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238 A HISTORY OF CHILE were absent, but would, it is said, have been cast for him had they been present. The electors had been chosen on June 5th ; on July 25th, they met and bal- loted, and on August the 30th, the assembled chambers opened the returns and made formal announcement of the result. On September i8th, 1861, the president- elect took his seat. Senor Perez belonged to one of the first families of Chile, and began his political career in 1829, as secre- tary of legation in France. He had been sent as a special envoy to Buenos Ayres to effect an alliance with Rosas when Chile was at war with Bolivia, and had since that time been in the state council, minister of finance, of the interior, of foreign affairs, president of the chamber of deputies and of the senate. Preceding his election to the presidency, he had been some time out of active politics. His political training had well qualified him for the difficult position in which he was now placed. He formed his cabinet partly of conservatives, partly of moderate liberals. He had barely been installed in office when he proposed to the chambers a general law of amnesty toward the late liberal leaders, which was adopted unanimously on October 8th, 1861. This conciliatory policy, however, met with the usual result of all such attempts; the statesman who tries to conciliate is generally regarded with distrust, if indeed, he does not come to be cordially hated by all factions. lot, but the fact that there are property and educational qualifications reduces the number of voters in comparison with the population, so that elections are more easily controlled. Thus it happens that the governmen t can usually carry any elec- tion, and the opposition, unless strong, makes but a slight showing, or none at all. Unless the party out of power feels confident of being able to develop consider- able strength it refrains from voting and the electors are chosen almost unani- mously by the party in power. It is this which so frequently causes revolutions in Spanish-American states. A party in power can rarely be defeated in any other manner. New laws have been passed from time to time intended to remedy the defect, but so long as the voting population continues to be limited, so long will aspiring leaders precipitate revolutions, for the ballot can at no time be said to represent the will of the people.