The minority who favoured him withdrew at his suggestion, leaving the congress without a quorum. It dissolved and the Liberator visited Caracas, Cartagena, and Bogota, calling popular assemblies whose deliberations were directed by bayonets and which obediently besought him to save the country from anarchy in his own way. He issued a decree virtually abolishing the Cucuta Constitution, but a conspiracy to assassinate him was formed at Bogota in the fall of 1828, and he was saved only by the devotion of his mistress, who stood in the way of the midnight assassins, giving him time to jump from a window and escape. He took a fearful vengeance on the conspirators and banished his worst political enemies, but the incident failed to turn public sentiment in his favour, and it was in vain that he exhibited himself as a martyr. His old friend, General Cordoba, headed an unsuccessful insurrection in the province of Antioquia; insurgents rose in Popayan and Rio Negro, and towards the end of 1829, in Bolivar's native city, Caracas, an assembly of one thousand generals, public functionaries, and prominent citizens announced that Venezuela would shortly separate from Colombia and called upon Paez to assume a dictatorship. The Liberator struggled vainly against the rising tide of federalism; the country was at heart opposed to Caesarism and union; he had been unable to convince the Creoles of the advisability of providing a strong centralised government; and his only supporters were personal ones. Bitterly protesting that he was falsely charged with aspiring to mount a throne, and insisting that his real ambition had been only to secure the perpetuity of the Colombian union and establish an ordered government, he offered his resignation. Congress, however, contained many of his friends and hesitated at coming to an open breach. He was re-elected and made one last effort to enforce the obedience of Venezuela. But the troops he raised in New Granada did not dare to attack Paez, who with superior forces was waiting in an impregnable position near the frontier. Sick and discouraged, the Liberator renewed his resignation--this time in earnest--and retired to the seacoast, where a few months later he died of a wasting sickness at the early age of forty-seven. Though his courage, energy, and sublime persistence and self-confidence had been the chief factors in securing South American independence, those qualities proved utterly inadequate to hold in check the unruly ambitions of the Creoles. He died clearly foreseeing the decades of anarchy which lay before the northern countries of the continent. "I blush to admit it," he said to congress on the eve of his fall, "but independence is the only benefit we have achieved, and that has been at the cost of all others." On his death-bed he wrote: "Our Constitutions are books, our laws papers, our elections combats, and life itself a torment. We shall arrive at such a state that