During the administration of President Errazuriz, the liberal party
succeeded in passing a number of reformatory measures, among which
was one providing that the clergy should be amenable to the civil
authorities, and further that all sects might worship in churches
erected by private enterprise. The president also decreed that space
should be reserved in catholic or public cemeteries for the interment
of dissenters, who could be given the right of burial according to the
form of their respective denominations. Against these acts the clerical
party filed a remonstrance which was signed by the Archbishop of
Santiago; and members of Congress who voted for the measures, as well
as magistrates who should attempt to enforce the laws, were threatened
with excommunication from the church. But those progressive measures
still remain upon the statute books of Chile.
Don Anibal Pinto succeeded Don Federico Errazuriz as president in 1876.
His administration was early confronted with a financial crisis, and in
1878 the government authorized the banks to suspend specie payment, and
guaranteed their emission of paper money to the amount of $15,500,000,
which was made redeemable in coin on August 31, 1879. A year later the
government found it necessary to resort to a second issue of paper
currency to the amount of $6,000,000.
The church question, which had been made the paramount political
issue in previous campaigns continued with unabated zeal and acrimony
throughout President Pinto’s administration. In 1878 the Archbishop of
Santiago died, and the government recommended the appointment of Don
Francisco de Paula Taforo as his successor. The clergy of the country
opposed the appointment, but the government maintained that inasmuch as
the State supported the ecclesiastical officials, the civil authorities
should name the church dignitaries. After a bitter contest lasting for
several years an apostolic delegate was sent from Rome to make report
on the affair. He was expelled by President Santa Maria, who succeeded
President Pinto, and the victory was won by the government.
Throughout the administrations of Presidents Perez, Errazuriz, and
Pinto the country made rapid advancement along the road of national
progress and civilization. Previous to that time all reforms and
advanced measures were initiated and directed by the executive, whose
political power made him practically the government.
Neither the House of Deputies nor the Senate made any pretense to
parliamentary rule or order. In both national and private life the poor
but honest element predominated. People earned a legitimate livelihood
by honest industry, and wanton extravagance was little known.
THE WAR OF 1879.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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