Thus the interior had now a chief; he who had conquered at Oncativo, and who had in Buenos Ayres only been entrusted with a few hundred convicts, was now the second, if not the first in power. To make the division of the Republic into two parts more decided; the provinces bordering on the Plata had made a league or confederation by which their liberties and independence were mutually assured; though a certain kind of feudalism still existed in the persons of Lopez of Santa Fé, Ferré, and Rosas,—leaders sprung from the people whom they governed. Rosas had already begun to influence public affairs very decidedly. After the victory over Lavalle, he was made governor of Buenos Ayres, and until 1832 filled the office as well as any other would have dxme. I must not omit a significant fact. From the first, Rosas demanded to be invested with absolute power, but was strongly opposed by his partisans in the city. By persuasions and deceptions he succeeded in obtaining it during the war of Cordova, and when that was ended, he was eagerly desired to give up this unlimited power. The city of Buenos Ayres did not then imagine that it could exist as an absolute government, whatever the principles of its political parties might be. Rosas, however, resisted, gently but ably. "It is not that I wish to make use of such power," he said, "but, as my secretary, Garcia Zuñiga, says, the schoolmaster must hold his whip in hand that his authority may be respected." He considered this comparison entirely appropriate, and repeated it frequently,—the citizens were the children, the governor, man and master.
Rosas was obliged to yield; but the ex-governor had
