He was also a very prominent lawyer. And a staunch American.
Charges? Nothing less than President of the Republic between the years 1874 and 1880, after the Presidency of Sarmiento.
Before, he had been Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, as the current Ministry of Education was called, during Sarmiento’s presidency, precisely.
He was also a deputy to the Legislature of Buenos Aires when he was only 28 years old.
He was even Minister of Government in the Province of Buenos Aires, being Alsina governor.
I have listed only a few charges. I will also mention accomplishments of which he was the architect.
One, not small by the way. Being Minister of Sarmiento, he was the promoter of the creation of hundreds of primary schools and dozens of secondary schools in all corners of the country.
He also promoted the “Immigration Law”, following Alberdi’s slogan, that “to govern is to populate”, which became known as the “Avellaneda Law”. The same rule suggested the granting of land and work for European peasants.
It doubled in a few years the immigration flow.
How many of us were born on this blessed land precisely because of such a humanitarian law!
And one point. He had to endure the first strike in our country. It was carried out by the first organized guild in our land: the Society of Typographers, those who protested the excessive daily working hours, and the lack of a weekly holiday.
The strike was successful and an agreement was signed that established a 10-hour day. in winter and from 12 pm. in summer, in both cases from Monday to Saturday.
Also Avellaneda, promoted a campaign to the desert, to extend the line of the border towards the South of the Pcia.de Buenos Aires. His plan consisted of building towns and forts and laying telegraph lines.
During that time, Minister Alsina died and was replaced by the young General Julio A. Roca, who applied a highly controversial and unjust as well as cruel plan to annihilate the indigenous communities, which we will deal with on another occasion.
Nicolás Avellaneda suffered from a kidney disease called nephritis.
Therefore, he decided to go to Europe with his wife in search of medical treatment. On the high seas, already on his way back to the country, he would die serenely, far from his homeland, which he loved so much and for which he did so much, on November 25, 1885. He had turned 48 years old the previous month.
In that short span of life, he gave his country so many lasting laws that it would not be possible to list them in this note.
I will only remember that his was the bill by which the City of Buenos Aires was declared Federal Capital of the Argentine Republic and that it was approved in 1880.
And a final aphorism for Nicolás Avellaneda, a distinguished Argentine citizen.
“There are goals that seem unattainable. But there are men born to achieve them.”
Source: Ambito
