San Nicolás, Pact of

The Pact of San Nicolás was signed in San Nicolás, Argentina, on May 31, 1852, by all the governors of the Argentine Confederation for the purpose of convening a Constituent Congress and organizing the country's institutions. The pact provided for each province to send two deputies to the Congress. It was also decided to create a provisional government under Justo José de Urquiza, the governor of Entre Ríos, who had removed Juan Manuel de Rosas from power. Also, under the terms of the pact, Urquiza was given command of all the military forces, placed in charge of foreign affairs and regulation of rivers inland, and given the authority to execute all provisions of the Federal Pact of 1831. The opposition of the Buenos Aires government to the pact was aroused by the fact that representation in the Congress was not to be in proportion to the population of the provinces and that enormous powers were conferred on the provisional government. In what came to be called the "June meetings," after the Chamber of Representatives of the Province of Buenos Aires heatedly debated the agreement, the governor of Buenos Aires, Vicente López y Planes, announced his resignation, and Urquiza dissolved the Chamber to assume provisionally the leadership of the government of Buenos Aires.

See alsoArgentine Confederation; Rosas, Juan Manuel de; Urquiza, Justo José de.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gorostegui de Torres, Haydée. La organización nacional. Colección Historia Argentina, vol. 4. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2000.

Oszlak, Oscar. La formación del estado argentino: Orden, progreso, y organización Nacional. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1997.

                                       Marcela Ternavasio