Esteban Echeverría’s Critique of Universal Suffrage: The Traumatic Development of Democracy in Argentina, 1821–52
Esteban Echeverría’s Critique of Universal Suffrage: The Traumatic Development of Democracy in Argentina, 1821–52
Mazzini's Young Italy had a notable influence on the dissident youth of the River Plate region; one of their intellectual leaders, Esteban Echeverría (1805–51) – Romantic poet, socialist utopian, pioneer of Argentina's ‘Generation of 37’, and author of Dogma socialista – proclaimed a Young Argentina, as he firmly believed that it was necessary to establish Mazzinian-style associations to help reformulate the direction of political and literary culture in both Argentina and Uruguay. Both these nations were in those years suffering the consequences of the dictatorial regimes of Juan Manuel de Rosas and Manuel Oribe, respectively, which would later be confronted by Garibaldi and other European legionaries who had crossed the Atlantic to assist the local adversaries of these two governments. This chapter focuses on certain aspects of Echeverría's democratic thought, and particularly the criticism he directed towards the law of universal male suffrage decreed by the government of Buenos Aires in 1821 when he was a youngster. He claimed that this decree had been largely responsible for the rise to power in Buenos Aires of Rosas (in power 1829–32 and 1835–52), which he and other prominent members of Generation of 37 fiercely opposed.
Keywords: Young Italy, democratic thought, universal male suffrage, Rosas, Generation of 37
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