Thomas O. Osborn to Evarts, September 8, 1879

No. 15. Mr. Osborn to Mr. Evarts.

Sir: The situation has not improved since the date of my dispatch numbered 240, but has rather assumed the shape of a quarrel between the national government and the government-—or more properly the governor—of this province.

In relation to the decree issued by Governor Tejedor, mentioned in my last note, calling out the “guardia national,” Ex-President Sarmiento, minister of the interior, passed a note to the governor, a copy of which I inclose herewith, marked A, putting some pertinent questions to him, and disputing his right to interfere with or to call out the national guards without the authority of the national government.

To this note of the minister of the interior the governor replied, and, at the same time, issued an address to the people of Buenos Ayres, copies of which are inclosed, marked B and C.

On the 5th instant, President Avellaneda sent to Congress a message, accompanied by a bill, for consideration in reference to the mobilization of the national guards, a copy of which is also inclosed herewith, marked D.

In the consideration and on the adoption of the proposed law by a majority of the cabinet, a rupture of the cabinet took place, and Dr. Montes de Oca, minister of foreign affairs, and Dr. Leastra, minister of worship, tendered their resignations and retired from the cabinet chamber. Their resignations were at once accepted by the President.

It is probable that the bill will become a law as proposed, and should the governor press his policy, this province will be put under martial law.

Two regiments of the line arrived in this city to-day, and it is said that two steamers loaded with troops are on the way from the province of Santa Fé.

Perhaps the best assurance that peace will be preserved is the fact that the people throughout the republic are seriously alarmed and alive to the situation, and while both sides are getting ready to maintain it, the contest may be fought out with notes between the chiefs, and all end in words.

I have, &c.,

B. the governor’s reply.

To the National Minister of the Interior:

Mr. Minister: This government has received your excellency’s note requesting information relating to the decrees on the organization of the national guards. In issuing those decrees, this government has made use of its rights, and does not believe said decrees liable to the suppression ordered by the national government. The contrary opinion of your excellency can only be explained by confounding organization with mobilization, and ignoring the position this government is in.

National guards are only mobilized for active service in the army, in order to suppress a local disturbance or maintain order in sedition. In the first case the raising of the militia in all the provinces or part of them is authorized by Congress, disposing also of the organization, armament, and discipline of this militia, and the administration and government of that portion of them employed in the service of the “nation,” leaving to the provinces the faculty of appointing their corresponding officers and commanders and establishing the discipline prescribed by Congress.

In the second case, the mobilization of the militia, or part of it, when necessitated for the public peace of the province, without infringing the rights of the national government, corresponds to the legislature of the province, and to the executive oft same, in case of an internal disturbance threatening the peace of the province, with authorization of the legislature, and to the executive alone in the recess, accounting for same in the ensuing sessions (Art. 142, clau. 11, Prov. Con.), and informing the national authorities at once.

The governor is, besides, commander-in-chief of the military forces of the province, excepting those which may have been mobilized for national purposes (clan. 10); he confers commissions on the officers he appoints to organize the militia of the province, and, in virtue of the powers conferred by the clauses referred to (clan. 3), can even commission war vessels and raise armies in case of foreign invasion or other pressing danger which admits of no delay in dealing with it, subsequently accounting for such steps to the federal government (see Art. 108, Nat. Con.). The governor of the province can only be considered the agent of the national government in mobilizing the militia in the cases laid down in clause 24, Art. 67, of the national constitution (clan, 12, Art. 142, Prov. Con.).

This is the law, and I leave it, without comment, to your excellency’s consideration. But accomplished facts are still more eloquent. Since the national constitution was first framed the provinces have always enjoyed this right, and no national government has ever said a word.

The present cabinet, of which your excellency is now a member, has witnessed similar measures not only without objection, but generously supplying arms and clothing.

In this way the provinces of Santa Fé and Entre Rios, through the officious help of the national government, have armies at command with which they could coerce the nation if, instead of being partisan of the war minister, they happened to be hostile to him. Meanwhile, the city of Buenos Ayres, with 300,000 inhabitants, has only its provincial guards to watch the prisons and its police to guard the city. It has not even one piece of artillery. It has no arms for the national guard, nor can it henceforward procure them without first paying customs duty.

The 400,000 people in the camp districts, with numerous towns and vast plains, have only a rural police of 300 men, and the police of the Juzgados which only does duty in the towns. Such is the position of the province of Buenos Ayres at a moment when disorder is more or less natural in democratic countries, and we have already seen it occur on several occasions; what is worse, we now see it in the guise of a military candidate with the army at his back, with divisions of this same army all over the provinces, with battalions in this city and on the frontiers of this province; with sham fights in the streets, turning the capital, as your excellency so appropriately remarks, into a military encampment calculated to disturb the peace and confidence of the citizens.

In face of this disagreeable state of things and the formidable aspect the electoral struggle is assuming, the Government of Buenos Ayres considers it both its duty and its right to call on the inhabitants to protect their own liberties.

The people of Buenos Ayres, although unarmed, are brave and great, and up to the present have been accustomed to achieve by force of union and public opinion what others can only expect to obtain by the cannon and the Remington. Can anyone affect to doubt that this unity of opinion exists? It would be worse than folly, bad policy, so to doubt. Should Argentine nationality be ever again imperilled the ark of safety will find a haven in this unity.

Mr. Minister, the government of Buenos Ayres considers this note of importance enough to justify it in briefly correcting your excellency in some points, viz:

That the provincial governments do not “report” or “petition” but speak and decide in virtue of attributes which even the national government lacks. (Art. 104, Nat. Con.)

That the government of Buenos Ayres does not consider that the troops of the line now in this city are those to be charged with maintaining order in case of internal disorder, except by special request of the provincial authorities when their own means for doing so are insufficient, otherwise it would be intervention outside the extreme cases provided for by the national constitution.

That the “volunteers,” who have so greatly alarmed your excellency, are not foreigners (as was the case with France in her war with Germany), but citizens who patriotically offer to help the small forces of the province in keeping order, and previously submit to the necessary drill.

That the monstrous fact of the prison guard and the artillery corps being quartered in the same barracks at the Retiro has arisen through the national government having no capital seat of its own, or, at least, buildings of its own in the capital of the province; and if either corps must move out, it should certainly be the artillery, as it can hardly be claimed that the fact of their being quartered there makes the building their own, or converts it into a fort.

That the military organization of the police is necessary in a country where, as yet, the public have not the same respect for such a force as they have in London and Paris, the step being rendered still more expedient by the insolence of the soldiers of the line, and which is winked at by their officers.

That the duty of guarding Congress, like other police duty performed in the name of the national government, and at its request, is so performed merely in deference and without acknowledging any authority but that of the province, although your excellency erroneously thinks otherwise.

bill.

The Senate and House of Representatives, &c.:

• Article 1. Until such time as Congress shall enact a law for the reorganization and discipline of the national guard, its organization at the time of last enrollment will hold.
• Art. 2. The national guard cannot be called together by the provincial authorities even for training purposes, except by order of the federal executive.
• Art. 3. The provincial battalions, whatever name they may go by, will be immediately discharged, and after the promulgation of this law no penalty of any kind can be inflicted on such soldiers as should refuse to continue in the service. But the authorities who should order such penalties, and the persons who should carry out the orders, will be liable for the indemnifications for damages, and a line of $1,000 or one year’s imprisonment.
• Art. 4. The executive is authorized to summon the national guard when it may deem expedient in order to the carrying out of this law, or any of the existing ones (troops of the line to be preferred), and to incur the expenses that said law may call for.
• Art 5. After the date of this law, it is forbidden to give a military organization to the agents destined to the special police service of the provinces.
• Art. 6. The executive will report to Congress on the use it may have made of this law during the first part of the session of next year.