Note 26 — Chapter X · THE ATHENS OF SOUTH AMERICA
Reading edition
The geographical features of the country, and the diverse interests of its different sections, were, pace Mitre, no more opposed to the formation of a great and stable republic on the Caribbean than they were in that vast commonwealth to the north of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Stars and Stripes have so long been the symbol of peace, prosperity and national greatness. The people in the southern continent, were not, it is true, so well prepared for a democratic form of government as were their brethren in the north, but if, instead of being cursed with selfish and destructive militarism, they could have enjoyed the blessings of competent and far-seeing statesmanship, it is safe to affirm that the Great Colombia, as Bolivar conceived it, would, ere this, have developed into a flourishing and powerful republic—worthy of taking a place among the great nations of the world.26