ABSTRACT
The caudillos generally displayed some regard for republican ideology and institutions. Political parties, usually called Conservative and Liberal, were active in most of the new states. The new economic order demanded peace and continuity in government. A fiery Chilean liberal, Francisco Bilbao, subjected republican government in Latin America to a penetrating critique in his essa, America in Danger, written in 1862. Puebla witnessed a new revolt, a new siege, a new victory of the government, a new waste of blood and money that exhausted the resources of the treasury at a time when the foreign horizons darkened. The proceeds of the tax on disentails were negligible or nil; the clergy had stopped with its interdict a movement that might have saved both it and the government of Comonfort. The end of constitutional policy and government in America, then, is essentially economic. In America, to govern is to populate.
