Important parts of the countries were still under Spanish rule, so elections only took place in the areas of southern Venezuela and Margarita Island controlled by the patriot forces. The delegates from New Granada were chosen from among the exiles fighting alongside the Venezuelan patriots. At its first meeting on February 19, 1819, Bolivar gave his famous Address at Angostura, but not all of the proposals contained in it were accepted (most notably the suggestions of a highly exalted ceremonial president-for-life who would govern through powerful ministers accountable to parliament and a hereditary senate, both modeled on the British example, and a "fourth" branch of government, the "moral" one, loosely modeled on the Classical Areopagus).