PAYAN, Eliseo (pi-an'), Colombian statesman, born in Cali in August, 1825. He studied philosophy and jurisprudence in the College of Santa Librada, and was admitted to the bar in 1847. He joined the Liberal party, was elected to the provincial assembly, served as representative in congress for Cauca in 1853-'4, and, when the Federal form of government was adopted, became a member of the commission to organize the new state of that name. He was successively deputy to the state assembly, district judge, and judge of the supreme court of the state. When the revolution of 1860 began, Payan, as governor of the province of Buga, equipped a force to sustain the state government, but after several victories he was defeated and retired to the Pacific coast, where he captured the fleet of the government, and invaded the valley of the Cauca. This campaign insured the triumph of the Federal cause, and Payan was rewarded with the rank of general and the governorship of the state of Cauca, which place he occupied till 1867. He was a member of the chamber of deputies in 1868-'9, and in 1870-'1 of the senate. In 1876 he was in command of a division of the army of the south, and by his victory at Batero insured the triumph of the government, he was elected to the Federal senate in 1880, and became its president, but in the same year resigned to enter the cabinet as secretary of war. In 1883 he was again elected governor of the state of Cauca, and as such sustained the Federal government in the revolution of 1885 with all the resources at his command, defeating the revolutionary forces in numerous encounters until the capitulation of Antioquia. The services that he rendered to the cause of the constitutional reform, his administrative talent, and military prestige gained for him in the elections of 1886 the vice-presidency of the republic, and as such, during a temporary absence of the president from January to June, 1887, he occupied the executive of the nation. When Nunez abandoned the presidency, 12 December, 1887, Payan assumed the government, and his first measures were the decree of 19 December conceding full liberty to the press, and that of 1 January, 1888, recalling from banishment persons that had been expelled by Nufiez.