Monagas and Paez Author:Thomas Williams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES FOR HISTORY, At the opening of the electioneering campaign of 1846, Gen. Paez publicly declared that he had no candidate, that he had no one to propose,... more » and that he would obey any one the nation might select according to the constitution. He remained firm in this idea until the month of June, when, on his return from Apure, perceiving that Guzman's chance of being elected had greatly gained ground, and having a decided terror of such an event, he thought that he ought to favor one of his opponents, and the one who was the most likely to succeed. Being in Ca- labozo, he there first manifested his inclination for the election of General Jose Tadeo Monagas, then remembering that this General had said to him in 1839, that thenceforward their two swords should be but one, or something to that effect. Public opinion manifested itself still more openly towards September, when it appeared divided between Monagas, Guzman and Salom. Guzman being set aside by the revolution of September, Blanco became the third candidate ; the latter and Salom were both utterly offensive to Paez, for they were perhaps the only two chiefs in Venezuela who would not in any way recognize his influence and preponderance. To this being added the appointment of General Monagas by General Sou- blette as second in command of the constitutional army, and indubitably by agreement with Paez, gave additional importance to the Monagas party, and the conduct of the latter in the September crisis turned the scale of public opinion completely in his favor. It would be most curious to expose all that then took place ; we cannot flatter ourselves that we know all the secret springs which were set in motion at that period ; we shall, however, set forth that which we are positive is correct. General Paez was c...« less