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Colombia The Federalists
Although divided, the PL soon achieved electoral
victories. In
the election of 1853, General José María Obando, who had
led the
revolutionary forces in the 1840 civil war and who was
supported by
the draconianos and the army, was elected and
inaugurated as
president. Congress remained in the hands of the
golgotas.
In May of the same year, Congress adopted the constitution
of 1853,
which had been written under López. A liberal document, it
had
significant provisions defining the separation of church
and state
and freedom of worship and establishing male suffrage. The
new
constitution also mandated the direct election of the
president,
members of Congress, magistrates, and governors, and it
granted
extensive autonomy to the departments.
Despite the victory that the constitution represented
for the
Liberals, tensions grew between golgota and
draconiano forces. When the draconianos
found Obando
to be compromising with the golgotas, General José
María
Melo led a coup d'état in April 1854, declared himself
dictator,
and dissolved Congress. Melo's rule, the only military
dictatorship
in the nineteenth century, lasted only eight months
because he
proved unable to consolidate the interests of the
draconianos; he was deposed by an alliance of
golgotas and Conservatives.
In 1857 PC candidate Mariano Ospina Rodríguez was
elected
president. The next year, his administration adopted a new
constitution, which renamed the country the Grenadine
Confederation, replaced the vice president with three
designates
elected by Congress, and set the presidential term at four
years.
With the draconiano faction disappearing as a
political
force, the golgotas took over the PL in opposition
to the
Conservative Ospina. General Mosquera, the former
president and the
governor of the department of Cauca, emerged as the most
important
Liberal figure. A strong advocate of federalism, Mosquera
threatened the secession of Cauca in the face of the
centralization
undertaken by the Conservatives. Mosquera, the
golgotas, and
their supporters declared a civil war in 1860, resulting
in an
almost complete obstruction of government.
Because civil disorder prevented elections from being
held as
scheduled in 1861, Bartolomé Calvo, a Conservative in line
for the
presidency, assumed the office. In July 1861, Mosquera
captured
Bogotá, deposed Calvo, and took the title of provisional
president
of the United States of New Granada and supreme commander
of war.
A congress of plenipotentiaries chosen by the civil and
military
leaders of each department met in the capital in September
1861 in
response to a call by the provisional government.
Meanwhile, the
war continued until Mosquera defeated the Conservatives
and finally
subdued the opposition in Antioquia in October 1862.
Shortly after taking power, Mosquera put the church
under
secular control and expropriated church lands. The
property was not
redistributed to the landless, however, but was sold to
merchants
and landholders in an effort to improve the national
fiscal
situation, which had been ruined by the war. As a result,
the
amount of land held under latifundios increased.
In February 1863, a Liberal-only government convention
met in
Rionegro and enacted the constitution of 1863, which was
to last
until 1886. The Rionegro constitution renamed the nation
the United
States of Colombia. All powers not given to the central
government
were reserved for the states, including the right to
engage in the
commerce of arms and ammunition. The constitution
contained fully
defined individual liberties and guarantees as nearly
absolute as
possible, leaving the federal authority with little room
to
regulate society. The constitution also guaranteed
Colombians the
right to profess any religion.
The Rionegro constitution brought little peace to the
country.
After its enactment and before the next constitutional
change,
Liberals and Conservatives engaged in some forty local
conflicts
and several major military struggles. Contention
persisted,
moreover, between the moderate Liberals in the executive
branch and
the radical Liberals in the legislature; the latter went
so far as
to enact a measure prohibiting the central authority from
suppressing a revolt against the government of any state
or in any
way interfering in state affairs. In 1867 the radical
Liberals also
executed a coup against Mosquera, leading to his
imprisonment,
trial before the Senate, and exile from the country.
With the fall of Mosquera and the entrenchment of
radical
Liberals in power, Conservatives found it increasingly
difficult to
accept the Rionegro constitution. Eventually Conservatives
in
Tolima and Antioquia took up arms, initiating another
civil
conflict in 1876. The Liberal national government put down
the
rebellion, but only with difficulty.
Golgotas controlled the presidency until 1884
and
defended the Rionegro constitution's provisions for
federalism,
absolute liberties, separation of church and state, and
the
nonintervention of the state in the economy. Their
economic
policies emphasized the construction of lines of
communication,
especially railroads and improved roads. These projects
did not
unify the country and increase internal trade but instead
linked
the interior with export centers, connecting important
cities with
river and maritime ports. By allowing easier access to
imports, the
projects thus favored the merchant class over the national
industrialists.
Under the golgota policy of completely free
trade,
exports became a major element of the country's economy.
Three main
agricultural exports--tobacco, quinine, and
coffee--developed,
especially after 1850 when international markets were more
favorable and accessible. Nonetheless, all three crops
suffered
from cyclical periods of high and low demand. By the
1880s, it was
clear that tobacco and quinine would not be reliable
exports in the
long term because of stiff international competition.
Coffee also
faced competition but nevertheless succeeded in dominating
the
economy after the 1870s. The coffee merchants used their
profits as
middlemen to invest in domestic industries, producing
goods such as
textiles for domestic consumption, particularly in the
Medellín
area. The emergence of coffee as an important export crop
and the
investment of profits from the coffee trade into domestic
industry
were significant steps in the economic development of the
country.
Data as of December 1988
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