were a constant and accepted fact in the legitimation of political power throughout the century; Latin Americans were extraordinarily precocious when it came to organizing political elections; finally, the territorial fragmentation affecting Latin American countries right after independence was both horizontal and vertical. It was horizontal in that, in many places such as Argentina, colonial unity gave way to multiple provincial states (while in others such as Brazil, the now independent country remained fully unified). But fragmentation was also vertical: both Brazil and Argentina shared the same destructuration of old territorial hierarchies (cities lost power vis-à-vis the countryside, power was ruralized; small provincial cities claimed relative degrees of autonomy from provincial capitals). More importantly, this vertical fragmentation included for the Hispanic American countries a sui generis mix ofoften between the centralists and the federalists, throughout the mid-nineteenth century.

Meanwhile, long novels came out in newspaper installments over enough time to rehearse readers in the novel feelings of bonding and citizenship. They were written by nation-builders themselves (generals, future presidents, legislators), during lulls in the civil wars or once peace promised to repair some of the damage. The novels appealed to virtual citizens to stop fighting and to become real citizens by founding national families. Make love not war, was the sometimes explicit slogan of legislation as well as literature. The author of Argentina's 1853 constitution didn't stop at slogans. He glossed them with practical programs for increasing the population, not only through the immigration policies for which he is remembered but also through marriages between industrious