José Manuel Estrada

José Manuel Estrada (born in Buenos Aires el 13 July 1842; died in Asunción, Paraguay, 17 September 1894) was an Argentine lawyer, writer, politician, eminent speaker, and representative of Catholic thought.

José Manuel Estrada, with other thinkers and political defenders of Catholic thought such as Pedro Goyena and Emilio Lamarca, stood out in Argentinean history for their firm opposition to the Secularism that characterized the government of the country between the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century.

President Sarmiento designated him Secretary of External Relationships and head of the General Department of Schools.

He made an important contribution to the Pedagogic Congress of 1882, where it was agreed that the state school system should be Catholic, maintaining this position in a long debate with Leandro Alem.

He taught Constitutional Rights and Administrative Rights in the University of Buenos Aires and he stood out as a journalist in the magazine The Union that he directed along with Pedro Goyena and Tristán Achával Rodríguez, where they defended their positions in opposition to the liberal reforms of the governments of that time, whose main advocate was Julio Argentino Roca.