It was during the years between 1810 and 1880 the fires of war raged across Argentina in an effort to temper the land into an independent and unified nation. It was during this same period that a group of intellectuals came together in an effort to steer the country away from war and transform it into a country of stability and peace. One of these men was Juan Bautista Alberdi who was molded by these fires into an activist and author and inspiration of prolific pieces like the Argentine Constitution and his masterpiece Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina. However, Alberdi wasn’t just an activist and author he was a man who lived and breathed and gathered much information in order to live a fulfilled and eventful life. This is the story of the man who wrote a constitution.
Alberdi was born on August 29, 1810 in the northern Argentine province of Tucumán during the initial stages of the war of Independence against Spanish loyalist. Much like the country around him Alberdi’s life was flung into turmoil after being orphaned at the young age of ten. Fortunately, he was taken in by his siblings where he cultivated his love for learning which eventually led to his selection as one of six students in his province to attend the Colegio de Ciencias Morales in Buenos Aires. Strangely, Alberdi didn’t take to the school and struggled with the discipline required of a student stating, “Me fué impossible soportar la dsciplina del colegio de Ciencias Morales.”
Leaving school for the less academic world of the work force, Alberdi mastered his lay job and subsequently devoted himself to learning in the style of an autodidact. Meaning he would consume a number of different books in an effort to ...
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Dougherty, John E. "Juan Bautista Alberdi: A Study of His Thought." The Americas 29, no. 4 (April 01, 1973): 489-501. Accessed May 14, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/980122?ref=search-gateway:aefc30a4823d8fcbcc86c6ebffbe2f58.
Patton, Carl. THE STATE AND THE PERSON IN THE THOUGHT OF ALBERDI AND CASO. PhD diss., Boston University, 1957. Boston: Boston University, 1957. Accessed May 12, 2014. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/jacob.wollam/My%20Documents/Downloads/Patton_Carl_1957_web%20(1).pdf.
Schulman, Sam. "Juan Bautista Alberdi and His Influence on Immigration Policy in the Argentine Constitution of 1853." The Americas 5, no. 1 (July 01, 1948): 3-17. Accessed May 14, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/978129?ref=search-gateway:9453699f8bf224f9e04e9bc343615f97.