Miguel Juarez Celman
Miguel Ángel Juárez Celman (Córdoba, Argentine Confederation, September 29, 1844 - Arrecifes, Argentine Republic, April 14, 1909) was an Argentine lawyer and politician. His career was marked by the influence of his brother-in-law Julio Argentino Roca, who propelled him into a legislative career. He was a prominent promoter of the separation of Church and State, and a liberal of aristocratic cut, encouraging public education and immigration.
Tenth President of the Nation since October 12, 1886, he generously promoted public works, but was unable to maintain economic stability and had to face the formation of a powerful opposition front under the leadership of Leandro N. Alem, which would give rise to the Civic Union. After the armed uprising known as the Parque Revolution led by Alem, former President Bartolomé Miter and others, and despite the government's success in arms, Juárez Celman had to resign and withdrew definitively from political life.
Youth
The son of José Marcos Juárez and Rosario Celman, he was born and raised in Córdoba, where he studied under the Jesuits at Colegio Monserrat. His older brother was Marcos N. Juárez, who would also stand out in provincial politics. He studied law and graduated as a lawyer in 1869. In 1872 he married Benedicta Elisa Funes, younger sister of Clara Funes de Roca. On March 24, 1874 he obtained his doctorate.
He belonged to an aristocratic family and entered political activity early. He was elected deputy when he barely received his doctorate, and from the provincial parliament he led the movement for the secularization of educational institutions. Two years later he was elected to the Senate, and in 1877 appointed president of the body. He exercised the function only briefly, since the death of Governor Clímaco de la Peña brought Antonio del Viso to the government, who appointed him Minister of Government. He would hold the post until the end of del Viso's term. His energetic and informed performance earned him the gubernatorial nomination that same year, and he was elected by the National Autonomist Party, taking office on May 17, 1880.
Governance
He was already elected governor when the Buenos Aires insurgents led by Carlos Tejedor and Lisandro Olmos, opposed to the federalization of Buenos Aires, captured him along with del Viso. He managed to save himself, and once in office he sent troops in support of the recently elected president Julio A. Roca; Along with this and the other members of the League of Governors, he would found the National Autonomist Party (PAN) in the following years.
National autonomism endorsed a Comtian-style conception of industrial and civil progress, which fit perfectly with the already famous anti-clericalism of Juárez Celman. Among his government works in Córdoba were the establishment of the Civil Registry, the regulation of burials and the urban layout, the creation of schools and hospitals and the creation of agricultural colonies in the interior of the province.
His temperament and style of government stood out alongside his accomplishments. The distrust of popular initiatives and the privatized management of politics became manifest in the constant direct interventions of the governor, his interference in the distribution of credit and the recourse to the presence of the Army in case of encountering obstacles.
The constitutional reform of 1883: the municipalities
The municipal regime established in the Provincial Constitution of Córdoba of 1855 did not abandon the municipal structure in force in colonial times. For each Department there was a municipal administration that, in this way, included in its jurisdiction more than one populated center. Years later, in 1870, reforms were introduced in the Constitution expanding the powers of the municipalities but without modifying the archaic structures in force. It was not until 1883 when, at the request of Juárez Celman, the then rector of the Monserrat National College, Dr. Filemón Posse, introduced the suppression of the “Departmental Municipalities” or “Municipal corporations”. Since then, municipal jurisdictions have been reduced to the limits of their city, town or village.
Through the same constitutional reform, the executive powers of the Cordovan municipalities ceased to be collegiate bodies and were replaced by the position of intendant: an administrative, unipersonal, elective function, whose mandate was set at three years duration. Also for the mandate of the councilors, then called municipal, a period of three years was established. On January 11, 1883, the constitutional reforms were sanctioned, being promulgated by decree of Governor Juárez Celman fourteen days later. In October of the same year, a new Municipalities Law (No. 924) was promulgated and regulated, authorizing the creation of new local municipalities in all those places where a minimum of thirty “taxpaying neighbors” carried out the pertinent application.
Presidentialism
Under the presidency of Julio A. Roca, brother-in-law of Juárez Celman, the time for a new political method in the Argentine Republic had been consolidated: presidentialism. The system of the agreement of ministers and the boards of notables of the time of Mitre, Sarmiento and Avellaneda, was followed by the political management of only one: the president. Presidentialism arose with general assent. The provincial parties, which disputed the provincial governments well or badly, ended up submitting to the designs and influence of a strong, one-person presidential power, endowed with maximum powers, capable of guaranteeing the stability of the governors against local revolutions. The stability of the provincial parties would be followed by the stability of the governors, who no longer owe their position to boards of local notables but only to the president.
Unification and centralization will be the dominant method of government for decades to come. As Lucio V. Mansilla, Deputy for Buenos Aires, expressed when voting for the intervention of the Province of Tucumán on June 1, 1887: "The autonomist flag is nothing more than an invention... it is not but a kind of scarecrow what is called autonomy of the provinces... the Nation comes first, the provinces, the States as they say, are nothing but a very little thing".
Of the three powers of the Republic, the least powerful in this institutional scheme was Congress. The Senate of the Argentine Nation was a refuge for ex-presidents, ex-ministers and ex-governors who brilliantly discussed, although without effectiveness, the scope of the Fifth and Sixth articles of the Constitution of 1853, or the powers of the Executive Power to declare by itself a state of siege that he would not lift. The Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Nation was an entertainment platform, where the "doctors of the law", young lawyers graduated mostly from the National University of Córdoba, rehearsed theories and they executed their oratorical gifts without major practical results.
The function of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Argentine Nation, made up of retired politicians, was quite similar to that of the Roman judiciary. Its main task was the application of the rules of the game of the political system, respect for the presidential powers and strict compliance with the Pacta sunt servanda in civil relations.
The only valid and solid constitutional guarantee was freedom of the press, the most valuable of civil liberties, and an organ of expression for the ruling class. In each province and in the Capital of the Argentine Nation itself, each party or notable had a journalistic means at its disposal to promote its political philosophy endowed with truth.
National senator appointment: Roca's succession
From his position as governor of Córdoba, and motivated by his proximity to Roca, Juárez Celman envisioned the possibility of being the presidential candidate of the National Autonomist Party in 1886, informing himself through the deputies and senators of Córdoba about political events, and exchanging private correspondence with the president. There were serious doubts about a Juárez candidacy: his youth, since when he left the post of governor he was 39 years old; the political displacement of his trusted man, ex-governor Antonio del Viso, replaced in the Ministry of the Interior by Bernardo de Irigoyen in February 1882; and Roca's decision to prevent a political ally of the Cordovan governor, Luis G. Pinto, from reaching the governorship of Santiago del Estero.
Without major expectations, on May 17, 1883 Juárez Celman handed over the provincial command to his successor Gregorio Gavier, also an autonomist, and the Legislative Assembly quickly appointed him senator in accordance with Article 46 of the 1853 Constitution. July he joined the Chamber of Senators of the Argentine Nation, where he continued to adopt anti-clerical positions, already exhibited during his time as governor. From there, in defense of questionable electoral procedures, he would come to the opinion that & # 34; consulting the people is always to err, since they only have shady opinions & # 34; .
However, Julio A. Roca, driven by the desire to reoccupy Rivadavia's chair and believing in the proven friendship and loyalty of Juárez, his brother-in-law, favored the candidacy of the Cordovan man for the presidential succession. Juárez Celman ran for the presidential elections on April 11, 1886, in which he won, not without accusations of electoral fraud (an otherwise frequent practice by the PAN). He was accompanied on the ticket by Carlos Pellegrini, former Roca War Minister, who had advocated for his candidacy from the pages of the newspaper Sud América .
Presidency
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On October 12, he assumed the presidency; In his inaugural speech, he announced his liberal ideology, which included the promotion of education, of European immigration - with which he intended to reverse "inferiority"; of native blood—and of private enterprise. His emphasis on the role of individuals contrasted, however, sharply with his style of government; Accustomed to the autocratic direction of public affairs, he quickly came into conflict with Roca, who aspired to maintain his influence over the government and the National Autonomist Party.
The Unicato
From the outset, his administration was characterized by an exacerbation of presidentialism. The enormous concentration of political power in his person and in officials directly appointed from the presidency, earned his government the nickname of Unicato. He was referring to his claim to concentrate all political and public power in the president, as Sole Head of the Nation and of the National Autonomist Party.
Under the negotiating government of Roca, criticism of the government's unwillingness to govern democratically had intensified from various dispersed groups. Juárez Celman's claim to eliminate internal dissidents by having himself appointed Sole Chief of the PAN favored the meeting of various groups, which took an increasingly critical stance of the Unicato's political forms, both in the press and in street demonstrations. From the point of view of these critics, the Unicato's policy had led to a massive disinterest of the population in political affairs; The population, calm about the unlimited economic progress that seemed to be glimpsed, was not interested in who governed, much less in the means used to govern.
However, the opposition would not coalesce into any new political movement until the economic crisis ended the general sense of well-being.
Governance Management
Juárez Celman promoted public works, especially in Buenos Aires, with the intention of making it resemble the European capitals he took as a reference. He ordered the construction of government buildings such as the Central Post Office (completed only in 1928), the Colón Theater, numerous schools and sanitary infrastructure, the reform of the port of Buenos Aires according to Eduardo Madero's project, and the start of the works on the San Roque Dam, by Bialet Massé, a fundamental part of the Cordoba City Highlands Irrigation System Project.
On April 10, 1888, the president created a unit of telegraphers in the Army. In 1897 units of the National Guard were mobilized in anticipation of a conflict with Chile and by then that militia had a regiment of engineers that received specific training in field telegraphy.
The encouragement to immigration was also important, including the free passage and delivery of land to settlers, much of it seized from the natives in the Desert Campaign of his predecessor Roca. A great legal reform was also promoted, including the procedural organization of the Courts, the establishment of a Property Registry, the enactment of the Civil Marriage Law and the Mining, Criminal and Commerce codes.
The Minister of Justice and Public Instruction Filemón Posse promoted the sanction of the first Criminal and Mining Codes of the Nation, as well as the creation of the Property Registry. In addition, he continued Roca's policy of consolidating the educational system, with a notable growth in preschool education, pedagogical and curricular homogenization, the fight against religion in public schools, and the first laws for teacher retirement.
A preliminary agreement was signed with Bolivia, which provisionally set the limit at the 22nd parallel south to the Pilcomayo river.
The apparent push towards a legalist regime was contrasted with the accusations of corruption that were leveled against his government, based mainly on the concession of works to people in his inner circle, real estate and financial speculation by members of the government and excess public spending.
Economic crisis
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Continuing to a great extent the rise of commercial and stock market speculation of his predecessor, Juárez Celman accelerated the process through an active privatization policy. He granted the construction of dozens of railway branches. In particular, the privatization of the most successful state company in Argentine history until then, the Buenos Aires West Railway, was striking, the sale of which was justified precisely on the basis of its operating surplus and This action earned him sharp criticism from Senator Aristóbulo del Valle, who pointed out that in this way public resources were subjected to the interest of private capital, and regretted that the profits of the purchasing companies had been guaranteed with state funds.
The immediate result of the alienation of the public means of production and ruinous spending was marked financial instability. But as long as foreign capital continued to flow into the system, it was sustained and grew at unprecedented levels: between 1886 and 1890, the national economy grew by a staggering 44%. During the 1980s, 40% of all British capital invested in the abroad were invested in Argentina. Most of the foreign investments were destined to finance the railway network, which added another 3,800 km, close to 10,000 km in total length. In addition to the railways, there were also large investments in ports, among them those of Bahía Blanca, Rosario, La Plata and in Buenos Aires the construction of Puerto Madero began.
Livestock producers were at the height of their economic boom, with the extension of somewhat more modern production systems –wire fencing had spread throughout the country, and the first windmills for water arrived– and with the recent incorporation of land gained from indigenous territory. Exports diversified somewhat, with exports of wool, frozen meat —the first refrigerator had been installed in 1881— and cereals, whose participation in exports at the end of the decade reached 16% of the total value.
Enacted the Law of Guaranteed Banks, which allowed the establishment of provincial and private banks authorized to issue currency. The result, combined with the fiscal irresponsibility of the government, was a speculative escalation and uncontrolled issuance that led to a chronic indebtedness of the banks and the increase in financial costs. The National state, the Provincial states and the private banks quickly fell into debt, while a strong flow of foreign currency inflows, especially from Great Britain, fueled the speculative bubble. In the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, founded in 1885, 4,000 stock traders speculated in all kinds of public papers. and private, which had less and less support.
The financial situation began to go into crisis at the end of 1888, when the Banco Constructor de La Plata went bankrupt, taking with it the life of its president and founder Carlos Mauricio Schweitzer. In quick succession, several financial institutions faced payment crises, nearly bankrupting several foreign banks; When the Baring Brothers bank assumed its mistakes by investing in the speculative bubble that Argentina had become, the arrival of foreign capital ceased completely, beginning the most critical phase of the financial crisis of 1890.
Shortly after, the Argentine State entered into cessation of payments and repudiated the debts contracted by the Guaranteed Banks and the provinces, with which in fact it declared bankruptcy, from which it would only emerge several years later.
The Revolution of 1890
After the start of the economic crisis, the leader Francisco Barroetaveña began the formation of the so-called Youth Civic Union, in September 1889, which would later become the Civic Union, whose most distinguished leaders would be former president Bartolomé Mitre, Aristóbulo del Valle, Leandro N. Alem, Mariano Demaría, and Bernardo de Irigoyen. Even Catholic leaders like José Manuel Estrada and Pedro Goyena joined the Civic Union.
Around 1890, numerous strikes were called demanding better wages to maintain the standard of living, and the opposition grew stronger.
At odds with Roca, who had publicly called him "vile and ruin," Juárez Celman found himself increasingly politically isolated. On April 13, 1890, Senator Del Valle denounced that clandestine issues of paper money were circulating alongside the legal ones, generating enormous agitation. Catholic activists, the impoverished popular class, and political opponents began holding demonstrations in Buenos Aires and Rosario. Alem, sponsored by Mitre, called a large rally of UC members, in which Del Valle, Mitre, Estrada, Goyena and Alem spoke, inciting a rebellion against a government elected at the polls.
Considering that the possible participation in elections would have no use in confronting the official political machine, they set out to plan a revolution. The so-called Park Revolution, which broke out on July 26, 1890, allowed the rebel leaders to control a large part of the city of Buenos Aires for three days. Despite the superiority of the rebel positions, the movement's military leaders ignored the demands of the civilian leaders and did not take control of the city center. The response of the loyal Army forced them to capitulate on the 29th before the forces of General Nicolás Levalle. There had been between 150 and 330 deaths and more than a thousand wounded.
Juárez Celman had left the capital, forced by Roca and Carlos Pellegrini, and returned after the end of the Revolution. But, except for a few loyal legislators and ministers, he no longer had any support: former President Julio A. Roca and Vice President Carlos Pellegrini denied him their support, the press continued to lash out at him, and the economic situation worsened more and more rapidly.. On August 6 he presented his resignation, which was immediately accepted by Congress, and Carlos Pellegrini assumed the presidency. He was thus the first president not to complete his term after 29 years, and only six presidents did so in the century after his presidency.
Ministerial Cabinet
 Miguel Juárez Celman | ||
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Eduardo Wilde Manuel Zorrilla Wenceslao Pacheco Norberto Quirno Costa Salustiano J. Zavalía | 12 October 1886 – 20 January 1889 20 January 1889 – 28 February 1889 28 February 1889 – 27 August 1889 27 August 1889 – 14 April 1890 18 April 1890 - 6 August 1890 |
| Ministry of External Relations and Worship | Norberto Quirno Costa Severo Zeballos isola Roque Sáenz Peña | 12 October 1886 – 27 August 1889 10 September 1889 – 12 April 1890 10 June 1890 - 6 August 1890 |
| Ministry of War and Marina | Nicolás Levalle Eduardo Racedo Nicolás Levalle | 12 October 1886 – 15 January 1887 15 January 1887 – 12 April 1890 18 April 1890 - 6 August 1890 |
| Ministry of Finance | Wenceslao Pacheco Rufino Varela Wenceslao Pacheco Francisco Uriburu Juan Agustín García | 12 October 1886 – 28 February 1889 28 February 1889 – 27 August 1889 27 August 1889 – 12 April 1890 18 April 1890 – 10 June 1890 10 June 1890 – 6 August 1890 |
| Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction | Philemon Posse Amancio Alcorta José Mariano Astigueta | 12 October 1886 – 12 April 1890 18 April 1890 – 8 June 1890 9 June 1890 – 6 August 1890 |
Succession and last years
Pellegrini had to face a very difficult economic situation, in which the profits from the foreign debt represented 60% of the GDP and most of the banking houses had closed their doors.
Juárez Celman abandoned political life and retired to his ranch "La Elisa", in Capitán Sarmiento (Buenos Aires), later he would die in the town of Arrecifes (Buenos Aires) —without having reconciled with Roca — April 14, 1909.
His collaborators also stayed away from public action until the second half of the 1910s, when they joined the leading group of presidents José Figueroa Alcorta and Roque Sáenz Peña.
In contrast to the abundant tributes to his predecessor and successor, only the small town of Estación Juárez Celman and the Department of Juárez Celman, both in the province of Córdoba, remember this governor and president.
A street in Río Ceballos also remembers him and another in Fisherton, Rosario as well.
His image appears on the 5000 australes bill (extinct currency).