The Argentine passed through a crisis, a time of anarchy, like the other American nations. But the struggle between autocracy and revolution assumed epic proportions in the vast arena of the pampa. It was the clash of organic forces. Tradition, geography, and race gave it a rare intensity. The provinces fought against the capital, the coast against the sierra, the _gauchos_ against the men of the seaboard, and the various parties represented national instincts. The anarchy and ambition of the provinces commenced during the first few years of Argentine life. Governments followed one another at rapid intervals; constitutions and regulations were legion; political forms were essayed as experiments, on Roman or French models; there was the Junta of 1810, the Triumvirate of 1813, and the Directory of 1819. Every two years, with inflexible regularity, from 1811 to 1819, this uneasy republic imposed a new Constitution. The Argentine troops, like the armies of the French Revolution, gave the gift of liberty to Chili and Peru; but at home the effort of Buenos-Ayres to dominate the provinces was less fortunate. It has been written that in 1820 the confusion and {135} discord in the Argentine were so intense that the effort of the revolutionaries of May appeared to have spent itself. In Buenos-Ayres there was a divorce between the factions, and a struggle between Unitarian and federal _caudillos_: Alvear, Sarratea, Dorrego and Soler; between the municipalities and the rebellious troops; in the country as a whole it was the struggle of the provincial leaders against Buenos-Ayres and the Directory. In the midst of this period of disturbance the federal democracy was born; the provinces concluded treaties, the capital compromised with the _caciques_, the governors of the provinces; the _cabildo_ retained its representative character, the military and civil elements entered upon a mutual conflict.