Appendix VII. 5 1 7 



tioquia not having agreed to submit to the Union by the 6th of August 

 next, the day on which the national convention is to assemble at Carta- 

 jena. It is not indeed possible that this State should be allowed to re- 

 main separate from the Union, against the will of the Antioquian people, 

 who do not join in the views of those now ruling them, nor is it to be 

 endured that they should carry on against the other States and the Go- 

 vernment of the Union a useless war, for no defined political object. The 

 States that have not yet chosen their deputies for the Convention are now 

 engaged in electing them. For the rest, although it may well be 

 thought that after such a war as that through which we have passed the 

 re- establishment of order and harmony in the different branches of pub- 

 lic administration, as well in the States as in the Union, must be a long 

 and anxious task, yet fortunately quite the contrary has taken place. 

 Immediately after the battles in which the Federalists were successful 

 society began to enjoy well-regulated civil and judicial administration, 

 and consequently confidence, commerce, labour, social life, and striving for 

 peace, were renewed with vigour. Our people is as much the friend of 

 order and justice as of liberty and independence. To obey willingly it 

 only desires from its governors honesty, activity, loyalty to institutions, 

 patriotism, and respect for the ever moderate wishes of the country. 

 The nation hates civil war, not alone from reason, but from instinct ; it 

 has not spontaneously sought the sad experience it has had of this ter- 

 rible calamity ; our strifes have not come from below ; the incendiary 

 torch fell from the seat of the chief Government. At least this is what 

 has happened during the years just past. But this longing for durable 

 peace, this dearly-bought experience, and this horror of civil war, 

 joined to a moderate and firm love of liberty and a decided spirit of pro- 

 gress, will produce without doubt a constitution liberal, just, foreseeing, 

 and clear, and for the future will excite the attention of the people to 

 the election of their high officials. The President of the Union is in the 

 country ; his head-quarters are in no fixed place ; until now he has been 

 first in Piedras and then in Ambalema. A general secretary accom- 

 panies the President, for the despatch of administrative matters of a 

 serious nature, or connected with the war, so that there may be no 

 branch of government neglected, nor any subject of public interest 

 which shall not be attended to as in ordinary times. This city, made 



