Bulnes was re-elected without opposition in 1846, but a new Chile had grown up in the fifteen years of peaceful order. Though the old liberals had disappeared, a new party had arisen all the more formidable because its principles were moderate and it sought not dictatorships, military government, or federalism, but only administrative reforms, such as restraining the clergy and widening the suffrage. By 1849 the liberals had a majority in congress and an agitated session ensued. The conservative president was pushed into an attitude of uncompromising resistance to the liberal demands. Manuel Montt, the intellectual leader of the conservatives, a strong and ambitious man, who was known to have the courage and firmness to maintain himself against odds, was selected as Bulnes' successor. His elevation in the spring of 1851 was followed by an armed outbreak, which the government troops suppressed, but in September the revolution flamed forth with redoubled fury. From Concepcion, the liberal headquarters, marched an army which gained several victories and even threatened the capital. But the conservatives rallied and in December the issue was decided by the bloody battle of Loncomilla. In Chile, a narrow plain shut in between the Andes and the sea, losers cannot hide; a single encounter in force is enough; civil wars cannot be prolonged in remote provinces or by the flight of the defeated to inaccessible deserts. Though the destruction of life and property had been frightful--four thousand Chileans perishing and commerce and industry being paralysed for the moment--peace was immediately re-established and the nation rapidly recovered. A general amnesty buried the doings of the insurgents in oblivion, and former liberals were welcomed as members of the party which Montt and Varas, his able minister, organised. Though their faces were set against political innovations they adopted many important administrative reforms. The admirable civil code prepared by Bello was given to the country, replacing the complicated and confusing mass of old Spanish laws by clear and systematic legislation. The tariff was lowered and differential duties as between foreign countries were abolished. Commercial courts were installed, decimal coinage adopted, church tithes converted into a moderate fixed tax, treaties of commerce and amity negotiated with the great commercial nations, missions established among the Araucanians, and public libraries and schools were multiplied.