Vicente López y Planes

Infobox_President | name=Vicente López y Planes


nationality=Argentine
order=2nd President of Argentina
term_start=July 7, 1827
term_end=August 17, 1827
predecessor=Bernardino Rivadavia
successor2=Manuel Dorrego(Governor of Buenos Aires)
birth_date=May 3, 1785
birth_place=Buenos Aires
death_date=October 10, 1856
death_place=Buenos Aires
spouse=
party=
vicepresident=
profession=Lawyer

Alejandro Vicente López y Planes (May 3, 1785; Buenos Aires - October 10, 1856) was an Argentine writer and politician who acted as interim President of Argentina from July 7 1827 to August 18 1827. He also wrote the lyrics of the Argentine National Anthem adopted in May 11, 1813.

Lopez began his primary studies in the San Francisco School, and later studied in the Real Colegio San Carlos, today the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires. He obtained a doctorate of laws in the University of Chuquisaca. He served as a captain in the Patriotic Regiment during the English invasions. After the Argentine victory he composed a poem entitled "El triunfo argentino" (The Argentine Triumph). He participated in the Cabildo Abierto of May 22, 1810 and supported the formation of the Primera Junta. He had good relations with Manuel Belgrano. When the royalist members of the city government of Buenos Aires were expulsed, he was elected mayor of the city; he was an enemy of the party of Cornelio Saavedra and one of the creators of the First Triumvirate, of which he was the Treasurer.

Lopez was a member of the Constituent Assembly of year XIII, representing Buenos Aires. At the request of the Assembly, he wrote the lyrics to a "patriotic march", which eventually became the Argentine National Anthem. It was a military march, whose music was composed by the Catalan Blas Parera; it was approved on March 11, 1813. The first public reading was at a tertulia on May 7 in the house of Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson. It displaced a different march, written by Esteban de Luca, which would have been the hymn if not for the more militaristic Lopez.

Lopez participated in the government of Carlos María de Alvear, and with his fall he was sent to prison. He held a few more public offices, and was then named Secretary of the Constituent Congress of 1825, and, a little later, minister for the president Bernardino Rivadavia.

After the scandal of negotiations with the Brazilian Empire, Rivadavia resigned the presidency. In his place Lopez was elected as caretaker, signing the dissolution of the Congress and calling elections in Buenos Aires. The new governor, Manuel Dorrego took charge of the ministry; this unified the federalists. When Dorrego fell from grace and was executed by firing squad by Juan Lavalle, Lopez was exiled to Uruguay. He returned in 1830 as a member of the Tribunal of Justice for Juan Manuel de Rosas. He was president of the Tribunal for many years and, among other things, presided over the judgement of the assassins of Juan Facundo Quiroga.

He was president of the literary salon lead by Marcos Sastre, but was not part of the group known as the Generation of 37, to which belonged his two sons, Vicente Fidel López and Lucio Vicente López

ee also

*List of heads of state of Argentina

Persondata
NAME = López y Planes, Vicente
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Argentine writer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH = May 3, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH = Buenos Aires, Argentina
DATE OF DEATH = October 10, 1856
PLACE OF DEATH = Buenos Aires, Argentina