Between his character and his doctrines there was a grave discrepancy. An autocrat by vocation and by temperament, because a patrician, he nevertheless weakened the executive by the Municipal Law, which established autonomous municipalities, and by the law of incompatibilities, which conceded to Congress a complete independence of the other powers. "The mandate of the deputy" declares this law "is incompatible with the exercise of any paid public function." At this hour of party confusion Balmaceda despoiled the executive of efficacious agents in Parliament. He was thus, by a reform which, ideally speaking, was perfect, preparing the way for serious future conflicts.
The liberal President condemned the Constitution of 1833, the basis of Chilian order; he believed that the new period demanded a new statute. "Neither the desires of the country nor those of the parties or groups now active," he wrote, "can adapt themselves to the system of centralisation and authority consecrated by the Constitution of 1833."[1] He criticised "the attributions which devolve upon the chief of the Executive Power, the weakening of initiative and of the local charters by excess of vigour in the central power; the part played by the Executive in the formation of the judicial power, its influence upon the elections, the functioning of the legislative power, the centralisation of the administration, and the works which foster material progress."
But by abandoning, by a sort of heroic suicide, the forces conferred upon him by a traditional statute, Balmaceda paved the way for an omnipotent Congress. _Pelucon_ by heredity, a cultured despot, he { 175} soon disregarded the power which he himself had raised above the decadent presidency. The contradiction between his life and his doctrines, his heredity and his ideals, gives his noble and patrician figure the majesty of a character of Æschylus, ennobled at once and annihilated by destiny. Balmaceda weakened the executive and put forward official candidates; established the preponderance of Congress and wished to have independent ministers; destroyed the Constitution of 1833 and ruled as an autocrat. Renan compared himself to the scholastic _hircocerf_, which bears within itself two hostile natures; this was also the fate of Balmaceda.