Argentina's Founding Fathers
A nation is born at the other End of the World...
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
~ The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo (1852)
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World: Kleppe, Norway...
When the great French author, Victor Hugo, sat down to pen his memorable words, above, he was likely unaware of the revolutionary rumblings in the Paris of the South, way down at the other End of the World. (Hugo was, after all, living in exile on the island of Jersey at the time and had other things to worry about…)
Meanwhile, a powerful idea’s time had indeed come down in far-flung Buenos Aires, and not even the forces of the mighty Spanish Empire could forestall the spirit of independence brewing on the Pampas.
This long holiday weekend, as we reflect on the founding of America and the men who dreamed of forming a more perfect union… we remember, too, the influence such a daring act had on other places, including Argentina.
Please enjoy a few words about how the birth of a nation inspired a similar struggle, down at the End of the World, where another group of founding fathers set their own country on the path to liberty and prosperity for all. But first…
As mentioned yesterday, the folks at Classical Wisdom are offering a special “Founding Fathers-Founding Members” discount this weekend… which includes a hardback copy of The Essential Classics, an anthology of the very works that inspired the Founding Fathers.
Until midnight tonight, they’re offering a handsome $50 discount on the book, which includes shipping to anywhere in the world. Discover the works that inspired the Founding Fathers, or gift one to a someone special, right here:
(Please note that The Essential Classics $50 discount is available to Founding Members only, not monthly or annual memberships)
Birth of a Nation
Three-decades and change had passed since the American Revolutionary War when, in 1810, the Argentines likewise sought to cast off the yoke of colonialism, a direct response to Napoleon's invasion of Spain and King Ferdinand VII’s subsequent abdication.
Known as the May Revolution, the revolt of that fateful year precipitated Argentina’s own War of Independence (1810-1818), although no official declaration as such was published until 1816. The following decades, known as the Argentine Civil Wars, were plagued with violence and political uncertainty down at the End of the World. Two separate constitutions came and went (those of 1819 and 1826) as irreconcilable differences between the warring Federalist and the Unitarian factions rent the nascent country asunder.
It was against this tumultuous backdrop that a group of young renegades came up, with visions of liberty and self-determination dancing before their eyes and the words of men like Frédéric Bastiat, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson echoing around their huddled meetings. They gathered in cafes and salons around the city, notably in the Salón Literario, which they established in 1837, and after which the intellectual group drew its name: Generación del '37 (The 1837 Generation.)
One man among the crowd, a young lawyer from the province of Tucumán, was Juan Bautista Alberdi. Like Jefferson before him, Alberdi had studied closely the constitutions of other nations, as well as the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, Jean-Baptiste Say and Benjamin Constant. He was also well-versed in America’s Federalist Papers and familiar with the writings of Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith and Roger Bacon, among others.
At the heart of their movement, Alberdi and his fellow radicals sought to install a full democratic Republic in Argentina and to secure civil rights for its citizens by means of a constitution limiting the power of an overreaching government. Wrote Alberdi:
“The omnipotence of the State is the denial of individual freedom.”
Exile, Treaty and Liberation
Along with his fellow romantics – among them the poet and novelist, Esteban Echeverría, and the political philosopher, writer and second president of the young nation, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento – Alberdi believed strongly in man’s right to self-determination and argued for economic freedom (classical liberalism) as the best means by which to increase the general wealth of the people.
Heavily influenced by the United States Constitution, Alberdi’s Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina (Bases and starting points for the political organization of the Argentine republic) served as a draft for the Argentine constitution. This he complemented with the Elementos de derecho público provincial Argentino (Elements of Argentine provincial civic law), also strongly influenced by the founding documents of the United States of America.
Like many of his fellow revolutionaries, whom we might fairly think of as Argentina’s Founding Fathers, Juan Bautista Alberdi was forced into exile for his treacherous ideas. He moved first to Montevideo, Uruguay, just across the Rio de la Plata, where he continued his avid pamphleteering, lambasting the military government of Juan Manuel de Rosas back in Buenos Aires in a series of articles and plays. When former Uruguayan president and dedicated Rosas supporter, Manuel Oribe, laid siege to Montevideo, Alberdi fled once again, this time to the Paris of the North (known then simply as “Paris.”)
It was there in that Alberdi met José de San Martín, the “Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru,” who had led those countries to victory in the War of Independence. After a spell in Europe, Alberdi returned to the Americas, this time on the other side of the Andes, in Chile, where he founded the newspaper, El Comercio. The eventual defeat of Rosas, in 1852, in the Battle of Caseros, paved the way for the Treaty of San Nicolás and the adoption of the Argentine Constitution, in 1853.
Finally, after decades of struggle, against powers both foreign and domestic, Argentina became a nation in its own right. But, like its northern neighbor, whose founding we celebrate on this day every year, its story was only just beginning…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
We’ll be processing the individual orders for The Essential Classics manually, old school-style, bright and early tomorrow morning… possibly probably nursing a sore head after the weekend’s wedding and Fourth of July celebrations.
If you’d like a copy of the works that inspired the Founding Fathers, a handsome 644-page hardback anthology of essential Greco-Roman literature, make sure your name’s on our order list, below.
The Founding Fathers-Founding Members $50 discount offer ends at midnight, tonight. Here’s the link in case you missed it…
Whatever the pursuit of happiness looks like for you, we trust you’re well along the journey toward it this holiday weekend.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
Joel never dissapoints!!!!!Fantastic!!!!!
I appreciated the history lesson, Joel. Even the founding documents of the United States have long titles. What is usually called The Declaration of Independence has the full title of "The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America." And I always like to remind people that United was not capitalized; this wasn't a nation yet. It only meant that the thirteen were united against the British Empire.