Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/86



56 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

this magistrate is to preserve and defend the independence and integrity of the State. He cumulates a variety of impor- tant offices^ he is at once Supreme Judge and Manager of Fi- nances_, he is Commander-in-Chief of the army^ and Admiral of the fleets and he appoints the President of Congress ; while the Vice-President of the Republic being named by him, and serving only to convoke the electoral meetings, is a mere tool that cannot even act for him when he is ab- sent. Thus the President is an autocrat at once legislative, judicial, and executive. Paraguay was ever a repertory of old world ideas, cut off from civilization since the days of the Grand Monarque. But the year 1845 worked in her a true revolution — social^ political, and commercial ; at this time arose the " law establishing the political administration of the Republic of Paraguay.^" It gave ex- traordinary attributes to the President; it reduced the ministers of state to simple heads of bureaus, and it was shortly followed by an edict which placed the Church in com- plete subjection to the Supreme National Government — forbidding the Bishop to use even a robe or a throne. Of this new Constitution pure and simple despotism was the essence, whereas before it had been only a republican accident.

Thus D. Antonio Carlos Lopez became President of Paraguay for ten years. '^ El Ciudadano,^^ as he loved to call himself, was then about forty-four years old. Educated at the College of Asuncion, he had lectured in theology and philosophy ; he had studied jurisprudence, and after making a few dollars by the law^, he had retired to a country place some forty leagues from the capital. He rarely visited town, and spent most of his time in reading books and mastering agriculture. Although he had never left his native land, he was looked upon as an enlightened man, and he had acquired, in comparatively early life, a general