BIBLIOTECA DE FRENOS & CONTRAPESOS. JEFFERSON & LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL EJECUTIVO EN AMÉRICA LATINA- Jefferson, Thomas [1811]: Carta a Alexander von Humboldt, 14 de abril de 1811.
(Sobre la dificultad de construir el poder ejecutivo en América Latina) (*) . It comes out, too, at a moment when those countries are beginning to be interesting to the whole world. They are now becoming the scenes of political revolution, to take their stations as integral members of the great family of nations. All are now in insurrection. In several, the Independents are already triumphant, and they will undoubtedly be so in all. What kind of government will they establish? How much liberty can they bear without intoxication? Are their chiefs sufficiently enlightened to form a well-guarded government, and their people to watch their chiefs? Have they mind enough to place their domesticated Indians on a footing with the whites? All these questions you can answer better than any other. I imagine they will copy our outlines of confederation and elective government, abolish distinction of ranks, bow the neck to their priests, and persevere in intolerantism.
Their greatest difficulty will be in the construction of their executive. I suspect that, regardless of the experiment of France, and of that of the United States in 1784, they will begin with a directory, and when the unavoidable schisms in that kind of executive shall drive them to something else, their great question will come on whether to substitute an executive elective for years, for life, or an hereditary one. But unless instruction can be spread among them more rapidly than experience promises, despotism may come upon them before they are qualified to save the ground they will have gained.
(*) Analizo estos temas en mi libro El Enigma de Mariano Moreno. Fundación y Equilibrio de Poderes en la Era de las Revoluciones (Buenos Aires: RyC Editores, 2009); puede conseguirlo en la Librería 5 Esquinas, Libertad 1293, Capital Federal.
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(Sobre la dificultad de construir el poder ejecutivo en América Latina) (*) . It comes out, too, at a moment when those countries are beginning to be interesting to the whole world. They are now becoming the scenes of political revolution, to take their stations as integral members of the great family of nations. All are now in insurrection. In several, the Independents are already triumphant, and they will undoubtedly be so in all. What kind of government will they establish? How much liberty can they bear without intoxication? Are their chiefs sufficiently enlightened to form a well-guarded government, and their people to watch their chiefs? Have they mind enough to place their domesticated Indians on a footing with the whites? All these questions you can answer better than any other. I imagine they will copy our outlines of confederation and elective government, abolish distinction of ranks, bow the neck to their priests, and persevere in intolerantism.
Their greatest difficulty will be in the construction of their executive. I suspect that, regardless of the experiment of France, and of that of the United States in 1784, they will begin with a directory, and when the unavoidable schisms in that kind of executive shall drive them to something else, their great question will come on whether to substitute an executive elective for years, for life, or an hereditary one. But unless instruction can be spread among them more rapidly than experience promises, despotism may come upon them before they are qualified to save the ground they will have gained.
(*) Analizo estos temas en mi libro El Enigma de Mariano Moreno. Fundación y Equilibrio de Poderes en la Era de las Revoluciones (Buenos Aires: RyC Editores, 2009); puede conseguirlo en la Librería 5 Esquinas, Libertad 1293, Capital Federal.
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