No. 176.
Mr. Bassett to Mr. Fish.
Port au Prince, Hayti, July 29, 1876. (Received August 9.)
Sir: Referring to that part of my No. 454, of May 31, 1876, which noted the facts that elections for members of the Chamber of Deputies were then in progress, and that that body would, when organized, proceed first to the election of senators, and then, in connection with the senate, to the choice of a person to be President of Hayti, I have the honor to state that the Chamber of Deputies having organized on the 20th ultimo, and having terminated its election of senators on the 5th instant, the two houses met in national assembly on the 17th instant and proceeded to the election of a chief of state. On the first ballot there were 96 votes cast, of which General Boisrond Canal received 62, Mr. Boyer Bazelais 31, and there were 3 scattering votes. But as the law requires that a candidate must receive an absolute majority of two-thirds of all the votes cast in order to be elected, the assembly proceeded to the second ballot, which resulted in 68 votes for General Canal, and 28 for Mr. Bazelais. General Boisrond Canal was thereupon declared duly elected President of Hayti. The term of presidential office here is, as with us, four years. But the date fixed for its commencement by the constitution of 1867 is the 15th of May. Therefore the constitutional end of President Canal’s term of office is fixed for the 15th of May, 1880.
President Canal took the oath of office on the 19th instant and entered at once upon the discharge of its duties.
My colleagues and myself were invited to attend both the election and the inauguration of the President. They were all present, but I was sick in bed on those and several subsequent days.
There are some facts prominently connected with President Canal’s elevation to office which seem to merit an observation or two. And first, I may say that in no previous election of any character in Hayti had there ever been any approach to the freedom of expression and choice allowed to the electors in this canvass. No one of them was, as far as I know or believe, in any way intimidated or driven or unduly influenced to vote or act against his own simple free will in the matter. This had never before been the case in Hayti.
[Page 334]The partisans of Mr. Bazelais worked openly and above board for their candidate up to the very moment of taking the second and final vote in the National Assembly on the 17th instant.
Another fact worthy of remark, because it is also new to this country, is that General Canal strenuously refused to make the least effort for his election, and on all occasions appeared simply as a citizen without rank or military title.
I can hardly resist the temptation to point to General Canal’s elevation to the chief magistracy of his country by the free choice of his fellow-citizens as a confirmation of the views constantly expressed of him in my dispatches to you last year, when he was a refugee under our flag here, and as another illustration of the great truth that all men, especially those clothed with position and power as Domingue and Rameau were a year ago, must be not only just, but also generous, in their dealings with and tender in their judgments of their fellow-men. If Domingue and Rameau had been observant of this great principle, General Canal would probably never have allowed himself to be even a candidate for the presidency of Hayti. But what a lesson! Boisrond Canal, President of Hayti, and probably the most popular citizen in his country, while the very Domingue and Rameau, who clamored most wrongfully and shamefully for his life through five long months in 1875, setting at defiance all fairness and justice, are driven from power in disgrace by the very violence to which they appealed—the one sleeping in a dishonored grave, and the other in his old age eating his bread in the same exile to which he in the day of his power so mercilessly consigned others.
President Canal, the grandson of Boisrond Tonnerre, who was the author of the declaration of Haytian independence, is a mulatto about forty-four years of age, in the full vigor of perfect health, of handsome face, erect carriage, and manly form. It is almost impossible to look into his handsome manly face without seeing there the index of an honest heart, a brave and generous character. A slight but constantly recurring impediment in his speech mars, but does not cover from view, his correct knowledge of his own language. He has a limited knowlege of English, to which, however, he only resorts in case of necessity. Of a genial, happy temperament, in his manners modest, without affectation or forwardness, honest and frank in all his intercourse with his fellow-men, he is personally very popular with all classes here, beloved alike by the blacks, the whites, and that ambitious passionate class the aristocratic mulattoes. He has never been an aspirant for any public office or command whatever, and I do not think he has ever knowingly wronged a single human being or has a single personal enemy. Except when in the active military service of his country or acting as senator under the Saget administration, he has been a quiet planter, working with his own hands among his hundreds of employés, for whose religious and secular education he established a chapel and a school on his large plantation in the commune of La Coupe. In character he is the complete opposite of Rameau. He has hardly a trace of avariciousness or vindictiveness or cruelty or low cunning or illiberality toward foreigners or prejudice against any class of persons in his nature.
Whether he will be able to retrieve his country from the truly deplorable situation into which Rameau’s rule plunged it, or whether in the midst of the difficulties, vexations, and temptations with which his new position will surround him, he will succeed in maintaining and infusing into his administration his own manly character, it is perhaps altogether too early yet to determine. It is certain, however, that neither he nor any other man can in the short space of four years materially [Page 335] change the fixed habits of this people or create this country into a paradise. He, like others, may find that circumstances will control him in spite of himself more than he can control them; for it is a fact that a man is worked on by what he himself works on. The address to the people and the army of Hayti, which he delivered in terse and elegant French on the occasion of his inauguration and which I send herewith inclosed, intelligently sets forth his good purposes, and is, I think, a truthful representation of his patriotic inspirations.
In further proof of his disinterested patriotism it should be stated that, immediately after his election, he sent for the chief of the party opposed to his election, Mr. Boyer Bazelais, and offered him the portfolio of finance, commerce, and foreign affairs, the highest appointment within the executive control. Mr. Bazelais declined the proffered influential appointment. But this step is remarkable as the only one of the kind that has ever been taken by a President of Hayti. The rule of former Presidents has always been rather to belittle, disgrace, or even to persecute political opponents. President Canal has also called around him a ministry whose members are known for their personal honor and integrity. His disposition toward foreigners will undoubtedly prove to be of the most friendly character.
But he has at best a severer task upon him than any of his predecessors have ever had. Indeed, how, in view of the real habits of this people, he can find the means to face the engagements or meet the actual necessities of his country, so as to satisfy all at home and abroad who have legitimate interests in Hayti, I confess myself unable just now to foresee.
I am, &c.,