This defect, Balmaceda thought, should be corrected by making the members of his official family independent of the legislative branch.

The Council of State, a somewhat anomalous body placed between the President and Cabinet on the one side and the Congress on the other, was an additional obstruction to a smooth-running administration.

For it he would substitute a tribunal charged with the duty of resolving conflicts between the two chief branches of government.

Balmaceda believed, also, that greater liberty should be given to the press and that existing taxes should be altered as rarely as possible.

On its side, the Congress felt that the President was trying to establish a dictatorship and to replace the unitary system by a federal union, the probable weakness of which would enable him to retain his power more securely.
Toward the close of his term in January, 1891, when the Liberals declined to support his candidate for the presidency, Balmaceda, furious at the opposition which he had encountered, took matters into his own hands.