This article begins by arguing that military officer Ramón Freire and his successor, Francisco Antonio Pinto, advocated for a form of liberalism that, although supportive of individual rights, depended upon a centralised system of government. Then it claims that there was a consensus in Chile in the 1820s that the best political regime for the country was republicanism, and that differences between factions did not concentrate so much on ideological issues as on specific aspects of Chilean politics. These included the articles of the Constitution of 1828 that jeopardised the economic supremacy of landlords and debates regarding the limits of the freedom of the press. The third section of the article shows that ‘conservatives’ pushed for a freer Press Law than the ‘liberals’ at the end of the 1820s, thus proving that different liberal traditions emerged in Chile in the aftermath of independence. The conclusion of the article emphasises that liberalism in Chile was no one's monopoly.