Morals and lights are our first needs” is one of Simón Bolívar's most quoted phrases.

He said it
in the Angostura Speech, on February 15, 1819, an oratory piece that was published in the
“Correo del Orinoco” in numbers 19, 20, 21 and 22, from February 20 to March 13 of the same
year. More than 193 years have passed since then, and morals and enlightenment continue to
be our first needs. Not long before Francisco de Miranda had passed through Denmark and had
been horrified by its prisons and by many elements of Danish life, which seemed backward and
brutal to him. Today Denmark is one of the three or four most advanced and civilized countries
on the planet, and its prisons are almost unattainable models for the rest of the nations in the
world. Venezuela, on the other hand, remains one of the most backward and uncivilized
countries in the world. The elections of October 7, 2012 demonstrate this. A good part of those
who voted for Chávez did so through bribery, for maintaining perks and gifts, which
demonstrates the most absolute lack of morals. And another part did it because they were
dominated by ignorance and backwardness, which shows a lack of enlightenment. Morality and
enlightenment, almost two centuries after Bolívar said it, continue to be our first needs. It is true
that Venezuela was the country that suffered the most from the independence process. The
country was literally torn to pieces, ruined and without a future because of the war of
independence. And it is true that until 1903 it was devastated by civil wars and the actions of the
leaders and chiefs. And it is also true that until the 1920s it was one of the poorest countries in
the world, devastated not only by wars and warlords, but by malaria and other endemic
illnesses. And because of hunger. But starting in 1923, Venezuela became an oil country; it
stopped being a poor country and became a nation that received enormous amounts of money
and had the opportunity to prosper and become an advanced nation. For some time it seemed
that it would succeed, especially when, starting in 1959, it became an apparently democratic
country. But in 1998 he threw all that overboard and fell once again into backwardness and
barbarism. Because? Because morals and enlightenment were still his first needs. Democratic
governments could not or did not want to educate the majorities. Oil corruption outweighed the
duty of the rulers. And starting in 1999, when a corrupt and corrupting military government took
power, it became clearer that morality and enlightenment were still the first needs. The
government dedicated itself to corrupting the population even more, more and more every day.
And the population, due to lack of morality and enlightenment, allowed itself to be corrupted with
very little resistance. With the sole resistance of those who, for various reasons, have had
access to the lights and have true morality among their assets. How to break this vicious circle?
It's not easy, but is not impossible either. Hopefully that minority that demonstrated strongly on
October 7, 2012 can grow and impose itself. Or eternally moral and enlightened will continue to
be our first needs, although not the only ones.

Thought of Bolívar and Angostura speech

For Bolívar, the construction of a great society must rest on the moral pillar, seen as the power that allows
one to get rid of the bad habits, vices and dependencies of the Hispanic American man . To achieve such
a vision, he is inspired by the ancient body of laws of classical cultures: Greece and Rome , and
consciously proposes before the Constituent Congress gathered in Angostura a new power, the Moral
Power, which would exercise full and independent on public customs and on early education, under the
figure composed of two chambers: Morals and Education. This would represent the figure of the
Areopagus, taken from Athenian Greek society and from the guardians of customs, Roman would take its
Censors and Domestic Courts and from Sparta its austere establishments or institutions, thereby forming a
source of virtue to give to the Republic of Gran Colombia a "...fourth power whose domain is the childhood
and hearts of men, the public spirit, good customs and Republican morality."
But this proposal was rejected by the constituents, who after heated debates decided that for its
application it was necessary "...to consult the opinion of the wise men of all countries through the printing
press . Do some partial tests and gather facts that prove the advantages or disadvantages of this new
institution..." so it was decreed that the Moral Power proposal be published as an Appendix to the
Constitution with the intention that the citizens of the world could consider it and communicate their
opinions.
Today, Moral Power, only in Venezuela , after a wait of 180 years, is a reality - it is a constitutional letter! -
since the 1999 Constituent Assembly. In it, Bolívar's proposal was analyzed and taken, due to the great
need to create institutions that would ensure overcoming the deteriorated moral health of our people.
Where the sociopolitical reality of contemporary Venezuela has shown us "...that vices persist when
society is not alert, and that corruption (...) influence peddling, embezzlement, flourish in dictatorships as
well as in democracies" .
Based on this statement, offered by Dr. Ram ón J Velásquez, which we share, it is considered necessary
to observe that these scourges have been present in the Venezuela of yesterday just as they are in the
Venezuela of today. These were one of the many evils that the Liberator faced, prosecuted and
denounced. Against which he took considerable measures, perhaps some coherent and others few
coherent, but all after the search to remedy such a situation, which is why his insistence before the
Constituent Congress of Angostura on the conjugation of Moral Power with Educational Power, essential
for good exercise of government . For this reason, he pointed out "popular education must be the first-born
care of the paternal love of Congress. "Morals and lights are the poles of a Republic, morals and lights are
our first needs." This is one of the ideas that is most valid today in our contemporaneity and to which has
been given vital importance for the refoundation of the country.
More so when one is fully convinced that the Liberator was absolutely right when thinking and making
sociological self-criticism regarding the form of domination or slavery , to which the "American People."
"yoked (...) to the triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny and vice, we have not been able to acquire knowledge,
power, or virtue."
Therefore, our Liberator understands that to build a new Society, with new foundations, required the
application of a new educational philosophy . "He wanted to forge a more humane society, in which man
was not a simple instrument of political domination, and this is not possible without education." But it was
not an education conceived in a partial way, as mere technical training, but as a comprehensive activity,
for the training of the citizen, where the State and the family participate as guiding entities, since man is or
will be what is made of him in the world. instruction system .
For this reason, the Liberator understood the fundamental role of the social binomial, morality and
enlightenment , for the preparation of the citizen. For this reason, Barboza de la Torre, when analyzing
Bolívar's educational ideology, concludes that he always placed:
... morality exactly next to Education, at the moment of speaking to a constituent revolutionary Congress,
(...) and that the strong and powerful man who had a sword hanging (sic) from his waist said it, constitutes
an extraordinary event, where the protagonist shined before eyes and ears filled with astonishment.
of each of the attendees to such an important constituent act. Those who heard from the mouth of the
Liberator affirm that:
We have been dominated by deception more than by force ; and we have been degraded by vice rather
than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness; An ignorant People is a blind instrument of its
own destruction...
Both concepts: Morals and Education , presented before the Angostura Congress have not lost validity.
And they will be, from now on, a constant proposal of Bolívar, in his writings and speeches for the
development of the legislative project .
Our Liberator had a very high concept of educational and moral principles , for him, they were great and
significant, hence in his documents these are the main link of his ideas.
His judgments on fundamental aspects of Latin American life remain current and many of the problems
that the Liberator had posed as ruler in 1819 or 1827 are still valid. For this reason, it is necessary to
remember that the Liberator Simón Bolívar with great clarity and projection in time pointed out: "a
perverted people, if they achieve their Freedom, will very soon lose it again; because in vain they will strive
to show them that happiness consists of practice of virtue…
The speech clearly shows the Liberator's political thoughts and the way in which many of his ideas would
be put into practice. Secondly, the writing allows Bolívar to be stripped of his halo of a man of war ,
rampant on horseback and sword, and turns him into an ideologue, a thinker; This quality is, in a certain
way, the one that has the most value for posterity. Heroic deeds come and go, but ideas are everlasting
and become the motives of future generations.

Meaning of the "moral term and lights are our first

needs"
He said that ultimately all of the young people of this country are called and obliged to carry out this fight in
favor of those of this generation and those of future ones. Because it is the right time, because we have to
ensure our safety as students and the safety of those who will come. The University and educational
institutions are essentially free. They are the spaces where the country's professionals are trained and it is
the labor field that decides how it wants its workers to be trained according to the skills necessary for the
market ; in short, what is demanded today is quality . No one can implement a rigid system in universities,
because their members would not find the channel to innovate and seek other ways to achieve knowledge
of science , of truth, and as someone once told me: what is rigid breaks.

Read more: http://www.monografias.com/trabajos89/moral-y-luces-pensamiento-del-libertador/moral-y-

luces-pensamiento-del-libertador.shtml#pensamiena#ixzz2whe1DxbO

The Jamaican Charter

Document that Simón Bolívar wrote in Kingston on
September 6, 1815, and which was addressed to an
Englishman who is presumed to have been Henry Cullen,
a British subject, residing in Falmouth, near Montego Bay,
on the northern coast of Jamaica. The English edition of
said letter had the title A friend and in Spanish, A
gentleman from this island. The oldest known text is the
draft manuscript of the English version preserved in the
National Archive of Colombia Bogotá, in the Secretariat
of War and Navy collection, volume 323. The first known
publication of the Letter in Spanish appeared in print in
1833, in volume XXI, Appendix, of the Collection of
documents relating to the public life of the Liberator,
compiled by Francisco Javier Yánez and Cristóbal
Mendoza. The original Castilian manuscript has not been
located, nor is any copy known between 1815 and 1883,
except for the 2 published in English, from 1818 and 1825.
The Jamaica Charter and its
historical context
When Bolívar arrived in Kingston in 1815, he was 32
years old. By this time he had only been fully responsible
for 3 years in the struggle for emancipation, since this
activity began with the declaration of the Cartagena
Manifesto on December 15, 1812. During this period he
developed intense military activity. First, in 1813, with the
Admirable Campaign, which took him dizzyingly in a few
months to Caracas on August 6, 1813 to attempt the
refoundation of the Republic, an enterprise that ended in
1814, in failure against the hosts of José Tomás Boves.
After this failure he returned to New Granada, to try to
repeat the feat of the Admirable Campaign , an action that
was rejected by his supporters. Feeling misunderstood in
Cartagena de Indias, on May 9, 1815, he decided to take
the road to exile to Jamaica, encouraged by the idea of
reaching the English world and convincing it of its
cooperation with the ideal of Spanish-American
independence. He lived in Kingston from May to
December 1815, time he dedicated to meditation and
rumination about the future of the American continent in
the face of the situation of world politics.
The Charter of Jamaica was concluded on September 6,
1815 in Kingston. In it, Bolívar analyzes in the first part,
what the historical events had been until that moment
throughout the American continent in the fight for
freedom. In general terms, it was a balance of the effort
made by the patriots in the years from 1810 to 1815. In the
central part of the document the causes and reasons that
justified the decision of the "Spanish Americans" for
independence are set out. Subsequently, it ends with a call
to Europe to cooperate with the work of liberation of the
Latin American peoples. In the third and final part, he
prophesies and argues about the destiny of Mexico,
Central America, New Granada, Venezuela, Buenos Aires,
Chile and Peru. Finally, Bolívar concludes his reflection
with an imprecation that he will repeat until his death: the
need for union between the American countries. Although
the Jamaica Letter was written nominally to Henry Cullen,
it is clear that its fundamental objective was to attract the
attention of the most powerful liberal nation of the 19th
century, England, so that it would decide to become
involved in American independence. However, when the
British finally acceded to Bolívar's call, he preferred help
from Haiti.
Jamaica menu

Simón Bolívar by José Gil de Castro .

The Letter of Jamaica is a text written by Simón Bolívar on September 6, 1815 in Kingston , capital
of the British colony of Jamaica , in response to a letter from Henry Cullen, a Jamaican merchant of
English origin residing in Falmouth , near Montego. Bay , where he explains the reasons that caused
the fall of the Second Republic in the context of the independence of Venezuela . The letter, whose
title was Reply from a Southern American to a Gentleman of this Island , intended to attract Great
Britain and the rest of the European powers to the cause of the American independence patriots . 1

The English edition of the letter had the title A friend and in Spanish, A gentleman from this island .
The oldest known original is the draft manuscript of the English version preserved in the National
Archive of Colombia ( Bogotá ), in the Secretariat of War and Navy collection, volume 323. The first
known publication of the Letter in Spanish appeared in print in 1833, in volume XXI, Appendix, of the
Collection of documents relating to the public life of the Liberator , compiled by Francisco Javier
Yánez and Cristóbal Mendoza. The original Castilian manuscript has not been located, nor is any
copy known between 1815 and 1883, except for the two published in English, from 1818 and 1825.

Index
 [ disguise ]

 1. Background

o 1.1 Ideological context

 2 Content

 3 References

 4 Bibliography

 5 External links

Background [ edit ]

The reforms introduced by the Bourbons (especially by Charles III ) provoked a feeling of frustration
among certain Creole elites who believed their social domination was threatened due to the loss of
control of colonial administration positions in favor of officials arriving from the peninsula. in addition
to having to endure greater fiscal pressure and the reinforcement of the colonial pact that forced the
colonies to trade only with the metropolis. This sentiment led some of the most enlightened members
of the Creole elites, such as Simón Bolívar himself, to think that the solution to their "grievances" was
the independence of the metropolis (the same solution that the Creoles of the British "13 colonies" of
North America and which had given birth to the United States ). 2

After the “Bayonne successions” (as Bolívar called the Bayonne abdications ) of May 1808 became
known, boards were formed in the main American cities, as well as in the peninsula, that assumed
power in the name of the absent king. Ferdinand VII . These boards sent representatives to the
Supreme Central Board of Seville. The break with the metropolis began when some of them (the first
was precisely that of Caracas, the city of Bolívar, in April 1810) did not recognize the authority of the
Regency that was formed in Cádiz, since when the Junta had dissolved Supreme Court were once
again left without representation in Spain and for this reason they proclaimed themselves
independent, then dismissing the colonial authorities. 3

The rupture was definitively consummated when at the beginning of 1814 it was known that
Ferdinand VII had abolished the Constitution of 1812, thus putting an end to the attempt of the
Cortes of Cádiz to establish a more egalitarian relationship between Spain and its empire
(proclaimed in article 1 of the Constitution that said: The Spanish Nation is the meeting of all
Spaniards from both hemispheres ), and that also proposed restoring the colonial order prior to 1808
(among other reasons because taxes from "the Indies" were essential to reestablish the battered
state of the public treasury). Thus a royalist army sent from the peninsula landed at the beginning of
1815 near Caracas and quickly dominated Venezuela, ordering the confiscation of the property of the
"patriotic" Creoles (among them, those of Simón Bolívar) and later New Granada (present-day
Colombia) where reestablished the authority of the Monarchy. In May 1815, Simón Bolívar fled
Cartagena de Indias and went into exile on the island of Jamaica, a British colony, where he wrote
the independence proclamation known as the Letter of Jamaica. Nine years later, Bolívar's project
had become a reality and the Spanish Empire in America had ceased to exist (except over Cuba and
Puerto Rico). 4

Ideological context
Around 1800, Bolívar studied the politics and ideas of the time of Revolution in France . Bolívar, like
many of the Creoles, was no stranger to theories about natural law and the social contract and these
ideas were pillars in his political management and his defense of freedom and equality, clear
enlightened premises. In the letter from Jamaica the influence of the Enlightenment and its great
thinkers is clearly seen. Bolívar includes concepts from Montesquieu when he speaks of "oriental
despotism" to define the Spanish Empire .

Bolívar had his favorite author in Montesquieu, for him The Spirit of the Laws was a work that he
always resorted to when defining positions and dissertations on the future and present of the South
American colonial peoples.

Bolívar had to design his own theory of national liberation and, as we have noted, this was a contribution

to the ideas of the Enlightenment, not an imitation of them.

John Lynch

Although the Letter was originally addressed to Henry Cullen, it is clear that its fundamental objective
was to attract the attention of the most powerful liberal nation of the 19th century , Great Britain , so
that it would decide to become involved in American independence. However, when the British finally
acceded to Bolívar's call, he preferred help from Haiti .

Contents [ edit ]

In the letter, Bolívar justifies the rebellion of the “patriotic” Creoles of Spanish America and calls to
continue the fight to achieve independence (since desperation has rarely not dragged victory behind
5
it ). To do this, Bolívar resorts to two arguments.

The first refers to the breakdown by the Monarchy of the social contract supposedly agreed between
the Spanish Crown and the discoverers, conquerors and settlers of America in the time of Charles V
(that is, at the beginning of the formation of the Empire in America) according to which they had the
right to exclusively govern the new territories while the Crown reserved only the high domain (as if it
were a feudal property ). This contract, according to Bolívar, was broken by the Crown - especially by
the new Bourbon dynasty - by imposing express laws that exclusively favored the country's natives
from Spain in terms of civil, ecclesiastical and income jobs to the detriment of the criollos— the
natives who have been stripped of the constitutional authority that their code gave them . 6

The second argument refers to the repressive policy adopted by the Regency , first, and by Fernando
VII , later (after assuming his absolute powers again in April 1814) with respect to the American
“juntas” that had proclaimed themselves “independent” after the successions of Bayonne (the
abdication of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII in favor of Napoleon in May 1808) and the subsequent
dissolution of the Supreme Central Board at the beginning of 1810, replaced by a Regency.
According to Bolívar, this repressive policy had turned Spain from a motherland (which in the
Constitution of 1812 has recognized, at least in theory, the Creoles as Spaniards with equal rights to
the peninsular) into a stepmother . Before, Bolívar affirms, everything that formed our hope came to
us from Spain , but now the opposite is happening... and they want to return us to darkness... we
have already been free, and our enemies intend to enslave us again .