began a growth that has made it second only to Buenos Aires itself. In Buenos Aires events were gradually shaping themselves toward reuniting that province with the confederation. A liberal provincial constitution was adopted, and though the ruling bureaucracy preferred the _statu quo_, fearing that their own fall from power would follow any triumph of the provincials, they were unable to hold the city in check. It was too evident that the real interests of the city, and even her future commercial supremacy, were menaced by a continuance of the separation. In 1859 the situation became so strained that Buenos Aires marched an army to attack the federal government. Urquiza met it near the borders of Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, and administered a defeat. He advanced to the city and required his vanquished opponents to agree to accept the constitution of 1853, and to consent that Buenos Aires should become a member of the confederation. He yielded, however, to the wishes of many Buenos Aireans and consented in the interests of harmony, that the question of the dismembering of the city from the province and capitalising the former should remain open for future determination. The essential justice in all other respects of the constitution of 1853 had long been admitted even in Buenos Aires and there remained no reason why the latter should not enter the confederation once and for all. On the 21st of October, 1860, General Bartolome Mitre, Governor of Buenos Aires, swore to the constitution, saying: "This is the permanent organic law, the real expression of the perpetual union of the members of the Argentine family, so long separated by civil war and bloodshed."