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The limit of his ability consisted of demanding a bit of cash for
current pay from Churches-which were not actively against him at first but
which annoyed them no end-and a few household expenses.
He could have (and should have) set aside all Royalist property and
estates for division amongst his officers, their men and his supporters. It
had no owners now. And this failure cost the economy of the country the tax
loss of all those productive estates (the whole wealth of the land). So it
is no wonder his government, its taxable estates now inoperative or at best
lorded by a profiteer or looted by Indians, was insolvent. Also, by failing
to do such an obvious act he delivered property into the hands of more
provident enemies and left his officers and men penniless to finance any
support for their own stability in the new society and so for his own.
As for state finance the great mines of South America, suddenly
ownerless, were overlooked and were then grabbed and worked by foreign
adventurers who simply came in and took them without payment.
Spain had run the country on the finance of mine tithes and general
taxes. Bolivar not only didn't collect the tithes, he let the land become
so worthless as to be untaxable. He should have gotten the estates going by
any shifts and should have state operated all Royalist mines once he had
them. To not do these things was complete, but typically humanoid, folly.
In doing this property division he should have left it all up to
officers' committees operating as courts of claim without staining his own
hands in the natural corruption. He was left doubly open as he not only did
not attend to it, he also got the name of corruption when anybody did grab
something.
He failed as well to recognize the distant widespread nature of his
countries despite all his riding and fighting over them and so sought
tightly centralized government, not only centralizing states but also
centralizing the various nations into a Federal state. And this over a huge
land mass full of insurmountable ranges, impassable jungles and deserts and
without mail, telegraph, relay stages, roads, railroads, river vessels or
even foot bridges repaired after a war of attrition.
A step echelon from a pueblo (village) to a state, from a state to a
country and a country to a Federal state was only possible in such huge
spaces of country where candidates could never be known personally over any
wide area and whose opinions could not even be circulated more than a few
miles of burro trail, where only the pueblo was democratic and the rest all
appointive from Pueblo on up, himself the ratifier of titles if he even
needed that. With his own officers and armies controlling the land as
owners of all wrested from Royalists and the crown of Spain, he would have
had no revolts. There would have been little civil wars of course but a
court to settle their final claims could have existed at Federal level and
kept them traveling so much over those vast distances it would have
crippled their enthusiasm for litigation on the one hand and on the other,
by dog eat dog settlements, would have given him the strongest rulers-if he
took neither side.
He did not step out and abdicate a dictatorial position. He mistook
military acclaim and ability for the tool of peace. War only brings
anarchy, so he had anarchy. Peace is more than a "command for unity", his
favorite phrase. A productive peace is getting men busy and giving them
something to make something of that they want to make something of and
telling them to get on with it.
He never began to recognize a suppressive and never considered anyone
needed killing except on a battlefield. There it was glorious. But somebody
destroying his very name and soul, and the security of every supporter and
friend, the SP Santander, his vice-president, who could have been arrested
and executed by a corporal's guard on one one-hundredth of available
evidence, could suborn the whole treasury and population against him,
without Bolivar, continually warned, loaded with evidence, ever even
reprimanding him. And this brought about his loss of popularity and his
eventual exile.
He also failed in the same way to protect his military family or Manuela
Saenz from other enemies. So he weakened his friends and ignored his
enemies just by oversight.