The unhappy country, tired of continual internecine disorder and exhausted by the harrying civil wars, rested willingly for two years under the compromise administration of Mallarino in which representatives of both parties and most of the principal factions had a voice. As a matter of fact the federal government had almost ceased to exercise the greatly reduced functions which nominally remained to it. The executive had only the shadow of a control over the provinces, its revenues sank to well-nigh nothing, its army was reduced to eight hundred men. The very name of the country was changed from the "Republic of New Granada" to the "Granadine Confederation," and the organisation of powerful and independent federal departments was begun, foreshadowing the abolition of the old provincial system. In 1857 three candidates had presented themselves--Ospina, representing the clerical conservatives; Murillo, the advanced liberals; and Mosquera, the moderates. Suffrage had been made universal, and under the conditions necessarily prevailing among a population almost entirely illiterate and used for centuries to monarchical and military government, a satisfactory election was impossible. On the face of the returns Ospina received a plurality, but the radicals were able to force the adoption of a new federal Constitution in 1859 which abolished the old provinces. However, the new system had not the sympathy of the conservative and clerical president. He tried to usurp control of the elections, the liberals accused him of acting unconstitutionally, insurrections broke out in various parts of the country, and the confusion became worse confounded.