32 



ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. 



ARKANSAS. 



The movement of shipping at the port of 

 Buenos Ayres, in 1866, was as follows : En- 

 trances, 1,190 vessels, 252,670 tons; clearances, 

 1,184 vessels, 343,451 tons. Among the arri- 

 vals were 56 vessels from the United States, 35 

 Argentine (7,958 tons) ; 252 English, 193 Ger- 

 man (40,000 tons) ; 148 French (69,000 tons). 



The most important event in the history of 

 the republic, during the year 1868, was the 

 election of a new President for the term 

 from 1868 to 1874. Although the excitement 

 ran very high, no disturbances took place. 

 There were three candidates : Sefior Elizalde, 

 Minister of Foreign Affairs, a strong partisan of 

 the alliance with Brazil ; General Urquiza, the 

 chief of the ancient Federalists and supposed 

 to be opposed to the alliance with Brazil and 

 the continuance of war ; and Domingo F. Sar- 

 miento, Argentine minister in Washington, 

 whose policy, it was known, would chiefly 

 consist in the promotion of popular educa- 

 tion and agriculture. The preliminary elec- 

 tions (choice of electors) took place on the 

 12th of April ; the election of the President by 

 the electors on the 12th of July. General 

 Urquiza received the votes of two provinces, 

 Entrerios and Santa Fe; Elizalde, of three 

 provinces, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca, and 

 Tucuman ; no election took place in Corrientes ; 

 seven provinces, Cordova, Mendoza, San Luis, 

 San Juan, Jujuy, Salta, Rioja, cast the entire 

 electoral vote for Sarmiento, and, of the electors 

 of Buenos Ayres (28), 24 voted for Sarmiento, 

 3 for Rawson, and 1 for Sarsfield. The follow- 

 ing table gives the aggregate vote for each of 

 the candidates for President and Vice-Presi- 

 dent : ~ 



Sarmiento 91 



Elizalde 32 



Urquiza 16 



Bawson 3 



Sarsfield... . 1 



143 



Votes lost (12 in Corri- 

 entes and 1 in Jujuy, 13 



Total 



.156 



Vice-President. 



Alsina 83 



Paunero 55 



Ocampo 3 



Alberdi 1 



Carreras 1 



143 

 Votes lost 13 



Total . . . . 156 



President Sarmiento was installed on the 

 18th of October, amid great festivities, in which, 

 in particular, the order of Freemasons took 

 part, as both President Sarmiento and Ex-Presi- 

 dent Mitre are prominent members of the 

 order. For the first time in the history of the 

 republic, both the election and the installa- 

 tion of President passed off without the least 

 disturbance. 



The war which the Argentine Republic for 

 some time has been carrying on, conjointly 

 with Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay, con- 

 tinued throughout the year. But, the oppo- 

 sition to the war greatly increasing in strength, 

 Governor Alsina, of Buenos Ayres (now Vice- 

 President of the republic), in his message to 

 the Provincial Diet, thus expressed himself on 

 the subject : 



The war -with the Paraguayan Government becomes 



every day more barbarous, because so must be styled 

 a war that can only end by the annihilation of one of 

 the belligerents, however praiseworthy the heroism of 

 those engaged in the struggle a murderous war, 

 since halt the combatants have already succumbed 

 a fatal war, and I call it so because we are shackled 

 to it by a treaty also fatal not because our ally is an 

 empire I am not influenced by similar prejudices, 

 but because its clauses seem calculated to prolong 

 the war, until the republic shall fall an exhausted 

 and lifeless victim. 



And yet, Honorable Senators and Eepresentatives, 

 in stating this, I am far from wishing to lay the blame 

 upon any individual person or party a series of 

 events, bound together by the hand of fate, have so 

 willed it, and the truth is, that if the public powers 

 committed an error in 1865, the country accepted it, 

 and assumed its solidarity it is the law that must 

 rule where the people does not itself govern, but 

 allows its delegates to govern. 



But if this be true, not less true is it that the mo- 

 ment has arrived when those very public powers, 

 should themselves decide upon the question of honor, 

 the momentous question for every Argentine heart, 

 whether the insult inflicted on the blue and white 

 stripes by the brutal and cowardly attack upon our 

 men-of-war has not been sufficiently washed off by 

 the blood of a hundred thousand combatants, or re- 

 vindicated by the occupation of the enemy's country. 



At the close of the year it was reported that 

 President Sarmiento was willing to accept the 

 mediation of the United States. 



The Argentine Congress adopted a bill, to 

 make the city of Rosario the capital of the 

 Republic. President Mitre sent the bill back 

 to Congress, with a recommendation to amend 

 it by a, provision, securing to the national Gov- 

 ernment the necessary jurisdiction for the re- 

 gular exercise of its functions in the terri- 

 tory of its temporary residence, while await- 

 ing the transfer to the permanent capital. This 

 jurisdiction, in the opinion of the President, 

 should embrace the superintendence of the 

 police and the direct command of the National 

 Guard. 



ARKANSAS. The general affairs of this 

 State continued, at the end of 1867, to be man- 

 aged by the civil authorities, in whose hands 

 the administration had been placed by the peo- 

 ple. They proceeded, however, in a provisory 

 manner, consistently with their almost abso- 

 lute dependence on the military power, to 

 which Congress, by acts passed March 2 and 

 23, 1867, subjected Arkansas and the other 

 once seceded States, until "a republican gov- 

 ernment could be legally established " therein. 



Concerning the exercise of judicial power, 

 the order from headquarters, dated September 

 6, 1867, wherein Major-General Ord enjoined 

 the courts of the State to suspend proceedings 

 against any offender, if two credible persons 

 made affidavits that he would meet by them 

 with unfair trial, and to transmit to headquar- 

 ters all acts and papers thereunto belonging, 

 that such offender might be tried by a military 

 commission, was in January, 1868, rather mod- 

 ified in cases of horse-stealing, which seems to 

 have been a frequent occurrence in the Fourth 

 Military District, as appears from the following 

 order of Major-General Gillem, successor to 

 General Ord in that command : 



