Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre and the reforms for emancipation

BY: MIGUEL ARTURO OJEDA SEMINAR (DIRECTOR OF THE ELECTORAL AND DEMOCRACY MUSEUM OF THE DNEF OF THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS JURY)

At the end of the 18th century, Hispanic America was already dreaming of its independence, a new path was opening up to regain its autonomy, and since then the separatist movements manifested and multiplied constantly, as well as the ideas for political separation, through prestigious pens.

In this setting is located Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, a Lima native who died in the city of his birth on March 9, 1841, whose remains are still in the Presbítero Maestro Museum Cemetery, awaiting transfer to the National Pantheon of Heroes of Independence, inaugurated in 1924.

Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre y Encalada, was born in Lima, on May 19, 1773. He transcended as a lawyer, politician and essayist, whose work places him among the reformist precursors of the independence of Peru, for being firmly convinced that the non-functional nature of the viceregal regime, it might be solved with reforms that would promote a series of changes, he had full faith that the legal norms would contribute to the expected transformations.

Undoubtedly, the legal norms are preceded by the social and the moral, and perhaps this was what led him to firmly believe that the legal precepts would force everyone to those changes that would somehow maintain fidelity to the Crown of Castile, which would avoid bloodshed, in the struggles for independence, as had already been seen in the United States.

When we read regarding the character, from his biography published in the Hombres del Perú collection in 1964, we see that he is placed in the group of those who believed that it was not necessary to break ties with the Crown of Castile, as it appears in his books American Letters and Plan of Peru, written at the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, as a result of a trip to Europe and the United States, in 1823 he declared himself in favor of political separation, perhaps a broader vision in person led him to change his ideas and proposals.

After this he made a series of legal proposals aimed at the foundation of the republican project, which was constitutionally approved for Peru; and following Bolívar’s arrival in the country, in September 1823, he initially manifested himself as a supporter of his government, and later aligned himself among those who questioned him.

In his long career he would serve as the first president of the Supreme Court of Justice of Peru, in 1825 and successive years. He also resided in the Constituent Congress in 1827, and served as Minister of Government and Foreign Relations in 1827 and 1832. In all of these institutions he appears on their official payrolls.

Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre is one of the almost anonymous characters in the country, that is, although his name has spread in high school textbooks, there are generally no streets, squares, institutions that carry him, or busts and monuments that project his image. , and allow their internalization in the collective memory. It is a great debt that must be paid, and this Bicentennial of National Independence presents the opportunity to do so.