Unitarian Party

Unitarianists (in Spanish, "Unitarios") were the proponents of the liberal concept of a centralised government in Buenos Aires during the civil wars which shortly followed the Declaration of Independence of Argentina in 1816. They were opposed to the Argentine Federalists.

The Argentine War of Independence saw the forces of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata fighting Spanish royalists who attempted to regain control of their American colonies after the Napoleonic Wars.

After the victorious May Revolution of 1810, disagreements arose between the dominant province of Buenos Aires and the other provinces of Argentina. These were evident at least as early as the declaration of Argentine independence in 1816.

The Unitarianists lost their controlling power after the Battle of Cepeda (1820), which left the central government of Argentina divided between Buenos Aires and other powerful provinces.

After the unsuccessful attempt of the 1826 Constitution, the Unitarianists attacked the provincial Federalist "caudillos" ("leaders", or political or military strongmen) and gained control of some of the provinces. But in 1835 strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas became the Federalist governor of Buenos Aires (although his devotion to the principles of Federalism has often been questioned).

Afterward, many men (perhaps most notably, Juan Lavalle) attempted to defeat Rosas in what became a series of civil wars that lasted nearly two more decades. With support from other provinces, Justo José de Urquiza, "caudillo" of Entre Ríos Province, finally defeated Rosas at the Battle of Caseros on February 3, 1852.

But the internal conflicts did not end. Unhappy with Urquiza's appointed governor of Buenos Aires, Vicente López y Planes, Federalists under the command of Valentín Alsina revolted in an attempt to regain the control of the province. With the adoption of the Constitution of 1853, the notion of an Argentine confederation grew stronger; but it was not until after the Battle of Pavón in 1861 that real national unification was achieved, during the presidency of Bartolomé Mitre.

The Argentine Unitarianists resembled American Federalists. They were "men of books and laws," in the phrase of Jorge Luis Borges (himself a descendant of notable Unitarianists), who sought to produce a constitution, a professional political class, and a centralized government divided into executive, legislative, and judicial branches. [cite web|author=Edgardo Krebs| url=http://www.hacer.org/current/Krebs.php |title=How Argentina Went From Myth to Mistake|accessdate=2007-08-03]

Argentine Unitarianism was a political grouping, not a religious one, and unrelated to religious Unitarianism.

References