United States of Colombia

The United States of Colombia was the federal republic that replaced the Granadine Confederation in 1863 and lasted until 1886. After the civil war of 1860 to 1862, the liberal general Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera took Bogotá and reorganised the country; the Constitution of Rionegro, promulgated on 8 May 1863, gave the nation its new name and established a decentralised union of nine sovereign states. The constitution shortened the presidential term to two years and barred immediate re-election, while the states kept wide powers over taxation, education and local government. The liberal experiment was unstable. Repeated civil conflicts, including the long war of 1876 to 1877, weakened the federal system, and the Catholic Church's privileges became a permanent source of friction after liberal governments seized church lands. The country's finances were tied to the international gold standard in 1871, but political disorder discouraged investment. In 1886 the Conservative Party under Rafael Núñez adopted a centralist constitution that abolished the United States of Colombia and created the Republic of Colombia. The new republic inherited the same capital, Bogotá, and most of the same territory, including the Isthmus of Panama, which separated in 1903.