Abstract
Ecuador became an independent nation in 1830. Its first constitution declared that its government would be: ‘popular, representative, alternative and accountable’.1 It was only in 1978, however, that the seventeenth constitution of the country abolished the literacy requirement, thus permitting the bulk of the Ecuadorean population to elect governments which were, in principle at least, truly popular, representative, alternative and accountable. In the century and a half that elapsed between these two dates, there took place a struggle between those who wanted to restrict the system of representation in one way or another and those who worked to expand it. Of the many clashes perhaps the most interesting and decisive of all was that which took place in 1861. Very little however has been written on the subject and that which exists is in need of revision.2
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Notes
F. Trabucco, Constituciones de la república del Ecuador (Guayaquil, 1975), p. 34.
The literature on the Ecuadorean electoral process in the 19th century is extremely thin: J. Tobar Donoso, ‘El sufragio en el Ecuador’, Revista de la Asociación de Derecho (1949); R. Quintero, ‘El carácter de la estructura institucional de representatión política en el estado ecuatoriano del siglo XIX’, Revista Ciencias Sociales, vol. II, nos. 7–8 (1978); M. Medina Castro, ‘Proceso evolutivo del electorado national’, in E. Ayala (ed.), La historia del Ecuador, ensayos de interpretation (1985); and E. Albán Gómez, ‘Evolutión del sistema electoral ecuatoriano’, in Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Eleccionesy democracia en el Ecuador, vol I. El Proceso electoral ecuatoriano (Quito, 1989).
See respectively, Medina Castro, ‘Proceso evolutivo del electorado’, and Quintero, ‘El carácter de la estructura institucional’.
See, in particular, M Kossok, ‘Revolutión, estado y natión en la Independencia’, in I. Buisson et al. (eds.), Problemas de la formatión del estado y la natión en Hispanoamérica (Bonn, 1984), p. 169, and S. Valenzuela, Democratizatión vía reforma: La expansión del sufragio en Chile (Buenos Aires, 1985).
J. Maiguashca (ed.), Historia y región en el Ecuador, 1830–1930 (Quito, 1994).
Trabucco, Constituciones de la república, p. 35.
The Department was abolished as a territorial unit in 1835 but it was kept in existence for the administration of some activities of the central state such as elections.
Medina Castro, ‘Proceso evolutivo del electorado’, p. 316.
Quintero, ‘El carácter de la estructura institucional’, pp. 85, 102–4.
Ibid., pp. 86–7.
See Maiguashca, Historia y región, particularly Palomeque’s chapter, pp. 69–142.
For a criticism of Quintero’s approach, see J. P. Deler and Y. Saint-Geours, Estados y naciones en los Andes (Quito, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 419–34.
Quintero, ‘El cáracter de la estructura institucional’, pp. 86–7.
On electoral corruption, see comments by Tobar Donoso, ‘El sufragio en el Ecuador’, p. 14.
From 1830 to 1884 there were economic prerequisites to holding office. As a result, the political and administrative elites of Ecuador throughout this period naturally belonged mostly to the propertied classes. From this fact current historians have inferred that these elites were governed by their class and/or territorial interests in the exercise of their public duties, thus rendering useless a distinction between ‘national’ versus ‘peripheral’ elites. This inference, however, has not been checked empirically. The evidence available suggests that the people who manned the state apparatus, irrespective of their territorial or social origins, tended to adopt what could be called an ‘institutional point of view’. It is perfectly in order, therefore, to speak about the ‘national elites’ as a distinct social actor in Ecuadorean public life.
These terms, ‘people’ and ‘aristocrats’, were used by contemporaries, including foreign diplomats in Ecuador.
G. Ramón, ‘Los indios y la constitución del estado nacional’, Ponencia al IX Simposio International de historia económica: las comunidades campesinas de los Andes en el siglo XIX (Quito, Mar. 1989), p. 31.
Public Records Office (PRO), FO 25, vols. 9:53; 11:45; 16:63; 22:55, 83; 24:15.
PRO, FO 25, vol. 24:15; and American Diplomatic Correspondence, National Archives of the United States (henceforth ADC), Quito, 4 Dec. 1849.
The ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ label in Ecuador were used to distinguish the two main political factions of the upper classes.
PRO, FO 25, vols. 24:15 and 26:32.
Maiguashca, Historia y región, pp. 377–83.
PRO, FO 25, vol. 26:48.
PRO, FO 25, vol. 24:15, and ADC, Guayaquil, 12 May 1851.
PRO, FO 25, vols. 24:49; 26:48; 30:84; and ADC, Quito, 1 June 1857.
Foreign representatives in Ecuador took sides during the 1850s. Walter Cope, the British Chargé d’Affaires, sympathised with the aristocrats in Quito and in the departmental capitals. Cope came to the conclusion that the Marcistas had established a system of ‘despotic militarism’ as early as 1851. See FO 25, vols. 22:69, 83; Cope to Foreign Office, Quito, 20 Jan. 1852, vol. 24, and Guayaquil, 1 Oct. 1852, vol. 26. Aware that the Marcistas regarded the United States as the ‘model republic’, North American representatives were less critical. They also acknowledged that the Marcistas were interested in advancing democracy in Ecuador. ADC, Cushing to Secretary of State, Guayaquil, 6 Apr. 1852; 30 July 1852; 2 Mar. 1853; and White to Secretary of State, Quito, 18 Jan. 1854.
With regard to Indian mobilisation in the southern highlands from the 1850s onwards, see M. A. Vintimilla, ‘Luchas campesinas en el siglo XIX y la Revolution Liberal de 1895’, Revista dell DIS, No. 8 (Cuenca, 1980), pp. 83–94. For a general account of the phenomenon of ‘urvinismo’, see E. Ayala, Lucha politica y origen de lospartidos en Ecuador (Quito, 1982), pp. 94–107.
See Malo, Escritosy discursos, p. 218; ADC, Quito, 10 Apr. and 1 June 1857, and 10 Jan. 1858.
ADC, Quito, 1 June 1857, 10 Jan. and 24 Aug. 1858.
PRO, FO 25, vol. 32:118.
See L. Robalino Dávila, García Moreno (Puebla, 1967), p. 211; R. Patee, ‘La época crítica de la historia ecuatoriana, 1857–1861’, Boletin del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de Guayaquil (1941), pp. 17–18; and FO 25, vol. 34:41.,
Ayala, Lucha politica y origen de los partidos en el Ecuador, pp. 107–12.
Robalino Dávila, Garcia Moreno, p. 211.
PRO, FO 25, vol. 34:111.
Patee, ‘La época crítica’, pp. 23–4.
ADC, Quito, 22 Mar. 1860.
M. Van Aken, King of the Night: Juan José Flores and Ecuador, 1824–1864 (Berkeley, 1989), p. 255.
Tobar Donoso, El sufragio en el Ecuador, p. 12.
Quoted in Tobar Donoso, idem, pp. 12–13.
Robalino Dávila, Garcia Moreno, pp. 296 and 300; and Tobar Donoso, El sufragio en el Ecuador, p. 13.
Van Aken, King of the Night, pp. 256–9.
Diario de los trabajos de la Convención Nacional reunida en la capital de la repblica en elano de 1861 (Quito, 1861), p. 111 (hereafter quoted 2&Diario). This source, a daily record of all the debates that took place in the convention, has hitherto been largely neglected by historians. This document is not easily available as there are very few copies left. I had access to the Diario thanks to the generosity of Enrique Ayala and Malcolm Deas.
Diario, pp. 53–5.
In 19th century Ecuador, the right to vote without economic prerequisites was called ‘universal suffrage’. In this chapter I have kept the contemporary meaning of the term.
Diario, pp. 100–101.
Diario, pp. 168,192, 205 and 300; Robalino Dávila, García Moreno, p. 211.
Diario, p. 102. See also ibid., pp. 102, 165, 168.
Mera, one of the youngest members of the Convention, made a move to do away with the literacy qualification as well; Diario, pp. 107, 171. But few rallied to his cause. Thus the only two qualifications that remained in place for citizenship in the Constitution of 1861 were gender and the proof of literacy.
All the evidence suggests that the only doctrinaire liberals in the Convention were the two young representatives from Loja: Toribio Mora and Francisco Arias. Mora published his views in an influential paper in that province, which he himself established, La Federación. See A. Mora Reyes, Don Manuel Carrión Pinzano y el gobierno federal de Loja y trs maestros lojanos (Loja, 1959).
Diario, pp. 193, 300; Robalino Dávila, Garcia Moreno, p. 211; and G. García Ceballos, Por un García Moreno de cuerpo entero (Cuenca, 1978), pp. 41–5.
For the use of the concept of ‘generation’ in Ecuadorian cultural history, see J. Valdano, Ecuador: cultura y generaciones (Quito, 1985), p. 87. Political historians could emulate cultural historians and use this concept to their great advantage. It acknowledges a phenomenon of social life. It allows the historian an opportunity to avoid falling victim either to the notion of ‘the great man’ or to class determinism.
Diario, p. 111.
Diario, p. 251.
See Mora’s comments after the reform was passed, m Diario, p. 192.
B. Malo, Escritos y discursos (Quito, 1940), pp. 214, 216–7.
Diario, pp. Ill, 180–1.
Diario, pp. 181 and 55.
Diario, p. 379. See also R. Borja y Borja, Derecho constitucional ecuatoriano (Madrid, 1950), vol. I, pp. 602–4.
Diario, pp. 359 and 408.
Diario, p. 480.
Trabucco, Constituciones de la repblica, p. 201.
Diario, p. 497.
Robalino Dávila, Garda Moreno, p. 213.
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Maiguashca, J. (1996). The Electoral Reforms of 1861 in Ecuador and the Rise of a New Political Order. In: Posada-Carbó, E. (eds) Elections before Democracy: The History of Elections in Europe and Latin America. Institute of Latin American Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24505-5_5
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