Valle, Aristóbulo del (1845–1896)

Aristóbulo del Valle (b. 15 March 1845; d. 29 January 1896), Argentine politician, journalist, constitutional lawyer, and mentor to reform-minded youth in the 1880s and 1890s. Born in Dolores, Buenos Aires Province, in modest circumstances, he was an early example of the burgeoning Argentine middle class. A veteran of the War of the Triple Alliance, del Valle wrote for the newspapers El Nacional and La Nación, and served in the Buenos Aires provincial legislature. Elected to the national Congress in 1872, he was a deputy (1872–1876) and later a senator (1877–1895). He distinguished himself as the Senate's most effective orator and defender of the middle class. He played a leading role in the revolutions of the early 1890s, but when they failed, he worked within the oligarchic government to stave off anarchy. He served for short periods as minister of war, navy, interior, and finance under President Luis Sáenz Peña.

Del Valle is credited as one of the early founders, with Leandro Alem, of the Unión Cívica Radical. He established the country's first reformist newspaper, El Argentino, and taught constitutional law at the University of Buenos Aires, steering a different course from his conservative predecessor José M. Estrada. Del Valle's major works include: Nociones de derecho constitucional (Aspects of Constitutional Law [1897]), Cuestión de límites interprovinciales (Interprovincial Boundary Question [1881]), and La política económica argentina en la década del 80 (Political Economy of Argentina in the 80s [1955]). De Valle's most influential congressional speeches are gathered in Discursos selectos (1922) and Discursos políticos (1938). His death at the age of fifty deprived the country of one of its leading reformers and most effective public speakers.

See alsoArgentina: The Nineteenth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Elvira Aldao De Díaz, Reminiscencias sobre Aristóbulo del Valle (1928).

Olga N. Bordi De Ragucci, Aristóbulo del Valle en los orígenes del radicalismo (1987).

Julio A. Caminos, Tres figuras del noventa (1948).

Additional Bibliography

Rock, David. State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860–1916. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Segovia, Juan Fernando. "Perfil político e ideológico de Aristóbulo del Valle: Ideario de un liberal radical." Investigaciones y Ensayos 49 (January-December 1999): 573-614.

                                  Georgette Magassy Dorn