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The Authority of a Foreign Talisman: a Study of U.S

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The Authority of a Foreign Talisman: a Study of U.S THE AUTHORITY OF A FOREIGN TALISMAN: A STUDY OF U.S. CONSTITUTIONAL PRACTICE AS AUTHORITY IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ARGENTINA AND THE ARGENTINE ELITE'S LEAP OF FAITH JONATHAN M. MUIER* TABLE OF CONTENTS Synopsis ........................................ 1484 Introduction ..................................... 1484 I. Argentine Law and Government Prior to 1853 ....... 1493 II. The Alberdian Vision ......................... 1501 III. The Genesis of the Argentine Constitution of 1853/1860 ................................. 1508 A. The Agreement of San Nicols and the Constitutional Convention of 1853 ............ 1508 B. Alberdi (and the Confederation) Versus Sarmiento (and Buenos Aires) ........................ 1516 C. The Constitutional Changes of 1860 ........... 1522 * Professor of Law, Southwestern University School of Law. This Article is taken from portions of a larger work that was successfully defended as a J.S.D. dissertation at Columbia University School of Law. The author would like to thank the members of his dissertation committee, Professors Martha Fineman, Alejandro Garro and R. Kent Greenawalt for their invaluable comments, the many Argentine colleagues who have offered suggestions, particularly ProfessorsJulio C. Cueto-Riia, Alberto Favay, and Hernn Gullco, Professor Keith Rosenn at the University of Miami, and colleagues at Southwestern University School of Law who offered comments during faculty workshops and individually. The author also would like to thank Jerome Feldman and Fang-Lian Liao for their research assistance and the Buenos Aires law firms of Bianchi, Mjura & Galarce, Marval, O'Farrell & Mairal, and Estevez Cambra & Asociados for use of their offices and libraries. The librarians of the Southwestern University School of Law Library, the Library of the Argentine Supreme Court, and the Argentine National Academy of History provided invaluable assistance with what often must have seemed outlandish requests. Finally, the author's wife, CarinaJudith Miller, provided constant, detailed editorial advice. 1483 1484 THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 46:1483 IV. The "Real" Argentine Constitution: Civil Liberties Without Political Rights ........................ 1534 V. The Role of the Talisman ...................... 1544 A. de la Torre, Acevedo, and Sojo .................. 1547 1. de la Torre ............................. 1548 2. Acevedo ............................... 1551 3. Sojo and Marbury's shadow ................ 1553 B. The Gradual Decline of the United States as Authority (1897-1930) ...................... 1561 Conclusion ...................................... 1568 SYNOPSIS Contrary to arguments of social scientists as far back as Hegel, the adoption of a successful foreign constitution as a model may offer advantages to a country that has not yet consolidated its political institutions. The nineteenth century experience of Argentina with the U.S. Constitution shows that not only may rules from transplanted constitutional models take root, but that such rules may enjoy extra authority because of the prestige of the foreign model. Argentina's elite adopted U.S. constitutional practice not only as a model, but as a source of authority. Sometimes U.S. practice governed regardless of Argentine needs and regardless of the result that textual interpre- tation of the Argentine Constitution might have prescribed. Although the rules adopted may not always have been suited ideally to Argentina's conditions, the prestige of the model helped consolidate a constitutional system where none had existed previously. Blind copying is inappropriate, but because a foreign model may enjoy greater authority than an autochthonous one, the Argentine example shows that countries emerging from long periods of dictatorship or instability should consider the extent to which foreign models and international law may be harnessed to add to the authority of weak domestic structures. INTRODUCTION Scholars studying political development must consider to what extent foreign models matter. With dozens of countries undergoing transitions to democracy, constitution drafters face basic issues of whether, how, and to what extent they-should invoke foreign models. The issues are not new. Many countries have used the U.S. Constitu- 1997] THE AUTHORTY OF A FOREIGN TALISMAN 1485 tion and others as models during the past two centuries.1 Until now, however, scholars rarely have done more than note the degree to which specific constitutional provisions have been borrowed or have offered comparisons focused on specific government practices.' This Article will examine the issues underlying the constitutional authority and effectiveness of a constitutional transplant, focusing on Argentina's nineteenth century experience with the U.S. Constitution. By examining in detail the experience of a single country, Argentina, the Article will focus on the authority enjoyed by a constitutional transplant. Thus, although this Article will need to establish the degree to which the United States provided a model for specific constitutional provisions, its aim is to establish to what degree previously non-existent rules actually came to operate in practice and the extent to which the authority of a transplant was affected by the fact that it came from abroad. Remarkably, Argentina offers an example not only of the adoption of a foreign constitutional model, but of the foreign model quickly becoming an article of faith, thereby increasing the legitimacy of the Argentine Constitution and the stability of Argentine political life. Successful constitutionalism usually is ignored in explaining Argentina's enormous economic success in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Between 1880 and 1913 Argentina was neck- and-neck with Japan for the title of fastest growing economy in the world,3 and between 1869 and 1914 high European immigration helped boost Argentina's population from 1.7 to 7.9 million people, a growth rate of 3.4% per year.' Real Gross Domestic Product grew at an average rate of at least 5% per year in the fifty years preceding World War I,' and jumped to an average growth rate of 6.7% between 1917 and 1929.6 In 1930, Argentines were better fed, healthier, had better access to higher education, and in general 1. See Andrzej Rapaczyski, BibliographicalEssay: The Influence of U.S. Constitutionalism Abroad, in CONSTITUTIONALISM AND RIGHTS: THE INFLUENCE OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTTUTION ABROAD 405,407-12 (Louis Henkin &AlbertJ. Rosenthal eds., 1990) (explaining impact of U.S. Constitution on development of political systems in Canada, Australia, Israel, India, Scandanavia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America). 2. See id. at 406 (stating that "[e]xtensive scholarly research in this area is virtually nonexistent" and offering a bibliography of literature on the influence of the U.S. Constitution). Alan Watson is the only scholar to extensively examine the use of foreign models as a source of authority, and his work focuses entirely in the private law sphere. See ALAN WATSON, LEGAL TRANSPLANTS: AN APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE LAW 56-57 (2d ed. 1993). 3. SeeW. ARTHUR LEWIS, GROWTH AND FLUCTUATIONS 1870-1913, at 197 (1978). 4. See CARLOS F. DiAZ ALEJANDRO, ESSAYS ON THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC 3, 421 (1970). 5. See id. at 3. 6. See id. at 52-53. 1486 THE AMERICAN UNIVERsriy LAw REVIEw [Vol. 46:1483 enjoyed higher consumption levels, than most Europeans. Despite its poor road system, Argentina had more automobiles per capita than Great Britain in 1930.8 Scholars usually describe this spectacular growth, followed from the 1930s by equally striking stagnation, in terms of economic causes and the responses of different interest groups to changes in the world trading system and Argentina's domestic economy.9 One hardly can doubt that political stability is a necessary precondi- tion for extended growth, however. Investors and immigrants could show little long-term interest in Argentina during the civil wars and political murders that characterized post-independence Argentina from the early 1820s through the 1850s.1' Nor could immigrants and investors have felt comfortable with the cycles of military govern- ments, unrestrained populism, and bloodletting that increasingly dominated Argentine politics from the 1930s through the 1970s. Constitutionalism provided late nineteenth century Argentina with the political stability needed for growth. Perhaps one reason why social scientists ignore Argentina's constitutionalism is that even in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century it was imperfect. Most elections until the presiden- tial elections of 1916 were fraudulent." Major revolts occurred in 1874, 1880, 1890, 1891, and 1905.2 Federalism, extensively provided 7. See CARLOS H. WAISMAN, REVERSAL OF DEVELOPMENT IN ARGENTINA: POSTWAR COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY POUCIES AND THEIR STRUCTURAL CONSEQUENCEs 7 (1987). 8. See DiAz ALEJANDRO, supra note 4, at 56. 9. Seegenera!yPAUL H. LEWIS, THE CRISIS OFARGENTINE CAPITALISM 1-7 (1990) (describing and classifying traditional approaches taken by scholars on Argentine political economy); WILLIAM C. SMITH, AUTHORrrARIANISM AND THE CRISIS OF THE ARGENTINE POLITICAL ECONOMY 1-10 (1989) (noting that economic causes fail to entirely explain changes in Argentina's political system); WAISMAN, supra note 7, at 3-23 (describing how economic change and crises produced new interest groups and political instability). 10. See infra notes 54-92 and accompanying text (tracing evolution of Argentina's political system from
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