1833.] 
POLITICAL. 
477 
we would ask, if any philosopher or statesman has ever been able 
to reduce to system the process by which a people advance to 
freedom ; or to graduate the precise degree of information neces- 
sary, before they commence the work of reform ? 
Will those persons who maintain that the South Americans are 
as yet too ignorant or unfit for self-government, have the good- 
ness to state the period when it would have been more wise in 
them to have made the effort ? Ought they to have waited until 
their country abounded with statesmen and experienced legisla- 
tors; but which, in truth, never could have been found, except in 
the very struggles through which they are now passing? Or 
when should a people resist oppression ? There can be but one 
answer to this question ; and that is — the very day when they 
know their rights ! ■ 
Now we believe that no one who is acquainted with the his- 
tory of South America will venture the assertion, that its inhabi- 
tants are ignorant of their rights ; and if not, we appeal to the 
records of history, if any people ever retrograded after having 
made such progress, unless overwhelmed and crushed by a supe- 
rior power, interested in the suppression of liberal principles 1 
Their frequent comm-Otions make nothing against this proposi- 
tion ; for these commotions are not carried on between the friends 
of monarchies and republics ; nor of a privileged few against the 
many. But these commotions occur between" an enthusiastic 
love of liberty on the one hand, and political inexperience on the 
other ; between the ambition of men too confidently trusted by a 
confiding people, whom experience has not even yet taught to be 
sufi&ciently wary and distrustful. But mark !- — whatever these 
abuses may have been, no one has ever yet been able to perpet- 
uate them, nor ever can ! 
In shaking off the yoke of Spain, these people achieved, and 
nobly achieved, their independence. But did that achievement 
give them the requisite knowledge for managing their civil insti- 
tutions ? Certainly not ; — for this experience is only to be ac- 
quired by repeated struggles ; — and hence their internal commo- 
tions have been, and for a time may continue to be, absolutely 
unavoidable. It is the price, the passage-money, which they are 
doomed from, the very nature of things to pay, in their progress 
towards the consolidation of their liberty, and has grown out of 
( 
