Bernardo de Irigoyen

He was commissioned by Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas to settle a boundary dispute with Chile (Rosas was charged with the Argentine Confederation's foreign policy during his 1835–1852 reign), and from 1844 to 1850, Irigoyen served as Justice Minister in Mendoza Province, where he enacted the first provincial judicial system, as well as reformist military law and land law statutes.

He participated in the constitutional assembly that paved the way for the 1860 reunification with secessionist Buenos Aires Province, and was nominated to the Argentine Supreme Court; he refused, however, and resumed his private practice.

He negotiated boundary treaties with Brazil and Paraguay in the wake of the Paraguayan War against the latter nation, and was named Internal Affairs Minister in 1879, during which tenure he drafted the 1880 federalization of Buenos Aires.

He was returned to the Foreign Minister's post by Avellaneda's successor, President Julio Roca, and secured the boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina.

His faction, however, was overshadowed by Hipólito Yrigoyen's newly formed Radical Civic Union, which espoused a policy of "breaking before bending" on the subject of electoral reforms to the undemocratic system then prevailing.