The Four Tribunes. Ideas and Political Projects of Buenos Aires’ Federal Leaders during the Constituent Congress in the River Plate: 1824-1827

Abstract

Manuel Dorrego, Pedro Sáenz de Cavia, José Ugarteche and Manuel Moreno created the Popular Party in Buenos Aires in 1823, and since then they worked politically as a team: they wrote in newspapers, were candidates in provincial and national elections, and as deputies to the constituent Congress led the minority Federal Party that consistently opposed proposals for centralization. This article analyzes their joint career as well as their stand as a group in various themes: Americanism, republicanism, warmongering, opposition to the aristocracy, the defense of a broad right to vote and representation of other interests of the common people. The main objective of this work is to determine what type of federalism they defended in the failed Congress of the 1820s: liberal and with a Jeffersonian spirit, with a weak central government over the provinces.