JOSÉ PERALTA, ARQUITECTO IDEÓLOGO Y CONSTRUCTOR DEL ESTADO LIBERAL ECUATORIANO Y EL EXILIO: 1895-1920

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century the struggles between conservatives and liberals were violent. José Peralta was a character of mixed passions, of ideological contradictions. He began his political life as a combative activist in radical Catholic conservatism. His fiery believer and his tireless lambasting pen led him to several internal exiles. He was imprisoned by the liberals and sent to Guayaquil, there, he read the European liberal ideologues. These readings transform his ideas from rabid conservative to secular heterodox liberal. This ideology will make him the intellectual leader of Ecuadorian radical liberalism.

Peralta, was a lawyer, journalist and politician, he spread his revolutionary ideas in newspapers, magazines and books. He supported and accompanied Eloy Alfaro, from his triumph on June 5, 1895 until August 11, 1911 when a coup d'état defenestrated Alfaro.

During the presidencies of Eloy Alfaro he held several state ministries. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Public Instruction and Finance. Theory and practice come together in Peralta, who, in addition to being an intellectual and revolutionary, was an efficient executor and organizer of legislative, political, economic, educational, and international relations transformations. Their ideas and executions divided the liberals, they confronted the church, the clergy, conservatism, the land-owning and free-trading oligarchy. José Peralta proposed a secular and social liberalism with freedoms and rights. His thoughts and actions after Alfaro's murder lead him to exile ordered by President Leónidas Plaza. The presidential successor Alfredo Baquerizo Moreno (1916-1920) appointed him plenipo tentiary minister of Ecuador to the Peruvian government. During this pseudo-exile and administrative stay he wrote books on politics, philosophy and history, political manifestos, epistles and journalistic articles. His writing is prolific and multifaceted like his personality. This essay will attempt to frame the character in the national, Latin American and global context, with emphasis on the presentation of his ideology and tangible achievements in the laws that still persist in the present.