Cardona
MPSA 2004
14
presidential elections (which were held every two years during this period), and fought
off a Conservative uprising, before ceding power to a more moderate Liberal faction
known as the Independents, in 1880.
This electoral victory by Independent Liberal Rafael Núñez was engineered with
the support of Conservatives (Park 1985: 185), who gradually became more and more
important to his rule over the next decade. The Radical Liberals attempted to forestall the
Conservative ascendancy by leading a revolt against Núñez’s government in 1885. When
it was quashed, Núñez could declare that the 1863 constitution had ceased to exist (Park
1985: 263). The next year, his government oversaw the imposition of a new constitution,
which completely reversed the extreme federalism of its 1863 predecessor.
The 1886 constitution, which re-centralized political authority while purporting to
decentralize administration, formed part of an overall reformist effort led by Núñez and
the Conservatives and known as “the Regeneration.” The aims of this movement were
“the installation of political centralism and the rehabilitation of the Church as the
principal social actor” (Martinez 2001: 432).
With respect to the institutional design of the public forces, the first years of the
Regeneration are particularly noteworthy for the creation of the National Police in 1892.
While various Colombian cities had had local and municipal police forces at various
times since the colonial period (Gilibert 2002), the efforts of the Regeneration
presidents—in particular Presidential designate Carlos Holguín (1888-1892), who had
previously been Minister of Government—represented a new level of institutional
commitment to the provision of internal order. Holguín’s message to Congress as
Minister of Government in 1888 is eloquent in its vision of a successful police force:
Convention