He attended school in his hometown Colegio de los Franciscanos and later in Buenos Aires, where he received his doctorate in theology and jurisprudence.
Shortly after the Sitio Grande during the Uruguayan Civil War he returned to Buenos Aires, and later traveled to Bolivia in the Argentine Andean Provinces located in Chile until the end of 1843.
This same year he was designated as the Minister of the Government, a position he maintained until February 1876, when the military epoch under President Lorenzo Latorre began.
Later on, he drafted numerous works and laws, as well as being a decisive and impeller of the legislation that gave Uruguay the ability to consolidate as an independent state.
After her death in 1865, he remarried with Umbelina Tapia y Sierra with whom they had five children: Manuel Tomás, Tristán Hilario, Alfredo, Ricardo T., and Augusto.