Generation of '80

The Generation of '80 (Generación del '80) was the governing elite in Argentina from 1880 to 1916. Members of the oligarchy of the provinces and the country's capital, they first joined the League of Governors (Liga de Gobernadores), and then the National Autonomist Party, a fusion formed from the two dominating parties of the prior period, the Autonomist Party of Adolfo Alsina and the National Party of Nicolás Avellaneda. These two parties, along with Bartolomé Mitre's Nationalist Party, were the three branches into which the Unitarian Party had divided. In 1880, General Julio Argentino Roca, leader of the Conquest of the Desert and framer of the Generation and its model of government, launched his candidacy for president. They filled the highest public political, economical, military and religious positions, staying in power through electoral fraud. In spite of the growing political opposition, led by the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and anarchist and socialist groups workers formed mainly by immigrant workers, the Generation of '80 managed to stay in power until the passing of the Sáenz Peña Law of secret, universal, and obligatory male suffrage, thus marking the transition into modern Argentine history. The Generation of '80 continued the work of the "Historical Presidencies" of Mitre, Sarmiento, and Avellaneda, and took advantage of the end of the political crises and economic turbulence that had dominated the presidency of Avellaneda. The end of this turmoil laid the foundation for a society characterized by optimism and the certainty of a generous future in the years to come. The politicians of the Generation of '80 held economically liberal and socially conservative positions, as well as believing in positivism, symbolizing their ideology with Auguste Comte's motto, "Order and Progress." The leaders of this generation believed blindly in "progress," identifying it as economic growth and modernization; "order" was considered a necessary condition for such progress, since it must be under conditions of peace that the people achieve progress.