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ERA OF CONSTITUTION MAKING 257 enterprise. The clerical party sent in a remonstrance signed by the archbishop of Santiago, Don Rafael Val- entine Valdivieso, and two of his bishops, and consider- able discord followed. The clericals had attempted to override the law in Brazil, they now in Chile thundered archiepiscopal excommunications at those voting for the amendments, as well as at the magistrates who should undertake to enforce the new lavvf. The congress of 1872, passed other reformatory meas- ures than those connected with the church question. A bill for legalizing civil marriage was introduced, but conservative opposition prevented it from becoming at this time a law ; a law urging further efforts to in- duce foreign immigration was passed and a bill to abolish flogging for crimes introduced. Bills were also introduced for a new assessment of landed property, for the abolition of the tobacco monopoly, and for a repeal of the duty levied on foreign coal. For the purpose of promoting the education of the people, the government took an active interest in es- tablishing circulating libraries in a number of the towns. It had at first acted with the conservatives in these matters and opposed all the reforms tending to lower the level of educational requirements. But this caused such opposition by the liberals that the president receded from his first position. It was an era of dis- cussions, of zeal for education and for reforms, of the beginning of democracy in its true sense. These ques- tions tended, however, to separate the parties more and more. The president in this even went so far as to declare that the teaching of the Roman Catholic relig- ion in the colleges was not obligatory with the sons of dissenters. The various reformatory and ecclesiastical questions which were discussed at the time separated the moder-