Venezuela. Bolivar drafts the Cartagena Manifesto, in which he expresses his contempt for democracy and for that “fatal system of tolerance inadequate to any man of common sense,” and for the “criminal clemency of benevolent visionaries who seek to achieve political perfection by taking human perfectibility for granted.” Bolivar argues that the United States Constitution requires a republic of saints to function, and that it would never work in South America. He says that “as effective as this system may be for North America, I have never for a moment considered comparing the character of two states as different from each other as the English-American and the Spanish-American. Thus, Bolivar moves toward dictatorship, not federalism, but the centralization of power.
