In 1839 he took refuge in Montevideo along with other members of the Generación del 37 and supported, via the media, the French blockade and invasion of General Juan Lavalle, in the Buenos Aires province.

Three years later he was sent to Parana to demand the repeal of the "law of differential rights" with which the Argentina Confederacy was to defend the economic absorption on the part of Buenos Aires.

After the battle of Pavón, he was secretary to General Bartolomé Mitre and finance minister of the Buenos Aires governor Mariano Saavedra.

His campaign for the presidential candidacy of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in Buenos Aires was unsuccessful, but he still earned the President's appreciation, who appointed him as finance minister.

Moreover, his economic ideas were of a free trade doctrine which was strongly criticized as simply applying imported recipes, little suited to the situation in Argentina at that time.

In 1873 he was provincial constitutional standard, and was later ambassador to Peru, Brazil, USA and finally England, during the administrations of Avellaneda, Roca and Celman.