Moreno, the clerical dictator of Ecuador, had aided Ospina during the civil war, and to punish him Mosquera undertook a campaign which resulted in a Colombian victory at Cuaspud on the 30th of December, 1863. However, he desisted from his announced intention of deposing Moreno and installing an anti-clerical government in Ecuador, and granted peace without the imposition of any onerous terms. Murillo was elected president in 1864 for the ensuing two years, to which short period the term had been reduced. The religious question would not down, and he found a conservative revolution going on in the state of Antioquia. It triumphed, and Murillo prudently recognised the successful insurgents as the legal government. He followed this same policy in regard to other revolutions in the states of Bolivar, Magdalena, and Panama, and cautiously refrained from all intervention, even when conservative insurrections occurred in the neighbourhood of Bogota itself, or when the clericals of Antioquia invaded Cauca, and defeated the liberals. One of the last acts of his administration was to impose on the impoverished federal treasury the settlement of all the forced loans and confiscations made during the three years of terrible civil war. Mosquera, who succeeded Murillo in 1866, was not content to remain a mere figurehead, although it was under his leadership that the federal system had been definitely established. He bought ships and artillery without authorisation from congress, and claimed the power of intervening by force whenever the legal government of a state was unable to maintain order. This attack on the right of revolution outraged the radical republicans. According to their theory and practice the federal government was merely an alliance between the peoples of the states, but Mosquera's doctrine would tend to make it an alliance between the state governments, creating a ruling oligarchy whose power might be continued indefinitely. Denounced as the assassin of Colombian liberty, he broke off relations with the liberal majority in congress, and in 1867 assumed dictatorial powers. But the Bogota garrison was suborned by his enemies, and its revolt was followed by his deposition and the substitution of Acosta.