Paraguay's congress, which meets on September 30, 1813, is certainly the first of its kind in Latin America.

There are more than eleven hundred delegates chosen by universal male suffrage, and many of these delegates represent the poor, rural Paraguayan majority.

Ironically, the decisions of this democratically elected body will set the stage for a long dictatorship.

Herrera is neither allowed to attend the sessions, nor to present his declaration; instead the congress gives overwhelming support to Francia' s anti-imperialist foreign policy.

The delegates reject a proposal for Paraguayan attendance at a constitutional congress at Buenos Aires and establish a Paraguayan republic—the first in Spanish America—with Francia as first consul.

Francia is supposed to trade places every four months with the second consul, Fulgencio Yegros, but Francia's consulship marks the beginning of his direct rule because Yegros is little more than a figurehead.

Yegros, a man without political ambitions, represents the nationalist criollo military elite, but Francia is the more powerful because he derives his strength from the nationalist masses.