For the second time in its history, a fundamental change had been wrought in the political system of the nation without a resort to war! The United States of Brazil accordingly took its place peacefully among its fellow republics of the New World.
Meanwhile Argentina, the great neighbor of Brazil to the southwest, had been gaining territory and new resources.

Since the definite adoption of a federal constitution in 1853, this state had attained to a considerable degree of national consciousness under the leadership of able presidents such as Bartolome Mitre, the soldier and historian, and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the publicist and promoter of popular education.

One evidence of this new nationalism was a widespread belief in the necessity of territorial expansion.

Knowing that Chile entertained designs upon Patagonia, the Argentine Government forestalled any action by conducting a war of practical extermination against the Indian tribes of that region and by adding it to the national domain.
The so-called "conquest of the desert" in the far south of the continent opened to civilization a vast habitable area of untold economic possibilities.
In the electoral campaign of 1880 the presidential candidates were Julio Argentino Roca and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires.

The former, an able officer skilled in both arms and politics, had on his side the advantage of a reputation won in the struggle with the Patagonian Indians, the approval of the national Government, and the support of most of the provinces.