THE THOUGHT OF FRANCISCO DE PAULA SANTANDER IN A BOLIVARIAN

SOCIETY: importance of the ideas of the Colombian hero in the development of the
19th century

Student: Germán Enrique Caviedes Solano.

SUMMARY: The hero of independence whom history has disowned the most has the
importance of being the main actor in the dissemination of public education. Behind
Francisco de Paula Santander there are many stories, the black legend about errors
exploited ficklely. But what this essay is about is to highlight the ideas of the man of the
laws in a Bolivarian society, to highlight the liberal legacy of Santander who understood
that only the truth will set us free, he fought for his efforts in favor of education and the
emancipation of the rights to all citizens.

Keywords: Liberalism, education, Santander

ABSTRACT : The hero of independence who has renegade the most history has the
importance of being the main actor in the dissemination of public education, behind
Francisco de Paula Santander there are many stories, the black legend about the mistakes
exploited fiercely. But what this essay will do is highlight the ideas of the man of laws in a
Bolivarian society, highlight the liberal legacy of Santander that understood that only the
truth will set us free, fought for its efforts in favor of education and the emancipation of the
rights to all citizens

Keywords: Liberalism, education, Santander .

INTRODUCTION

Francisco de Paula Santander, Colombian hero and man of law, embodies an important
presence in Colombia during the 19th century, but history has recounted in minimal
fragments the importance of his ideas for the development of the current Colombian State.
Furthermore, it is perceived that many Bolivarian historians have created a black legend
around the figure of Santander to denigrate what the hero achieved, due to his progressive
liberal ideals that made the liberator Bolivar's project impossible. According to the above,
the question arises: What ideas were most relevant in the development of society and the
State by Santander in the 19th century? This issue emerges in the face of the denial of
Santander ideals in the formation of the nation-state of Colombia.

Therefore, the hypothesis of this essay maintains that Santander's ideas were decisive for
the development of the then Gran Colombia, due to his radical liberal postulates. To
effectively verify this hypothesis, a documentary compilation and a historiographical
collection from the 19th century on the significance of Santander ideas will be used
methodologically. Now, it is presented as a general objective, to establish which doctrines
were the most fundamental in the development of great Colombia by Santander, in
addition, two specific objectives are presented, (I) State the political thought of Francisco
de Paula Santander, (II ) broadly identify the Santander regime in Gran Colombia.

According to the above, this text will be articulated in four topics, the first topic will
contextualize the management of Santander (1826-1827) during the great Colombia, in the
second topic the progressive liberal thought that Santander held will be explained,
according to To the third point, it will determine the influence of those Santander ideas in
the development of Gran Colombia. Finally, in the fourth and last topic, the distinction
between critical analysis versus what is reflected in the text will be presented, and the
respective conclusions will also be presented. At the end of the text, the relevant
corresponding bibliography will be presented.

1. MANAGEMENT OF SANTANDER (1826 – 1827)

To begin the topic about the administration of Francisco de Paula Santander, it is necessary
to clarify that while Santander was in charge of the administration of the new Granada as
vice president in greater Colombia, the military such as Simón Bolivar and Antonio José de
Sucre were carrying out the mission. emancipatory away from the central government. To
talk about Santander's management in his powers as vice president, he authorized the
Senate and the House of Representatives to determine the following two things that would
be discussed next: the administration of the government and the administration of justice.

1.1 government administration

Under what was ruled in the first secession, what was primarily prioritized were
extraordinary powers, public tranquility and territorial division. It was observed that the
provisions of the constitution have granted extraordinary powers, with the objective of
restoring and preserving public peace. For public tranquility, the surveillance of the
government, the zeal of its agents, and public opinion, being a formidable barrier to attacks
directed against the system. Regarding territorial division, the government advocates a
small reform to the territorial law, since the populations of some provinces are far from the
center of the central government, consequently, good administration is difficult (Lopez,
1990). Here the liberal faculties of Santander are beginning to be reflected in a minimal
expression, seeking a representative government to defend the freedom of the people of
Gran Colombia.

1.2 Justice administration

When dealing with public administration, Santander needed a study in which primary
importance should be given to the legislative process and the administration of justice. It
was granted through the organic law of the judiciary and the organic law of civil procedure.
Regarding the first, the law established that the replacement of judges will be studied,
mainly lawyers, in addition, Congress will appoint citizens who most deserve the trust of
the courts without essentially being lawyers. According to the law of civil procedure, the
government can choose the legislative body that will make up the high courts of justice in
order to ensure public happiness and the freedom of citizens (López, 1990).

Actually, although these constitutionalist ideas that Santander proposed had viability in that
context, Bolivar's supporters prevented many of the things that the vice president proposed,
therefore, it is the struggles between Santanderistas and Bolivarians that stagnate the
constitutional progress of Gran Colombia, until the arrival of the liberator with the Bolivian
constitution. However, most disputes were about simple procedures, which were treated
with a level of diplomacy related to the importance of each issue, Bushnell (1954) states
that: “These incidents, however, were not enough to disrupt the successful collaboration
between Congress and administrations” (p.80). The importance that Santander had in
maintaining stable relations with the lower house is evident, even when its majority was
Bolivarian.

SANTANDER'S PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL IDEAS

Santander's political ideas do not constitute a systematic ideological line, because above all
he was a man of law; however, what he thought about society and government was based
on liberalism. Furthermore, he included all those characteristics that made him illustrious,
such as patriotism, republicanism, pragmatic federalism, he was a faithful enemy of the
monarchy and centralism, all in search of an objective in favor of the defense of the rights
of the citizen. To cover this section, the following pillars will be taken into account: War
vs. peace, the relationship between the church-state and educational reforms.

2.1 War and peace: In this section we witness Santander's first disagreement with the
liberator Simón Bolivar, since the government of the old New Granada was characterized
by its warlike extremism. For Santander it was inconceivable that by nature there was a
need for the New Granda to be based on military governments. To demonstrate the
extremism of the military government of Simón Bolivar, one of the first decrees in the
liberator's government was the first decree of extermination, based mainly on the fact that
not a single one should be left alive, where these provisions are approved all those
Spaniards who are found with weapons in hand. That was the declaration that set the tone
for his future proclamation of war to the death (Victoria, 2010). Santander believed best
that the appropriate way to prosecute war prisoners should be through a constitution, which
guarantees the rights of all men in New Granada.

Furthermore, another of the pillars that characterized the conflicts between the Liberator
and Santander is due to the policies that Bolivar wanted to establish, since one of the errors
that were made was to have confused freedom and independence, they wanted to be
independent of the Spanish and at the same time enjoy the ability to be free men (Jaramillo,
1970). These idealistic assertions could not have an impact on Bolivar's authority, which
depended on an absolutist government; in addition, the leaders were military to maintain
public order.

Seeing the concentration of power in the great military, Santander seeks a solution to direct
the habit of commanding imperiously, of properly executing judicial decisions, therefore, it
resorts to implementing modifications to military jurisdiction. It mainly resorts to
procedural changes in martial justice, which consisted in the fact that the final authority in
problems of jurisprudence was defined by the Superior Courts and was sanctioned as
martial (Bushnell, 1954).

In the previous paragraph it is evident that Santander, from its legalistic sense, seeks to
implement a new measure to prosecute the military according to its martial jurisdiction, this
being an important advance in the midst of an absolutist and military government. And the
previous impact on society was of great impact, since the circumstances were not such for
their demand to solve the lack of social order. Even so, Santander emphasized the actions
of the good soldier, where they must be linked to their obligations and duties, so that glory
is achieved and society itself is the one that gives value to their efforts and sacrifices.

2.2 The relationship between church and state: In the first decades of Gran Colombia, in
the middle of a stage of development of the State, anticlerical policies had an ambiguous
character because in practice it was very difficult to achieve the complete separation of the
church and society, in the words of Bushnell (1954), the clergy had “greater power of
persuasion over the masses than the government itself” (p.233). However, the idea of the
republicans was not to end religion completely, it was to achieve the separation of church
and state, to reduce the influence of ecclesiastical power in society, so that they would limit
themselves in their educational action, and, in addition, they would decrease their sources
of enrichment and sustenance (Zuluaga, 1995). Francisco de Paula Santander then
promoted policies where the public sphere and the private sphere were distinguished. These
policies achieved a decline in the relations of the State and the church but it was not enough
to definitively distance the church from the educational sector.

It is important to keep in mind that the scope of these separatist policies between church
and state had a specific point, it understood that the church could only contribute to the
celebration of worship, such as the sacraments. I could not intervene more in the methods
of republican education (León, 2013). Even so, the impact of Christianization is so
important that today the Republic of Colombia has been led by clerical interests.

Jumping along the timeline a little, by the year 1852 there was a heated discussion in
Congress about the convenience of sanctioning the complete independence of the church.
In the book Political History of Colombia by Arteaga y Caravajal (1995) they narrate how
the archbishop protested saying:

The church has by divine right the right to educate its Levites in the form and manner it
sees fit, without any power with justice or reason being able to disturb it in the exercise of
this right, much less deprive it of it (p. 318)

Those rights that the archbishop fought for did not have any interference in the civil
government, because the norm was already in force, where the executive must be the one
who cares for society in terms of education, here I want to highlight a phrase from
Santander towards Simón Bolivar that Forero compiles (1978) “The law, the law, the order,
the law that is the norm of order” (p.52). This phrase summarizes in certain accounts the
response to the archbishop so that he could fully comply with the dictated law.

These policies of church-state separation ended in 1829 when the Liberator Bolivar placed
the church in a privileged position, the cuera became the intermediary between civil society
and education, even the curatorial boards became organizations directed and organized by
the priests acting as the institution in charge of education.

2.3 Educational reforms: In this final section, the educational reforms undertaken by
Francisco de Paula Santander will be taken into account, which led to the nationalization of
education in New Granada and then in Greater Colombia, from a legislative point of view. ,
for the establishment of a national education system. The starting point will be taken into
account in the Cúcuta Congress of 1821 through a series of laws and then the creation of
normal schools will be identified.

To establish the context of the Cúcuta congress of 1821, Etanislao Vergara emphasized the
initiative that in each city, town or parish, have a school financed with local taxes or with
contributions from the inhabitants, he also proclaimed the opening of schools. in the
convents (Ahren, 1991). This opening gives way to the debate called to offer greater
stabilities to the expansion of education through laws, therefore, two were established: (I)
ordered the convents of nuns to open schools for women as in the colony, differing in that
now the government reserved the approval of programs and regulations 1 . (II). The other
law required schools to be created for children in an entire community for every hundred
inhabitants, and in places where funds were sufficient to promote schools. 2 . These laws are
the beginning of the expansionism of public education. Santander, in charge of the
executive power, forms a commission to prepare the bill on the organization and
arrangement of public education.

2.3.1 Creation of the normal schools: Francisco de Paula Santander, entrusts the creation
of the normal schools to Sebastián Mora and Pedro Commentat with the objective that these
institutions would be dedicated to training teachers so that they would multiply, (he
happens to be the vice-presidency of Santander). What was learned in normal school did
not differ much from what children learned in elementary school, only the method differed.
The Normal School is one of the first letters that applies the mutual teaching method.
(Zuluaga, 1995)

The importance of the creation of normal schools lies in the training of teachers dedicated
to teaching, to strengthen the pedagogical character, Joves 1992 states:

In F. Santander there is a whole new revolutionary concept in the field of education. His
speech is based on public education, on the rights of children, on the obligation of parents,
which must be directed by the government, that educational establishments must reach all
classes, including indigenous people and women. (p.125)

Conclusions

The conclusions of this work are dedicated to the conception of Francisco de Paula
Santander as the man of law, the integral and human man who sought the idea of universal
being. Founded on liberal ideals of the time to achieve the liberating transcendence of man
in relation to the laws and the State. Santander is the creator of the legal order necessary to

1
Law of August 6, 1821 on National Codification of all the laws of Colombia (hereinafter
Codification), (24 vols., Bogotá, 1924-1930), I, 23-24.
2
Law of August 5, 1821, in ibid., I. 27-30
establish a democratic republic, his civilist thinking helped the consecration of many
citizens' rights in the era of Gran Colombia.

Santander sought to comprehensively educate the citizen, hence its interest in the
development of intelligence, it was based on public education where useful knowledge
makes people prosper, its universalization was not limited to sex, it was the laws that
undoubtedly established some liberal principles for the approach to education.

To conclude, it is then denoted that Francisco de Paula Santander was not the traitor of the
liberated man, he was not the reluctant man who did not follow orders, he was not the
secondary character in the history of Colombia in the 19th century, Santander was the
administrator by essence, military by patriotism, excellent strategist and lawyer by
vocation, the laws will give you freedom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahern, E. J. (1991). The development of education in Colombia: 1820-1850. Colombian

Education Magazine, no. 22-23 (1991), p. 5-88 .

Arteaga Hernández, M., & Arteaga Carvajal, J. (1986). Political history of Colombia. Book
club.

Bushnell, D. (1966). The Santander regime in Gran Colombia (No. F2275 B8e).

by Paula Santander, F., López, L. D., & Bolívar, S. (1990). Administrations of Santander
1826 – 1827 (No. 9). Foundation for the Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Birth
and the Sesquicentennial of the Death of General Francisco de Paula Santander.

Forero Abelardo. (1978). 19th century gallery of shadows

JARAMILLO URIBE, J. (1970). Anthology of Colombian political thought. Bogotá:

Banco de la República and Luis Ángel Arango Library.

Young, A. (1992). From hidden America to Francisco de Paula Santander

León Fuentes, D. YO. Impact of Francisco de Paula Santander's public instruction in

Colombia: (1819-1837): a humanistic approach.
Victoria, P. (2010). The other side of Bolivar: The war against Pablo Morillo. Planet.

Zuluaga Garcés, O. L. (1995). Normal schools in Colombia (during the reforms of

Francisco de Paula Santander and Mariano Ospina Rodríguez). Education and pedagogy
magazine.