From that time onward the young republic was for twenty years ruled by a great _caudillo_, Andres Santa-Cruz. A lieutenant of the Liberator, he inherited, like Paez and Flores, a portion of his legacy of nations: he was President of Bolivia and wished to be President of Peru. [Illustration: OPENING OF CONGRESS, LA PAZ, BOLIVIA. (From "Latin America, the Land of Opportunity," by the Hon. John Barrett.)] In 1826 he presided over the Council of State at Lima and governed in the absence of Bolivar. In 1827 he was the head of the Bolivian Republic, prosecuting a difficult struggle against national anarchy. His ambition included the vast theatre of the old vice-kingdom; he wished to unite Bolivia and Peru, and to that end organised freemasonry as a political force, from La Paz to Lima. President of the Bolivian Republic for the second time {123} in 1828, he formed a government sufficiently strong to discourage revolution. Like Garcia-Moreno and Guzman-Blanco, he was a civilizer. The son of an Indian woman of noble origin, the _Cacica_ of Guarina, he perhaps inherited imperial ambitions. He loved power and display, received the order of the Legion of Honour from Louis-Philippe, and instituted an analogous order for the Bolivian Confederation. He accumulated sonorous titles: Captain-General and President of Bolivia, Grand Marshal, Pacificator of Peru, Supreme Protector of the South and North Peruvians, &c. In domestic politics he was an organiser who was capable of cruelty in defence of order; a strict administrator. He promulgated codes, following the Napoleonic example, disciplined the army, and restored the national finances. The revenue increased, credit became more secure, and imperialism saw the light. Santa-Cruz attracted Europeans and protected his countrymen, for the question of population preoccupied him; it is, indeed, the great problem of Bolivia and South America. In 1833 he proposed the exclusion of celibates from the magistracy, a measure of protection in favour of numerous families. Like all the _caudillos_, he made great efforts to develop the public treasury.