208 CHAPTER 9 DECOLONIZATION AND THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITIES, 1821–1870
Under Rosas, the merchants of the city and the
estancieros of the province of Buenos Aires enjoyed
a measure of prosperity. But this prosperity bore no
proportion to the possibilities of economic growth;
technical backwardness marked all aspects of live-
stock raising and agriculture, and port facilities
were totally inadequate.
Meanwhile, the littoral provinces, which had
experienced some advance of livestock raising
and agriculture, became increasingly aware that
Rosas’s brand of federalism was harmful to their
interests and that free navigation of the river sys-
tem of La Plata was necessary to ensure their
prosperity. In 1852 the anti-Rosas forces formed
a coalition that united liberal émigrés with the
caudillo Justo José de Urquiza of Entre Ríos, who
together defeated Rosas’s army and sent him fl ee-
ing to an English exile.
Victory over Rosas did not end the dispute
between Buenos Aires and the other provinces or
between federalism and unitarianism. Only the
slower process of economic change would forge
the desired unity. A rift soon arose between the
liberal exiles who assumed leadership in Buenos
Aires and the caudillo Urquiza of Entre Ríos, who
still sported the red ribbon of federalism. A sincere
convert to the gospel of modernity and progress, he
had proposed a loose union of the provinces, with
all of them sharing the revenues of the Buenos Ai-
res customhouse. But the leaders of Buenos Aires
feared the loss of their economic and political pre-
dominance to Urquiza, whom they wrongly con-
sidered a caudillo of the Rosas type.
After Urquiza had attempted unsuccessfully
to make Buenos Aires accept unifi cation by armed
force, the two sides agreed to a peaceful separation.
As a result, delegates from Buenos Aires were ab-
sent from the constitutional convention that met
at Santa Fe in Entre Ríos in 1852.
The constitution of 1853 refl ected the infl u-
ence of the ideas of the journalist Juan Bautista
Alberdi on the delegates. His forcefully written
pamphlet,Bases and Points of Departure for the Po-
litical Organization of the Argentine Republic, offered
the United States as a model for Argentina. The
new constitution strongly resembled that of the
United States in certain respects. The former United
Provinces became a federal republic, presided over
by a president with signifi cant power who served a
six-year term without the possibility of immediate
reelection. Legislative functions were vested in a
bicameral legislature, a senate and a house of rep-
resentatives. The Catholic religion was proclaimed
the offi cial religion of the nation, but freedom of
worship for non-Catholics was assured. The states
were empowered to elect governors and legisla-
tures and frame their own constitutions, but the
federal government had the right of intervention—
including armed intervention—to ensure respect
for the provisions of the constitution. General
Urquiza was elected the fi rst president of the Ar-
gentine Republic.
The liberal leaders of Buenos Aires, joined by
the conservative estancieros who had been Rosas’s
fi rmest supporters, refused to accept the constitu-
tion of 1853, for they feared the creation of any
state they did not control. As a result, two Argen-
tinas arose: the Argentine Confederation, headed
by Urquiza, and the province of Buenos Aires. For
fi ve years, the two states maintained their separate
existences. In Paraná, capital of the confederation,
Urquiza struggled to repress gaucho revolts, stimu-
late economic development, and foster education
and immigration. Modest advances were made, but
the tempo of growth lagged far behind that of the
wealthy city and province of Buenos Aires, which
prospered on the base of a steadily increasing trade
with Europe in hides, tallow, salted beef, and wool.
Hoping to increase the confederation’s scanty
revenues, Urquiza began a tariff war with Buenos
Aires, levying surcharges on any goods that landed
at the Paraná River port of Rosario if duties had
been paid on them at Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires
responded with sanctions against ships sailing to
Rosario and threatened to close commerce on the
Paraná altogether. In 1859 war between the two
Argentine states broke out, and the forces of Bar-
tolomé Mitre, governor of Buenos Aires, emerged
victorious.
The military and economic superiority of Bue-
nos Aires, the need of the other provinces to use its
port, and awareness on all sides of the urgent need
to achieve national unity dictated a compromise.
At an 1862 congress representing all the prov-