He upheld the constitution and the presidency of Vargas, but the latter could not retain supreme power and abandon the reins of government to the hands of the vice-president. The chieftain of the plains was elected for a second presidential period in 1838. Militarism declined under his rule, foreign credit increased, the payment of the debt was assured, and orderly progress was effected. In 1843 his loyal friend, General Carlos Soublette, a republican of the antique mould, austere and liberal, was his successor. Once more the omnipotence of Paez was triumphant. The political tranquillity of these two periods masked a social transformation. Venezuela was not a democratic republic; it was, like Chili, ruled by an oligarchy. The Constitution of 1830 conferred the enjoyment of political rights only upon the land-owners, property-owners, and government employés; as in the southern nation the territorial overlords ruled, and slavery persisted. The "doctors" belonged to the dominant group. The oligarchs were conservatives; they defended property, order, and wealth against militarism and demagogy. They recognised no State religion, nor did they practise intolerance. In 1840 a liberal reaction set in against the dictatorship of Paez and the conservative clan; democratic institutions and "new men" were called for. It was a struggle of classes and races. The obscure mass--_pardos_ (mulattos), mestizos, proletariats--subjected {104} to slavery or servitude, oppressed by the privileged, hybrid and anarchical--attacked the established ruling caste. Thus political unrest was complicated by social conflict. Antonio Leocadio Guzman, a brilliant demagogue, comprehending the liberal ambitions of the crowd, founded a popular party upon the hatred of hierarchies and traditions. A tribune and journalist, he violently attacked Paez, Soublette, and their ministers; he offered the people the abolition of slavery and the repartition of the soil, with the violence of all the creators of democracies, from Tiberius Gracchus to Lloyd George. He was presidential candidate in 1846; Paez supported General Tadeo Monagas, a gloomy personage who represented the oligarchy. The supporters of Guzman rebelled against the influence of Soublette and the tutelage of the great _llanero_, and a social revolution commenced under the mask of a political quarrel. The Liberals wished to overthrow the "Gothic oligarchy." Guzman was made prisoner. He was judged as were the tribunes of antiquity who terrified the patrician class by the tumult of a hungry democracy. Condemned to death as a conspirator and anarchist, he saw his punishment commuted to banishment. [Illustration: GENERAL JOSÉ TADEO MONAGAS. President of Venezuela (1846-1850 and 1855-1859). To face p. 104.]