New Granada's Liberals had changed the name of the country from Granadine Confederation (as in the 1858 constitution) to United States of New Granada (Estados Unidos de Nueva Granada) in 1861, during the last stage of the civil war.

This action is followed by the adoption, in 1863, of another constitution that restores the name Colombia (more specifically Estados Unidos de Colombia, 1863-86) and takes federalism to remarkable extremes.

The new charter divides the nation into nine states, which can exercise any functions not expressly reserved to the central authorities.

They can raise their own militias and, if they see fit, issue their own postage stamps.

They alone determine who has the right to vote, and more than half will use this authority to retreat from the recent universal male suffrage, which had not worked out wholly to the Liberals' satisfaction.

The constitution can be amended only by unanimous consent of all states, and the national president is elected on a basis of one vote, one state, for a period of only two years with no possibility of immediate reelection.

This weakening of the presidential office results not just from theoretical considerations but also from the Liberals' real distrust of their current leader, Mosquera, whose undoubted ability is accompanied by a certain tendency toward megalomania.