Colombia's President Rafael Núñez receives further support…

Colombia's President Rafael Núñez receives further support from the country's artisans, to whom he offers and delivers a modest amount of tariff protection.

He hopes to increase Colombia's options by stimulating domestic industry, and he also expands the government's economic role through creation of a national bank, but the requirement of unanimity among the states for any amendment of the 1863 constitution thwarts his planned strengthening, or Regeneration, of the nation's political institutions—as in his slogan "Regeneration or Catastrophe!"

After stepping down from the presidency at the end of his two-year term, he returns to office in 1884; and this time he has better luck.

The doctrinaire Radical faction of Liberals, fearing he will try to change the constitution illegally, launches a preemptive revolt in 1885 that Núñez crushes, with massive help from the Conservatives.

He now feels emboldened to declare that the constitution of 1863 has "ceased to exist."