Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/221

 unable to receive satisfaction. Their apparent submission was therefore more assumed than real.

On the other hand, the liberal ideas of 1843 not having been successful in practical application, the military system seemed to many to be the only one able to insure peace and order; which idea was naturally much contested by the partisans of the civil régime.

When on the 1st of March, 1847, Faustin Soulouque was elected President of the Republic, three most pressing duties demanded his attention: He had to conduct the guerrilla warfare which was still continuing on the Dominican boundary, to appease the Southern peasants, and to check the growing discontent among the townspeople, who were demanding greater freedom. No one expected Soulouque to display the tact of a statesman; but, as a soldier, he had strong ideas as to order and discipline. Highly flattered at the honor conferred upon him he was sincerely desirous of devoting his best efforts to the proper management of affairs of State. He tried his utmost to comply with the exigencies of the Constitution; he even went so far as to choose his Ministers from the ranks of the opposition. His opponents conducted themselves with little regard for the President's susceptibility and did not hesitate to reproach him with his ignorance. The anger this caused Soulouque, whose lack of knowledge was well known to those who had elected him, made him distrustful. He was in one of these cheerless moods when, on the 16th of April, 1848, a riot occurred at Port-au-Prince. The disturbance was quickly subdued, and Soulouque made use of this opportunity to crush all revolutionary tendencies. He wielded authority with an iron hand; peasants and townspeople were made to understand that armed manifestations would be most severely dealt with, which had the effect of producing quiet in the land.

This duty accomplished, Soulouque's next care was to see to the hostilities still in progress with the former Spanish territory. In order to stop the incursions of the Dominicans he determined to bring them back to