Jacinto de Castro, the president of the supreme court, acted as president until September 29,1878, when he was succeeded by the council of ministers of which Guillermo was chief. The constitution of 1878 was promulgated, with amendments, on February 11, 1879, and on February 28, Guillermo, after going through the form of an election, became constitutional president. He did not last long. On October 6, 1879, a revolution broke out at Puerto Plata and a provisional government was formed under the presidency of General Gregorio Luperon, an intelligent negro, who had been imprisoned for larceny under Spanish rule, but had redeemed himself by signal services in the War of the Restoration. Guillermo resisted two months, but was compelled to surrender on December 6, 1879. Luperon did not depart from the usual custom, but called a constitutional assembly which, in 1880, adopted with amendments the constitution of 1879, and fixed the presidential term at two years. Luperon then held an election and gave the presidency, for the two years beginning September 1, 1880, to one of his supporters, Father Fernando de Merino, an eloquent priest who had taken an active part in politics since his youth, and who later became archbishop of Santo Domingo. The reverend gentleman suppressed all revolutionary uprisings with uncompromising severity and did not hesitate to execute the conspirators that fell into his hands. During Merino's administration General Ulises Heureaux served as minister of the interior and began to wield the power which he was to retain for twenty years. Heureaux was born in Puerto Plata about 1846. Both of his parents were negroes, his father being a Haitian who followed the sea and afterwards became a merchant, and his mother a St. Thomas woman. He received a mercantile education and took part as a subordinate in the War of the Restoration against the Spaniards. On the withdrawal of the Spaniards, in 1865, he became a bandit on the Haitian border and practised horse stealing on a large scale. Later he obtained a position in the Puerto Plata custom-house and took a more and more prominent part in the civil disturbances of his country, until he became well known as a politician and a revolutionist. He distinguished himself by his bravery and was many times wounded. Throughout these civil wars he remained a sturdy follower of General Luperon, the successor of Santana as leader of the "Blue" party and an implacable opponent of General Buenaventura Baez, the chief of the "Reds" and of General Ignacio Maria Gonzalez, the leader of the "Greens." When General Luperon overthrew President Cesareo Guillermo, in 1879, Heureaux was closely associated with the revolutionary movement.