De Mosqtjera to José Maria Rojas Garrido, June 5, 1866

Message of the Citizen President of the Union.

EXECUTIVE POWER OF THE UNION.

Citizen Senators and Representatives: It is now ten years since I presented to congress, as president of a commission of national credit of both houses, a report sufficiently extensive to prove the necessity of consolidating the public credit, and nothing could be obtained but the authorization which was given to the executive power to regulate the foreign debt, which was accomplished in 1861, when I, as provisional President, ratified the contract celebrated.

The authority I then exercised permitted me to give, on the 9th of September of that year, the fundamental decree of public credit, which, combined with the restoration of the mortmain property, was the most important measure adopted by my administration; and I, recalling what I said to congress as senator, which was the necessity of granting the law of public credit to save the country from bankruptcy, I gave the decree I have mentioned, which has already undergone some blows, and would prove futile if measures inconsistent with the system should be adopted. Therefore, as I said in the report alluded to, laws that disnaturalize documents of public debt are not laws of credit, but of discredit.

Well I knew, citizen senators and representatives, that the conflict in which the republic is found is what prompts the spirit of some senators and representatives to propose the projects which upon this subject flow in the houses. I am not ignorant of your laudable intentions; but not agreeing with your ideas and having the responsibility which the nation has imposed upon me in the public administration, and to report upon the actual situation of affairs of the Union, I see the necessity of giving to. congress a statement of the distressing situation of the country, as well as the laws I need in order to govern, already indicated in my message on the loan which can now be raised in England, in accordance with the law which authorized the executive power, and another ratified this year enumerating the new works which ought to be constructed.

Well could I have ratified that contract and carried it into effect if it had not one clause, the only one that in my conception should be submitted to congress, which is that to obtain the guarantee of the Panama railroad reserves, and the desire to submit to the consideration of Congress the offers of the contractors of the loan to increase it to one million eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. This loan is auxiliatory to the industrial associations and to construct roads and canals. With these foreign capitals, resources will grow which augment national riches, and proportioning at the same time increased interests to the borrowers, and an annual sum toward the liquidation of the principal. Thus is established the fractional credit upon the territorial credit of productive ground. A nation like Colombia, which has no great capital, needs to furnish it with its own credit, and congress has acknowledged the right to give these laws authorizing the executive power to contract loans, not to augment public expenses, diminishing the resources of the people of the country whose government obtains the loan, and this government is found obliged to contract new loans, extinguishing debts whose documents are worth nothing in the market, because the laws of the public credit have not been sustained. The nation has arrived at such a situation that it is necessary to declare bankruptcy or salvation with the only resource which can be presented under these circumstances, to wit: to maintain inviolable the laws of public credit; to approve the article of the contract of the loan upon the hypothecation of the railroad reserves, the only point discussible in the contract, as the rest is in compliance with the law; to authorize the issue of treasury notes to pay the foreign debt which now oppresses the treasury; to meet the ordinary expenses, giving at the same time the power to establish a national bank on the bases indicated in my former message. Then, gentlemen, without investing one dollar of the money of the loan in public expenses, it will be a service to the treasury; it will give force to the public credit; commerce will meet the facility to diminish its obligations and to adjust its capital; roads will be initiated, and finally the completing of the work of national prosperity will be arrived at, with the enterprises of dikes, canals, and railroads. And you, citizen senators and representatives, will be the liberators and saviors of the nation, giving the executive power the elements to regulate finance and national credit. Eight months from to-day you will be reunited to receive the report I must give conformably to article 66 of the constitution, (attribute 17 of the executive power.)

What are, gentlemen eight months in the life of the nation? Nothing; and well can you await my report which I will present then, in order that you may perfect the work which you now commence with the measures I have proposed. The position in which the executive power is found is very painful; the salt mines declining, the products of the emerald mines given away for three years, the income of the custom-houses compromised to pay three hundred thousand dollars, the decree on the use of the national forests virtually nullified, giving these which are immovable property to the holders of documents of wild lands, altering thus the law of public credit. The national executive committee of public credit have neglected their principal duties for the purpose of embarrassing the mortmain property, and this, by the little I have seen from official documents relating to this matter, have not been advantageous; they have made ruinous contracts, have sold national property at a loss; they have liquidated debts to contract loans, and the nation, as I have just said, will declare itself bankrupt, because it does not pay its debts nor salaries. There is not that complete order and regularity which the national service demands. In the mean time, instead of giving resources to the government, the situation is complicated with various projects of law called laws on public credit. In the senate chamber, the committee to whom was passed my message on the loan adopted the opinions of a paper of the opposition, inimical to the facts, and commenced to analyze the contract in its essence, without taking into consideration that I had done nothing but to comply with the law. Before noticing this report I have answered in my former message the force of its arguments, and it is very painful for me to know that the honorable senators of the majority of the commission pledged themselves to argue against the principles resolved by congress to raise a loan and to make allusions to resolutions inconsistent with the contraction of the loan.

Gentlemen senators and representatives, the public credit cannot last, nor Colombia appear as a nation, from what is said outside, that the republic cannot meet its expenses because it has pledged its revenue and prosperity, and can make no financial combination founded on the principles of science. It is not true, gentlemen, that $500,000 of the loan is destined by preference for the Buenaventura road. But a half million dollars will replace the $587,000 that the Murillo administration took to pay public expenses. Appropriating a part of this fund contrary to law, and as the loan cannot be entirely employed in the first year, the funds employed for different works will be re-employed conveniently by the common funds hypothecated actually. The 35 per cent., destined by the law for this loan, of the custom-house funds, with 37½ per cent. of the old foreign debt, are 72½ per cent. of the products of the custom-house, and 10½ per cent. of the Mackintosh debt, which is for its extinction, are 83 per cent., and leaves sufficient for expenses of collection and to pay the subvencion of Panama, not in the custom-houses but in the general treasury as offered by the convention of Rio Negro.

The administration will have paid in this year the dividends of the public debt with the same loan, and the increase of interest which the loan produces in Europe will give part of the amount necessary to make the payment of interest and gradual amortizacion.

I have already expressed in this message in what manner the money of the loan is to be used to increase the public credit, without diverting its funds in common expenses. If I should have been able to examine attentively the report of the committee, it would be easy for me to reply to all its charges; but my object is, citizen senators and representatives, to ask that you do not vary the laws of public credit, and that you sustain the action of congress in 1864 in order to raise this loan to increase the public prosperity, and assert as false before the face of the world that these laws were sanctioned only for the Murillo administration, as some representative said in full house that he believed you should not give to me the resources which would have been offered to the previous administration. Maybe the commission of the senate is in accordance with this representation, and prefers to sustain this idea rather than let the country be saved, with good loans on public credit and with the good benefits which a loan can produce, destined to increase industry and to open public roads.

Pardon me, citizen senators and representatives, if I am personal in this question. The health of the country and my honor are compromised. I ought to be frank and loyal with the representatives of the people. I have not said as much as I can say to prove the great danger that public tranquillity runs, because the discontent of those that combatted in opinion of the nation to elect me President is palpable, because I could save withouti mposing contributions, without falling back from the public faith, and without exercising discretional power.

Therefore the law and the will of the people is my motto.