In South American history, the Unitarians and Federalists are known , respectively, as the two main political parties of the 19th century in the newly independent United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (a territory equivalent to today’s Argentina and Uruguay): the Unitarian Party and the Federal Party. Both groups clashed on several occasions during the region’s civil wars between 1814 and 1880, as they defended different political models for the formation and management of the nascent republic.
Broadly speaking, the Unitarian Party sought to preserve the centralized administrative system the country had inherited from the colony, while the Federal Party sought to reorganize the country and found a federative republic in which each province would have a voice and vote. This bloody conflict repeatedly involved foreign and neighboring powers and culminated in 1880 when an agreement was reached to establish a liberal and open economy, along with a federal organizational model, in accordance with the provisions of the Argentine Constitution of 1853.
The struggle between Unitarians and Federalists constitutes an important, though violent, chapter in the history of Argentina (and also, though to a lesser extent, of Uruguay), and was portrayed in important works of regional literature such as El matadero (1871) by Esteban Echeverría (1805-1851) or Facundo o sociedad y barbarie en las pampas argentinas (1845) by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888).
- See also: Unitary and federal states
Differences between unitary and federal
The fundamental differences between what is defended by the Unitarian Party and what is defended by the Federal Party can be summarized as follows:
| Unitarians | Federals |
| They defended the need for the Province of Buenos Aires, due to its economic, historical, and strategic importance, to have administrative control over the other provinces. This model was called the Centralist or Unitary model. | They defended the need for a federative government, in which the provinces would retain their administrative autonomy and the national government would operate according to the different internal positions. |
| They were mostly located in the province of Buenos Aires, capital of the colonial viceroyalty, although they had followers in the other provinces. | They were dispersed throughout the different provinces that made up the national territory and had their own agendas and political considerations. |
| They believed that the nation pre-existed the provinces, meaning that the latter were merely divisions of the national territory and not states in their own right. Their model of the nation was inspired by Napoleonic France. | They understood the country as the voluntary union of a group of provinces, which had much more to gain from being united. Their positions varied widely, but in general, their model for the country was inspired by the United States. |
| Its membership was predominantly from the capital and comprised members of the middle and upper social classes, as well as intellectuals and the military. It was an urban, liberal, and cosmopolitan party. | Its membership came primarily from rural and peasant communities, as well as from the popular “gauchaje” (a type of gauchos). It also included major regional leaders and some intellectuals. It was a traditionalist, conservative, and nationalist party. |
| They defended free trade in economic terms and proposed the creation of a central bank to issue its own currency. Furthermore, the central government should manage the entire national budget and then allocate the corresponding amount to each province. | Their stance on the economy varied, but broadly divided into two: the Argentine coast defended free trade and free navigation of inland rivers, while the inland provinces advocated economic protectionism. Both sides opposed Buenos Aires dominance over their local economies. |
| Its top leaders were Bernardino Rivadavia, Juan Lavalle, José María Paz, Gregorio Aráoz Lamadrid and Martín Rodríguez. | Its top leaders were José Artigas (founder of the Federal League), Juan Manuel de Rosas and Justo José de Urquiza. |
| The party was dissolved in 1862 and its successors were the Nationalist Party and the Autonomist Party. | The party was dissolved in 1876, years after the failure of the Argentine Confederation (1831-1861) that put its federal model into practice. |
| They lost the fight against the federalists militarily, but their economic, cultural, and social interests prevailed in the long run. | They won the civil war and formed a federal system, but unitary interests eventually imposed a highly centralized country in the city of Buenos Aires. |
