was no need for organiz
ing, for commanding, nor for preparing any thing against the
Congress. Some representatives knew that they were in
deadly combat with the entire, compact, and alarmed mass of
the population, and they made a boast of despising them ; the
moment of the struggle was sure to arrive, this they knew also,
and desired it ; and the worst step which the President could
have taken would have been to have rushed forward to restrain
by force or violence the popular torrent Unhappy Venezu
ela, had such an event occurred ! The fact that a company,
armed with muskets, was the first to come to blows with the
Guard of the Chambers, does not prove that it was commanded,
or in any way instigated by the President so to do. If this
company had not done it, any of those who had been called
out to guarantee society from anarchy, and against the criminal
attempts of the faction, would have effected it. That company
acted as any other, as the entire mass of the population, guided
5

66
by its own instincts, and for its own security, would have done.
To such a pass had the leaders of the oligarchists conducted mat
ters. And with what reason do they now come forward to bring
charges against the President ? Let them bring them against
themselves, and bear the penalty of their madness and their
blind passions.
To sum up what is herein stated, it has been proved to de
monstration to every man who is capable of reflection, that the
President took no aggressive part in the event of the 24th of
January, and forthe following reasons : first, the facts would of
themselves indicate that had the President taken any part in
the attack upon the Congress,' it would have been for the pur
pose of intimidating it, since he himself and his friends saved
the lives of many of the representatives, and even those of the
most bloodthirsty personal enemies of the President ; more
over, this same effect would have been produced by his merely
allowing, on the night of the 23d, the ejection by force of the
armed men who had assembled in the chambers of the Congress ;
the act would have been legal, perfectly legal, the Congress
would not have appeared to have been attacked, and it would
nevertheless have been intimidated ; but as the President had
no design either to attack or to intimidate, he that night re
strained the ardor of the people, thus fulfilling what he consi
dered to be his duty : but unfortunately the very fact of his
having succeeded on that night, demonstrated to the people
that they would be compelled to disobey the President if they
wished to prevent the conspirators from carrying their projects
into effect, which projects were not solely directed against the
President, but principally against the people and liberal institu
tions ; secondly, it is a certain fact that the idea of re-assemb
ling the Congress on the 25th was posterior to the event of the
24th ; therefore the administration had no plan of attack against
the Congress, because it is not to be conceived how it could
have organized an attack to dissolve it, without having calculat-

67
ed what would have to be done subsequently ; thirdly, if
there had been any plan, the getting rid of the personal enemies
of the President would doubtless have formed part of it, and yet
they were precisely these very persons whom he and his friends
saved ; fourthly and lastly, why impute to the President a feel
ing which these very oligarchists confess was imbued in the
souls of the whole mass of the people ? Merely because many
of those who assisted in the attack had muskets. And had not
the House of Representatives its own guard amounting to about
three hundred men, all armed in absolute violation of the law ?
and did not this same guard fire on the people and kill two cit
izens ? and was it not clearly ascertained that the House of Rep
resentatives had been converted into a regular magazine of
arms ?

PAEZ.

Every time that the idea of Paez, and of his rebellion, rises to
my recollection, my spirit suffers an inexpressible grief; for from
the year 1831, I was the sincere friend of that man, notwith-
ing his defects — I long considered him a monument of civic
glory to my country, and had hoped that his name would have
passed down to posterity as that of the founder of civil liberty
in Venezuela. Sometimes I had to suffer for what I had ven
tured to write to him, telling him that which I believed to be
the truth under various circumstances ; but of this I never re
pented, for he, being animated by patriotic spirit, knew how to
give to my words the real meaning they contained ; frank,
though perhaps not agreeable, but still friendly and patriotic. But
unfortunately, a man of violent character succeeded in acquir
ing so paramount an influence over the mind of Paez, that he be
came deaf to every species of argument, and incapable of pro-

68
moting any other ideas than those which were in perfect accor
dance with the views of his Mentor. The rebellion of Paez
against the Republic which he had aided to create, against the
institutions he had aided to establish, has torn asunder the tie
which bound us to each other ; and his proclamations and pub
lications in defence of his own conduct, and against the Presi
dent of the Republic and the administration of which I formed
a part, authorize me to consider him as the most terrible pub
lic enemy that Venezuela has yet had, and to treat him with
out any sort of consideration. With painful feelings, therefore,
but thereunto constrained by one of the most sacred duties
which a public man can have to fulfill, I am about to expose, as
far as in me lies, his criminal tendencies : my country alone
will be the gainer in so painful a contention, but that suffices.
I know that there exist several historical relations written
by highly respectable persons, in which will, at some period, be
published the truth with regard to the history of Paez from the
year 1815 to 1821. They are so characteristic that they will
indubitably meet credence with posterity with regard to many
atrocious and in every way unjustifiable acts, of which he had
long been silently accused, but which within the few last years
have been published by the press. I shall abstain from offer
ing any opinion upon them. He well knew the opinion which
had been formed of him, but believing himself to be a man
absolutely necessary to the country, he constituted himself that
haughty and overbearing chief, who did whatever he thought fit
in Venezuela from 1821 to 1829. A thorough soldier, though
an ignorant and spoiled child of fortune, he was feared by all
honest and peaceable citizens ; and anecdotes of his scanda
lously licentious conduct, and his tyrannical domination, may be
referred to by dozens. Men of profligate character and capa
ble of every sort of crime, were the chosen friends of Paez ;
while men of letters, of education and of good morals, if he
did not keep at a distance from them, he looked upon
with mistrust and ridicule, when he did not compel them to

69
suffer his disdain and sometimes harsher treatment. I shall
during my whole life remember a meeting which I had, with
one of the most respectable members of our society, in the
corridors of the University at Caracas on the 27th„of Novem
ber, 1829, the day after the people of that capital had sanc
tioned the separation of Venezuela from the Republic of
Colombia, and the disacknowledgment of the authority of the
Liberator. That patriotic man, gifted with extraordinary fore
sight, who knew that I was a partisan of Bolivar, looked
gloomily when he heard that I had taken a part in the revolu
tion, and not being able or not being willing to enter into a dis
cussion with me upon the reasons which I had alleged to justify
my conduct, would make me no other reply to all I said to
him, and alluding to Bolivar and Paez, but this, " Be assured,
my friend, you are escaping from Scylla to run upon Charyb-
dis." Such was the opinion which was formed of Paez at
that time by all good men in Venezuela. His whole conduct
and his public acts were the foundations for this opinion. His
well known ignorance, even as to the simplest ideas necessary
to direct the conduct of a public man, was not solely what
might have been objected to in him, but his unwillingness to
subject himself to all civil or moral rules, and his evident ten
dency to organize a military oligarchy, so much the more
tyrannical, because merit was no consideration in the selection
of the men who were destined to oppress the country. If the
correctness of this sketch of his character be denied I will
refer to the inextinguishable records of his acts during that
period, and I am certain of confounding any one who should
attempt to contradict me. Many times has the charge been
brought against him, that he was the cause of the destruction
of Colombia, by his abominable and unjustifiable military revo
lution of the 30th of April, 1826, but I would not bring such
a charge against him, (because, in my opinion, Venezuela could
never have been happy under that mode of government,)

70
excepting to make him morally responsible for the tendency to
revolutions, which since that time has been observed among us,
and from the example given by Paez on that occasion ; had he
given that of obedience to the government, Venezuela would
probably this day have been tranquil and happy, having in the
mean time succeeded in obtaining a better system of govern
ment by the legal means so clearly pointed out by the Consti
tution of Cucuta. The example of the revolution of 1826
was most direful, and it is, perhaps, the real origin of all our
evils; Notwithstanding all this, Venezuela confided her destiny to
Paez when she separated from Colombia ; but she was no*
guided by the same feeling which induced the American Con
gress on the 15th of June, 1775, to nominate Washington to
direct the fate of the Union. The reasons which induced
Venezuela to confide in him were the same which had led the
Liberator to flatter Paez as he had flattered him, and they
are, in brief, the following : First : a revolution which
might bring about a war required a chief, and the one
who could assemble round him the most material elements
for this purpose was Paez. Secondly ': the greater portion of
the military then in Venezuela had been accustomed not to
acknowledge any other rule of conduct than the will of Paez,
and it was necessary that he should take the charge of bringing
those men back to order whom he had himself taught to live in
disorder. Thirdly : the question was to insure the success o*
the revolution, and all those who knew the character and ten
dencies of Paez, very logically deduced that if Paez were not
intrusted with the direction of the revolution, the lightest
treachery he could commit would be to deliver up all the
leaders in it to General Bolivar, against whom it was
directed.* Fourthly : supposing even that the Liberator would
* It is publicly known that there is an officer of high rank in the militia
now in Venezuela, who received from Paez the commission to go to Bolivar
and offer to deliver up the Republic to him; and that when this officer
arrived in Curagoa he there received the news of the Liberator's death-
History will clearly demonstrate this fact.

71
have allowed Venezuela to remain in peace, and had no desire
to interfere in its organization, every Venezuelan felt assured
that Paez would not submit to any other chief, nor to any
authority, and that if with him at their head they could not
succeed in forming a civil organization, with no other could it
be attempted without exposing us to a sanguinary civil war,
which might lead- by its results to a military despotism ; in a
word, it was a physical impossibility to think of confiding the
revolution of Venezuela to any other person'^vithout endanger
ing its ultimate success ; and as, on the other side, the prin--
cipal leaders in it felt assured in their own minds that when
the time should arrive they could compel the chief to act
according to their will, they did not hesitate to elect him.
And what had been feared did actually take place. The
constituent assembly being installed, with one hand offered its
support to Paez, that he might continue to direct the fate of
Venezuela ; but with the other it was compelled to keep on
him a tight rein, to make Paez remain in the path which Ven
ezuela required that he should follow. Fortunately there were
three potent reasons for his not becoming unmanageable. ' The
first, the character of the majority of the Congress and its in
fluence in the Republic ; the second, the existence of Bolivar
and his party ; and the third, his hope that he should continue
in command. But for this conjunction of circumstances, it is
evident to all who know the history of the constituent assem
bly and who then knew Paez, that it could not be affirmed
that he would have supported the deliberations of that body .
If there was some patriotism in his conduct at that period, it is
certain that fear and hope were the prominent springs which
operated upon his mind. Notwithstanding this, I will not de
spoil him of the merit which he then and has since acquired,
however interested may have been his motives. But I feel
authorized to say, casting a glance over the whole of his con
duct, that he inwardly resolved as a condition of the sacrifice
he made, that his will was always to weigh in the scales of gov-

72
ernment as much as he might consider proper to make it weigh ;
and this sole truth, which it may be said is now an historical
fact sufficiently well proved, the world will say annuls and
destroys the glory or honor by which those services were to be
repaid, and which he has in fact cancelled by the miseries he
has heaped upon the country.
I will in this place repeat what I said in my short answer to
the Manifesto of Paez, because I am resolved on sustaining
all that is asserted in it. That is to say : " that Paez having
been the real cause of the destruction of Colombia, he did not
willingly enter into the path of civil order which Venezuela had
traced out for herself in 1830. He did not rise up against the
constituent assembly; because by doing so he would have been
a lost man. Quintero himself knows this, and he knows also
what it cost in March 1831 to oblige him to go out to take the
command of the army on that occasion, because he pretended
that the privileges of the military should be restored. His anti-
constitutional communications still exist, and many men are
still existing, who with Quintero proposed to enter into a federal
union with Colombia in order to restrain Paez, and it was on
seeing such measures about to be taken that Paez submitted.
It is also well known throughout Venezuela what was the
conduct of Paez with regard to the President of the Republic,
Doctor Jose Vargas, in 1835 and 1836. We know that this
virtuous man has written historical notes on the times of his
Presidency, and in them it will appear that Paez in a thousand
tortuous ways, showed himself to be a disloyal soldier who
sought only his own glory at the cost of the republic and of the
man whom he had called his friend. Dr. Vargas was obliged t°
renounce the Presidency, and his adopting that resolution may
chiefly be attributed to the manner in which Paez conducted
himself towards him. Even Soublette, during the two terms
in which he exercised the Executive Power, had to suffer from
the conduct of Paez, although he did nothing without consult-

73
ing him. If the friends of Soublette would but tell the truth,
they would say how much he bewailed being President, sub
jected thus to Paez. These are truths with the details of which
every one is not acquainted, but which history will reveal with
all their disgraceful particulars, and this at no very distant date.
In the meanwhile, they will serve to strip off the hypocritical
mask from the man who has pretended to domineer over the
whole of the Presidents of Venezuela, and because he could
not succeed in doing so with Monagas, organized a faction to
overthrow him, implicating in his crime many Representatives,
and thus affording the public scandal of a chamber of conspira
tors. Paez, therefore, is the real cause of the death of several
Representatives, and their blood will cover him with opprobrium
instead of justifying his rebellion.

The following article is extracted from a late Caracas paper,
and as it is on a subject which has given rise to much misrepre
sentation we think it right to lay it before the public of the
United States. 
A great deal has been said as to the tendency of military men
in Venezuela to establish a military government. It is not,
however just, after they have given proofs of so many virtues
and of such submission to the legitimate Government that ten
dencies should be imputed to them so utterly at variance with
the principles they profess.
Is it requisite to offer a practical and incontestable argument
against this loudly trumpeted military propensity, and which it
has been falsely said is cherished by our old epaulettes ? Well
,then we will do so. In 1830 the Republic was declared to be
in assembly, a respectable portion of the army was under arms,
the Liberator was shining resplendently in front of troops inured
to war and who had frequently been conquerors ; a military
government was at that time necessary to a certain extent and
nothing could have been more easy than to have established it
And what was the result ? That these same military men wish
ing for a more permanent state of things, labored to obtain a

74
popular and liberal compact, decreed the disarming of the troops,
gave up their privileges, and with satisfaction returned once
more to mingle with the people whom they had liberated.
Fourteen of our old soldiers with their own hands signed the
constitution of the State, and the remainder subsequently de
fended it with their blood.
In 1840 the present chief of the Republic called the citizens
to arms ; the people flew to seize them, and twenty thousand
citizens at once lent their aid to the army. Circumstances had
then assumed a solemn aspect and no man in Venezuela had
ever yet attained the prestige which accompanied General Jose
Tadeo Monagas. A single word from him at that moment
would have sufficed to establish the military system ; and yet,
what was the result ? That this same President General un
ceasingly exhorted his troops to show obedience to the laws
and respect to the constituted authorities ; and after having
saved our institutions and re-established the sovereignty of the
popular will, the army was disbanded and that without even
paying the soldiers the arrears that were due to them.
Where then is this military mania with which our faithful
defenders are calumniated when in every circumstance they
have given efficacious proof of their love of constitutional order
and of republican principles ? Where then exists this military
spirit, this spirit of terrorism and oppression, when all the power
that exists among us is in the laws and all our strength is vested
in the popular will ?
But to conclude ; this military spirit is a ridiculous invention
malignantly forged for the purpose of alienating men's minds
from each other and engendering discord between those who
should always be united and compact ; it is an infamous idea
of the opposition by which they attempt to render unpopular the
administration of the patriotic General Monagas ; it is in short
a mine which is to be worked beyond the limits of the Repub
lic, seeking in another zone that which in this cannot be" found.
Our brave military men have been calumniated ; but, we can
repeat in the words of our President in his message,* "such an
atrocious calumny originates only with those who are seeking
to attain objects beyond their strength or their deserts, or with
men who with depraved designs attempt to throw society into
disorder." * See answer to the President's Message, Appendix C.

APPENDIX A.

THE CONGRESS TO THE NATION.
Venezuelans :
The Congress being convinced of the necessity of preserv
ing peace recommended it to the people in its address of the
27th of January. The Congress then expressed the feeling of
the national opinion, and this was aided and sustained by its
will. But some ambitious men, without authority and illegally
concealing the origin and the truth of facts, falsely pretended
to be the supporters of a Constitution which you love, that
they might elevate themselves to the position of arbiters of the
fate of the Republic. Deaf to every feeling of patriotism,
they rushed into a rebellion, confiding more in the prestige of a
man than on the will of the people and the power of its insti
tutions. These insensate men, from whom the nation had
withdrawn its confidence, preferred, rather than lose their
power, the ruin and desolation of their country.
The people saved their laws : saved their guarantees. One
simultaneous and universal shout of " The Constitution
and Liberty" resounded throughout the whole of the Re
public, and the people spontaneously rushed to arms to sustain
and defend their Government. The power of the national opin
ion displayed itself in the most splendid manner. As soon as
armies were thus improvised to put down the refractory, the
chiefs of the demoralized faction could scarcely manage to
unite, and this by deceit and force, a few followers, and these
quickly abandoned them.
The chief of this faction, the centre of this party, the first
who dared to spill the blood of Venezuelans, received con
dign punishment in the field of " Los Araouatos" from the
hands of those who in other days were witnesses to or com
panions of his glory, when he defended the cause of the peo
ple. The valiant Sons of Apure, commanded by the intrepid
General Jose Cornelio Munoz, on the 10th of March defeat-

76
ed the proud general, who, to his passion for command, had
sacrificed his honor and his country.
Liberty, which was attempted to be destroyed in this age of
democracy and in an American country, triumphed on this
glorious day. The brave General Munoz and his worthy com
panions in arms have served their country with the feeling of
true citizens and the valor of heroes. The nation owes to
them a vote of thanks, and in its name the Congress awards it
to them. '
Venezuelans ! this fratricidal war will soon be terminated,
and Venezuela will once more testify that there is no power
which can overcome institutions supported by the opinion of
the majority of a nation. All that remains to do is that you
should be worthy of the triumph, sacrificing the injuries you
have received on the altar of public welfare. Love of our in
stitutions, respect to the legal authorities, tolerance and frater
nity, will insure to us for ever the precious gifts of peace and
liberty, the sure basis of welfare and national prosperity.
Caracas, 3d April, 1848.
(Signed,) E. A. Hurtado, President of the Senate.
F. Olavarria, President of the Chamber of
Representatives.
J. A. Freyre, Secretary of the Senate.
J. A. Perez, Secretary of the Chamber of
Representatives .

APPENDIX B.

OFFICIAL BULLETIN. NO. 101.

termination of the war.

Republic of Venezuela. Head Quarters in Vallesito, \ith Aug.,
1849.
To the General Commander-in-chief of the Army of Operations
in this Province:
When I arrived on the 1 1th of this month at Las Albahacas,
I was informed that you were in advance of me with troops to
oppose me, and I resolved on writing to you to induce you to

77
terminate the present war by pacific means : but before I could
close my communication, I was attacked, and had to defend
myself. I still entertain the same feelings which I did on the 11th ; feel
ings which I have put in practice all my life, both as a General
in campaign and as President of the Republic. It is my desire
that the present contest should terminate without augmenting
the misfortunes which the country deplores, and I think that
this great object can be attained by your accepting the method
which I have the honor to propose to you through Captain
Jose de Jesus Villasmil.
I send a duplicate of this dispatch by another channel, that
there may be no delay in its arriving at your head-quarters.
I am your obedient servant,
Jos£ Antonio Paez.

Republic of Venezuela. Office of the Commander-in-chief of
Operationsin Carabobo.
Head Quarters in Macapo-abajo, 11th Aug., 1849.
To the General, Secretary of State in the War and Marine De'
partments :
Sir — It is now 12 o'clock, and I have just received from
Sefior Jose Antonio Paez a communication which I enclose,
and to which I replied in the following terms :
"Head Quarters in Macapo, 14th Aug., 1849.
" SeSor Josk Antonio Paez :
" At noon this day I received the note from you dated this
morning in Vallesito, and which was delivered into my hands
by Sefior Jose Jesus de Villasmil, your Commissioner, and I
have also heard what the said gentleman had to say, and in an
swer thereto I have the honor to tell you that I have no orders
from the government to treat ; but for the sake of peace and
to end the war that now desolates our beautiful country, I
agree, as far as regards myself, and lies within the scope of my
faculties, to insure the lives of all those who shall surrender
at discretion. The government is merciful, and will always act
in accordance with the laws."
All which I impart to you for the information of His Excel
lency,^ the Executive Power. I am your obedient servant,
(Signed) Josfe L. Silva.

78
Republic of Venezuela. Office of the Commander-in-chief of
Operations in Carobobo.
Head Quarters in Monagas, 15th of August, 1849.
Sir — I have the honor to enclose the list of the chiefs who
at six o'clock this evening surrendered to the clemency of the
government. It has fallen to my lot to have the honor on this
occasion to represent the government forces.
I shall hereafter transmit to you the list of officers and troops
who have not yet reached the camp : as regards the artillery
and other munitions of war, 1 will send you a note of them as
soon as 1 can get it ; at present I have not time. Jose L. Silva.

List of Chiefs (Superior Officers) who surrendered to the clem
ency of the Government in the field of battle called Monagas.
Generals.
Jose Antonio Paez,
Leon Febres Cordera, Domingo Hernandez.
Colonels.
Jose Escolastico Andrade, Dolores Hernandez,
Alejandro Blanco, Francisco Hernaiz,
Carlos Minchin, Jose Celis,
Joaquin Maria Chacin.
First Commandants.
Manuel Antonio Paez, Eugenio Mendoza,
Juan Antonio Izquierdo, Manuel Maria Martin,
Mariano Ustariz, Pentaleon Rodriguez.
Second Commandants.
Wenceslao BRicEffo, Juan Betancourt,
Leopoldo Telleria, Jose Juan Emazabe,
Ramon Francia.
Vicar General. — Josfc Ayala.
Surgeon in Chief. — Dr. Vicente Linares.
Commissary of War. — Fermin Garcia.
War Auditor. — Dr. Angel Quintero.
A true copy Field of Monagas, 15th August, 1849.
(Signed) Silva.

79

APPENDIX C.

ANSWER
To the Message of the President of the Republic from the Cham
ber of Representatives.
Excellent Sir :
The Chamber of Representatives also offers its thanks to
Heaven for having preserved the life of your Excellency from
the poniard of the assassin. It offers them also with all the
effusion of its gratitude, because it has deigned to grant to
Venezuela the most precious gift its liberal hand could bestow,
peace and general tranquility.
Treachery being encouraged by the internal discord of men's
minds, which some ill-advised men promoted, led on to treason
and disorder ; and the flames of war rapidly burst forth, de
vouring the best hopes of the country ; and yet, neither the
life of your Excellency, nor the liberty of our people could be
destroyed. Providence had decreed that both should be pre
served and both were saved ; the insensate enemies of the
State thus being once more disappointed. This sanguinary
civil dissension being terminated, your Excellency, by display
ing your magnanimity, has raised the national glory; making
Venezuela appear as sbe is, great and generous.
Venezuela will perpetuate her felicity, " after having passed
through all the trials, which were to be feared amid so many
contending interests, so much alarm in the minds of men, so
much anxiety lest the edifice of her public guarantees should
be destroyed," a future full of peace and happiness and concord
awaits her. Vain and impotent will be the endeavors of disor
ganizes, who artfully encouraging injurious rivalties, sowing
the seeds of hatred, and even of sedition ; the people -know
full well that discord is the rock on which the most liberal and
the 'best of institutions are endangered, and that union on the
contrary, stimulating the growth of patriotic virtues, insures
liberty, consolidates peace, gives stable guarantees to industry,
and opens a wide field to the welfare of the whole of the com
munity. With abundant reason does the Chamber lament that a few
ill-advised Venezuelans have undertaken to impute to our faith-

80
ful and intrepid soldiers tendencies which are in opposition with
true republican principles. This is doubtless unjust, that in
reward for their sacrifices and virtues these men should be
calumniated, who have given so many proofs of submission to
the legitimate government, and have evinced such love for the
laws, and to constitutional institutions.
The Chamber of Representatives, animated by a real de
sire to promote the welfare of the people by means of just and
beneficent laws, relies, from this moment, on the firm support
of your Excellency to carry out this work, which is at once
one of earnest will as of duty, hoping that there will hencefor
ward exist between the legislative and executive powers that
great union of national thought manifested in the due ordering
of matters for the true interests of civilization, of liberty and
the progress of the people, for the salutary tendencies of peace,
the regular and tranquil development of regenerative ideas, and
in the alliance of sound principles, the only ones that can lead
society to fulfill the high destiny for which it was established.

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