Participation of the liberal peoples in the civil war of 1851: Citzenship in arms
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2011-01-01
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Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Resumen
The Democratic Societies of Handcrafters were important political decisive organisms for the presidential election of the liberal José Hilario López (1849-1853). They played a multiple role as social Liberal Party bases, as organized pressure on the State, and as an extension of it, what turned them into an important political actor during the government period of López. Because the members of these Democratic Societies had to offer their services to the Auxiliary National Guard, and due to the permeability of this police entity toward the enrollment of armed civilians, both institutions merged into a political-military entity backing up the Liberal reforms and quelling the conservative insurrection that used to resist them. It was a kind of problematical hybrid, a subsidiary of Liberalism that acted as an "armed party" and, at the same time, a police entity playing the role of a "partisan army". This article deals with the way in which the Democratic Societies contributed to democratize politics and how they played a crucial role as a coercive force against the State in the Civil War of 1851, a war where the liberal peoples largely participated as a "citizenship in in arms", significantly contributing to the triumph of the liberals in such dispute. © 2012 Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales (IEPRI), Universidad Nacional de Colombia.