“How to govern ourselves after winning independence. It can be said that [Bolivar] exhausted
his soul trying to find an answer to that question...Bolívar tried to avoid the extremes that would
overwhelm Spanish America all along the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth. Tyranny
or anarchy? 'Do not aim at what is impossible to attain, because in the quest for liberty we may
fall into tyranny. Absolute liberty always leads to absolute power and among these two
extremes is social liberty.’
In order to find this equilibrium, Bolívar proposed a 'clever despotism', a strong executive power
able to impose equality where racial inequality prevailed. Bolívar warned against an 'aristocracy
of rank, employment and fortune' that while 'referring to liberty and guarantee' it would just be
for themselves but not for leveling with members of lower classes'...He is the disciple of
Montesquieu in his insistence that institutions have to be adapted to culture.”
1. What does Bolivar mean by the quote in bold?
2. How does Bolivar propose balancing the desire for democracy with the reality that there
was tension between the wealthy few landowners and the many poor, the latter of whom
were newly free from discriminatory policies that had contributed to their poverty?