Even where the language of the constitutions did not exclude the colored inhabitants directly or indirectly, practical authority was exercised by dictators who played the autocrat, or by "liberators" who aimed at the enjoyment of that function themselves.
Not all the dictators, however, were selfish tyrants, nor all the liberators mere pretenders.

Disturbed conditions bred by twenty years of warfare, antique methods of industry, a backward commerce, inadequate means of communication, and a population ignorant, superstitious, and scant, made a strong ruler more or less indispensable.

Whatever his official designation, the dictator was the logical successor of the Spanish viceroy or captain general, but without the sense of responsibility or the legal restraint of either.

These circumstances account for that curious political phase in the development of the Spanish American nations--the presidential despotism.
On the other hand, the men who denounced oppression, unscrupulousness, and venality, and who in rhetorical pronunciamentos urged the "people" to overthrow the dictators, were often actuated by motives of patriotism, even though they based their declarations on assumptions and assertions, rather than on principles and facts.

Not infrequently a liberator of this sort became "provisional president" until he himself, or some person of his choice, could be elected "constitutional president"-- two other institutions more or less peculiar to Spanish America.
In an atmosphere of political theorizing mingled with ambition for personal advancement, both leaders and followers were professed devotees of constitutions.