The liberal party, victorious in 1849, promoted a vast democratic programme: the romantic liberalism of the French thinkers, the socialistic ideas of the Revolution of 1848, had reached Colombia. The Colombians desired not only the liberation of the slaves, the abolition of industrial monopolies, and the autonomy of the communes, but also the realisation of the needs of democracy; all the political liberties, subject to prudent reserves; direct and universal suffrage, trial by jury, the suppression of the army, the abolition of capital punishment, the institution of universities and scientific diplomas, and the expulsion of the Jesuits, who in America were the obstinate supporters of the old colonial system. Federation, a weak executive, a secular State, and powerful communes: such was the aspiration of the liberals. A fraction of the party bore a symbolic name: it was known as _Golgotha_. In their civil wars the Catholics chose Jesus of Nazareth for their { 203} patron. Radicalism even aspired to religious consecration; it founded a Christian anarchy, like that of the primitive evangelical communities. It preached fraternity and liberty, condemning political power.
Nothing could be more disastrous to a disorganised republic than rationalism of this type. It applied the principles formulated by the extremest idealists in highly cultivated countries. Colombia, shaken by revolutions, had need of a strong government; radicalism destroyed it. There was no provincial life, yet it created the omnipotent commune; it suppressed the army in a democracy threatened by civil and external war, established trial by jury in a country swarming with illiterates, and granted liberties wholesale to a revolutionary people; it accorded political rights to the negro and the Indian, servile and ignorant as they were, and demanded federation, which is to say that it multiplied political disorder. Foreseeing the errors of the future, Bolivar told the Colombians: "I can plainly see our work destroyed and the maledictions of the centuries falling upon our heads."
From 1849 to 1853 the liberal party struggled to impose its doctrines. The Constitution of 1853, celebrated in Colombian annals, was doctrinaire and radical; it proclaimed the liberty of the press, of thought, and of suffrage. By separating Church and State it provoked a religious war and accepted a moderated political centralisation. Thus the excesses of unity and of federation were avoided.