Cartagena had seceded, and the new president had hardly taken office
before Panama and Veragua also declared themselves independent, under
the title of the State of the Isthmus of Panama. Their restoration was,
however, soon effected; the constitution was reformed in 1843; education
was fostered, and a treaty concluded with the English creditors of the
republic. Further progress was made under General Tomas de Mosquera from
1845 to 1848; a large part of the domestic debt was cleared off,
immigration was encouraged, and free trade permitted in gold and
tobacco. The petty war with Ecuador, concluded by the peace of Santa
Rosa de Carchi, is hardly worthy of mention. From 1849 to 1852 the reins
were in the hands of General Jose Hilario Lopez, a member of the
democratic party, and under him various changes were effected of a
liberal tendency. In January 1852 slavery was entirely abolished. The
next president was Jose Maria Obando, but his term of office had to be
completed by vice-presidents Obaldia and Mallarino.

In 1853 an important alteration of the constitution took place, by which
the right was granted to every province to declare itself independent,
and to enter into merely federal connexion with the central republic,
which was now known as the Granadine Confederation. In 1856 and 1857
Antioquia and Panama took advantage of the permission. The Conservative
party carried their candidate in 1857, Mariano Ospino, a lawyer by
profession; but an insurrection broke out in 1859, which was fostered by
the ex-president Mosquera, and finally took the form of a regular civil
war. Bogota was captured by the democrats in July 1861, and Mosquera
assumed the chief power. A congress at Bogota established a republic,
with the name of the United States of Colombia, adopted a new federal
constitution, and made Mosquera dictator. Meanwhile the opposite party
was victorious in the west; and their leader, Julio Arboleda, formed an
alliance with Don Garcia Moreno, the president of Ecuador. He was
assassinated, however, in 1862; and his successor, Leonardo Canal, came
to terms with Mosquera at Cali. The dictatorship was resigned into the
hands of a convention (February 1863) at Rio Negro, in Antioquia; a
provisional government was appointed, a constitution was drawn up, and
Mosquera elected president till 1864. An unsuccessful attempt was also
made to restore the union between the three republics of the former
federation. The presidency of