Señor Don Domingo F. Sarmiento to the governor, September 6, 1879

A. minister sarmiento’s note to the governor.

To His Excellency the Governor of Buenos Ayres:

The President of the republic has been informed of the contents of various decrees published in the papers organizing the national guards of this province on a new footing, on the plea that the executive “finds itself in the necessity of guarding the public peace, and it being opportune to anticipate in case these elements at its disposal should be increased.” The President, therefore, orders me to ask of you information, as soon as possible, regarding the motives you have for anticipating that the public peace may be disturbed, and your reasons for not notifying these motives to the national government in Buenos Ayres, which disposes of forces of the line, besides numerous bodies of officials and police.

The organization of the national guard and their disposal belong to Congress, and only the appointment of their officers and their discipline are under the jurisdiction of the provinces.

The President orders me to notify your excellency that the two battalions you call “volunteers” in one of the decrees, the retired veterans of the Paraguayan war, and many other singularities of that reorganization, are not comprised in the forms received and adopted in the national guard, the qualification of which excludes the word “volunteer,” since this body admits of no separation, and the obligation of enrolling at 18 years of age, in virtue of Argentine citizenship (as there is no provincial), is compulsory.

The national guards that served in the Paraguayan war are exempted by provincial law for all further service for ten years, and this term has not expired yet; besides, there is a national law exempting also those who crushed the September revolution.

But the national government will not allow any distinction between the officers and commanders who have served in the national armies without the due separation of those who have been removed on account of acts or other causes punishable, lest an asylum be given to delinquents.

As the province of Buenos Ayres has been freed of all frontier enemies and its towns are superabundantly guarded, it is hard to believe that there is a danger necessitating the reorganization of the national guards under your excellency’s proposed system.

It is not form me to explain to your excellency the considerations that make it necessary to propose to Congress, which alone has the faculty, the reorganization of the national guards, in conformity with the reforms the experience of late years has taught us in the distribution of the forces of a nation, considering the innovations introduced in the art of war by arms of precision, and the long practice required for their efficacious use.

The national government, with a view to facilitate the work of Congress, is adopting all the measures proposed for a plan of reform in harmony with that necessity.

This reorganization must take place all over the republic, in order to avoid any variety of reform a single province might introduce.

Happily we have no enemies to fear, neither at home nor abroad; so for the moment, things must remain as they are, and no select bodies of volunteers may be created, not being allowed by the law.

Should it be necessary to organize the national guards, with authorization of the national government, your excellency must proceed by means of the lists of review of each body, organized as they are by neighborhoods and quarters; as regards the battalions and squadrons, they must be classified by regiments, according to the partidos, &c. If it were allowed to separate “corps d’élite,” under the pretext of mobilizing the national guards, the better classes would be exempted and the poor and ignorant ones burdened with the service, offering no security whatever to the government.

A door being opened to this distinction between the common mass of the citizens, they would act under the belief that not all were subject to the government, and form free corps, as the word “volunteer indicates, to guard or oppress the rest.

The decrees published under yesterday’s date coincide with the circulars issued a few hours afterwards, and which reached your hands, explaining the policy the President of the republic recommends your excellency to follow in the national elections: and it is quite certain your excellency would not carry out the project of reorganization of the national guards, for fear that it would be believed it tended to secure the vote of the citizens turned into soldiers, with the influence of so large a staff of officers and commanders.

I therefore beg of you to give me information as to the motives you have for supposing an imminent danger, necessitating an increase of the elements you dispose of, besides the numerous civil and rural police forces and the irregular battalion known as guardia provincial. Meanwhile the President of the republic has ordered that, pending the decision of Congress on the reorganization of the national guards in the Republic, the project I refer to be suspended No “corps d’élite” are allowed, as not belonging to the national guards system created by the constitution, since not even troops of the line, bearing the name of volunteers, have the faculty of naming commanders and officers granted in general terms to the provinces.

The 600 men of the capital called out in said decrees must be taken from the body or bodies in which they are enrolled, without distinction or exclusion of persons. The capital has a numerous civil police (unhappily turned into soldiers) to prevent attacks against life and property, besides national forces to protect the dignity of the national government and preserve order should it be threatened by political factions.

Therefore, those non-motived military exercises would turn the capital into a military encampment, disturbing the peace and confidence of the inhabitants by the continual sound of arms.

I must advise your excellency that the interests of the country and the economy of our revenues counsel a reduction in the force of the national troops, limiting them to an indispensable number, to protect our frontiers of little importance and enforce the laws of the nation. But this cannot be proposed to Congress as long as the municipal forces are increased in an exaggerated manner (only intended to capture criminals and protect life and property) and conglomerating armed bodies besides the national guards created by the constitution of the nation.

The fear arises that while the national forces are being reduced the provinces will erect themselves, at the discretion of their governors, into armed states, constituting as many armies as there are provinces, and engendering civil war amongst each other.

Such is the situation created by Buenos Ayres giving the example followed by Santa Fé, Corrientes, and Enter Rios, especially creating battalions of the line under the illegal name of Provincial Guards, which are not municipal, as the local police nor national guards of citizens, as designed by the constitution, nor troops of the line, since the provinces have no right to wage war or keep soldiers and marines.

It is now opportune to draw your attention to the monstrous fact that there are at present quartered in the edifices of the Retiro, which were formerly the old battery (formerly royal, now national), dominating the navigation of the Rio de la Plata, one of these nameless battalions, without banner, and the artillery corps of the national government; they daily run the risk of colliding—handing an unexempled fact to history—of two troops of the line under different authorities fighting as if they belonged to two different nations.

Common sense counsels the separation of these forces, which do not guard the fort, since the place is a fortress, to avoid disagreeable and shameful incidents.

The government will soon adopt measures to put a stop to all these disorders in the provinces, and ask Congress to legislate in the matter, ordering also the police to depose its military character and become again what it is supposed to be in all civilized nations—guardian of towns, under municipal regime, with no other arms than the ones its station needs. The citizens have not remarked that of late these municipal officials have been transformed into regular troops of the line, subject to military regime and headed by officers of the line, on the same system as that in Russia.

The police of a city is an institution purely civil and local, depending on its municipality, and independent of the political changes as far as removing it from its local jurisdiction. It would certainly be an anomaly if the political power of a state could call out all the police forces of the towns, concentrate them in one point, and put them under the orders of an officer.

Should such a thing occur it would be necesssary to create another municipal force to guard each town, whilst the former body would form troops of the line, since they cannot be called national guards, the only form in which citizens can be armed and militarily organized.

By a deplorable corruption this purely municipal institution has been turned into a military corps, with the appointment, first, of Col. Viejo Bueno; second, by that of a chief of an irregular battallion of the line, Colonel Garmendia, of the national army.

The fidelity of these military men, who with the honors of their rank wear the sword confided to them by the nation, cannot be doubted for the moment, and deliver us from the fear of any such abuse as might arise from the fact of an armed body stationed in front of Congress and not recognizing its supreme authority, as not dependent on it.

The President of the republic will issue the decrees relating to the officers, with military grades and swords accorded by the nation, that they may not join this unnecessary and unauthorized movement of forces, which are not required even in our most distant frontiers, thanks to the gigantic treasures spent by the nation to give security to the province of Buenos Ayres before all others.

God preserve, &c.