José Segundo Decoud

José Segundo Decoud Domecq (14 May 1848 – 3 March 1909) was a Paraguayan politician, journalist, diplomat and military officer. He is often considered one of the foremost intellectuals of his generation, and was also one of the first liberals of the country. Decoud was one of the founders of the long-standing Colorado Party, having been its first vice-president and written its founding instrument.

During the Paraguayan War, Decoud was a member of the Paraguayan Legion fighting against the Paraguayan government. After leaving the regiment, he wrote an anti-Triple Alliance newspaper criticizing their territorial claims on Paraguay; and once the war was nearly over, he returned to Asunción, and helped found ''La Regeneración'', Paraguay's first wholly private newspaper.

He balanced his director duties with his roles as a member of the constitutional assembly which drafted the 1870 Constitution and secretary to Cirilo Rivarola, triumvir and future president. Between the 1870s and 1900s, he would continue to be an important contributor to the country's newspapers, and maintain a leading role in most of Paraguay's presidential cabinets, despite being labeled a traitor by his political adversaries and some of the written media.

Biography

Early life

Segundo Decoud was born in Asunción on 14 May 1848 to Juan Francisco Decoud and Maria Luisa Concepción Domecq during Carlos Antonio López's rule. The Decouds gradually became opposed to the López regime, and in the early 1850s, the execution of Decoud's uncles Teodoro and Gregorio for treason forced his family into exile.

Together with his brother Juan José, he studied at the Colegio del Uruguay in Entre Ríos, Argentina and later joined the law school at the University of Buenos Aires. With the outbreak of the Paraguayan War, however, he abandoned his studies and enlisted into the Paraguayan Legion, a military unit formed out of oppositionists of Francisco Solano López in Buenos Aires in 1865, though he left the unit before the war ended due to disagreement with the Allies' war goals which had come to public light in May 1866. It was while he was in the Legion that he aided in convincing Antonio Estigarribia to surrender his force (which included a good part of the pre-war Paraguayan Army) during the Siege of Uruguaiana.

As the war went on, he and his brother started to publish a newspaper called ''El Nacionalista'' in Corrientes, in which they harshly denounced the Treaty of the Triple Alliance, which would lead to Paraguay losing territory. This, in turn, soured the Decouds' relations with the Brazilian authorities.

Political life

Months before the war was over, and with the chief Brazilian diplomat Silva Paranhos' approval, the new Paraguayan politics began to form. On 26 June 1869, the ''Club del Pueblo'' was created with Decoud as a secretary. The club was a liberal political organization that mostly congregated former members of the Paraguayan Legion and other dissenters to the López regime. Already considered influential for his work in civic, social, and political activities of postwar, Decoud was named one of the members of the constitutional assembly that created the 1870 Constitution, and in 1871 was made minister of Foreign Affairs for Cirilo Rivarola's government, having previously been Rivarola's secretary while the latter served as triumvir. His father Juan Francisco had been considered for the role of triumvir, but the Brazilian authorities distrusted the Decoud family and named Rivarola in his stead.

Afterwards, as Paraguayan politics took a violent turn, Decoud temporarily withdrew from government duties to focus on his career as a journalist, and returned only in 1878 as minister for the Candido Bareiro government. The 1880s were the years in which he was most active and had the greatest impact upon Paraguayan politics. One of his most important feats was achieved in 1885, when he went to London as an extraordinary envoy and managed to renegotiate Paraguay's debt from a little short of 3 million pounds sterling to 850 thousand, though the country had to cede 8,700 km² of land to the bondholders in exchange. As a diplomat, he also represented Paraguay as ambassador to the Empire of Brazil and to the Uruguayan government. Besides this, he was the co-founder of the Colorado Party in 1887, alongside ex-president Bernardino Caballero and others, contributing a number of years as a leading ideologue. The foundation of the country's first university, the Universidad Nacional de Asunción, was in good part motivated by him as well. In addition, he was a mason.

Some controversies marked his career. He was one of the foremost advocates for the process of land sales by the government conducted from 1883 onwards, which served to rapidly privatize land ownership and had a somewhat short-lived impact on the country's finances. He also was accused of having plotted with Argentine authorities in the 1870s to allow for Paraguay's annexation to the former country; his involvement with the Paraguayan Legion during the 1860s saw him frequently being called a traitor by his political adversaries in his later life. In the 1890s, he would still occupy many cabinet positions and was even considered for the presidency, but political intrigues kept him from power.

Journalistic career

José Segundo Decoud began his career in the Paraguayan press soon after his return to the country in 1869. Together with his brother Héctor Decoud, he worked as an editor and writer for the newspaper ''La Regeneración'' in that same year; the paper lasted until September 1870. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, he contributed to other newspapers such as ''La Reforma'' and ''La Opinión Pública''. His more impactful texts were frequently republished in Argentine newspapers. Decoud also translated Joseph Alden's ''The Science of Government in Connection with American Institutions'' to Spanish, and wrote books and articles, with ''Recuerdos históricos'', ''La amistad,'' ''Cuestiones Políticas y Económicas'' and ''El patriotismo'' being amongst the most important according to , his biographer, who also claimed that Decoud had been preparing for some years to write a book that would discuss Paraguayan history from the colonial era to his time before his death.

In 2014, the historian and diplomat Ricardo Scavone Yegros prepared a compilation and a critical study of Decoud's works, publishing it under one binding.

Death

Disillusioned with the direction of post-war Paraguayan politics, Decoud committed suicide in 1909, leaving a letter to his wife in which he stated:

His suicide letter can be read in Francisco Doratioto's ''Relações Brasil-Paraguai: afastamento, tensões e reaproximação (1889-1954)''.

Selected bibliography

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Notes

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Decoud, José Segundo
1848 births
1909 deaths
Politicians from Asunción
Presidents of the Supreme Court of Paraguay
Ministers of finance of Paraguay
Ministers of foreign affairs of Paraguay
People of the Paraguayan War
Colorado Party (Paraguay) politicians
Presidents of the Senate of Paraguay
Ambassadors of Paraguay to Brazil
19th-century politicians
20th-century Paraguayan politicians
University of Buenos Aires alumni
Paraguayan male journalists
Paraguayan Freemasons
1909 suicides