Toribio Esquivel Obregón

Toribio Esquivel Obregón (5 September 1864 – 24 May 1946) was a Mexican lawyer, politician, journalist, writer, historian and academic. He specialised in legal and political institutional history, and his work reflects a Hispanist and traditionalist vision.

Biography

Toribio Esquivel Obregón was born in León, Guanajuato, the son of Toribio Esquivel and Rafaela Obregón. He did his first studies in his hometown, being a founding student of the Escuela de Instrucción Secundaria (School of Secondary Education). In 1885 he travelled to Mexico City where he entered the National School of Jurisprudence, obtaining his law degree in 1888. He returned to León to practice his profession, at the same time he taught Greek language and philosophy at the Escuela de Instrucción Secundaria.

He entered the public administration in the city council of his city, as a journalist he criticised the Porfiriate regime and was a militant of the National Anti-Reelectionist Party. He moved to Mexico City, once Francisco I. Madero assumed the presidency of the Republic, and criticised the agrarian policy. In 1913, after the events of the Decena Trágica, he assumed the Treasury portfolio from 20 February to 26 September, under the regime of Victoriano Huerta. He did not agree with Huerta's vision and tried to resign from his post on several occasions, but he was singled out as a member of the cabinet of the coup regime. He tried to convince former presidents Porfirio Díaz, Francisco León de la Barra and Pedro Lascuráin to collaborate with the Huerta regime, but the former was in exile in France and the latter had left politics, so it was only León de la Barra who joined the right.

He lived in exile in New York from the end of 1913 to 1924. He taught law classes at Columbia University from 1915 to 1920 and at New York University from 1915 to 1923. Returning to Mexico, he dedicated himself to the study of New Spain institutions. He practiced his profession again and taught classes at the Free School of Law and the Faculty of Jurisprudence in which he taught classes in Political Science, History of Mexican Law, International Law and History of International Law.

He was a member of the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics. In 1939 he participated in the founding of the National Action Party (PAN). That same year he was named a full member of the Mexican Academy of History, occupying chair No. 16. He died in Mexico City on May 24, 1946.

Shortly before his death, he was awarded the Manuel Orozco y Berra prize, which awards historians of legal science. His research documents and bibliography are found in the General Archive of the Nation in a fund that bears his name.

Shortly before his death, he was awarded the Manuel Orozco y Berra Prize, which honours historians of legal science.

Works

• Datos psicológicos para la historia de México (1906)
• El problema agrario en México (1912)
• Influencia de España y los Estados Unidos sobre México (1918)
• Ensayos sobre la reconstrucción de México (1920)
• La constitución de Nueva España y la primera constitución de México independiente (1925)
• México y los Estados Unidos ante el derecho internacional (1926)
• La raza española como elemento componente del pueblo mexicano (1926)
• Mi labor al servicio de México (1934)
• Hernán Cortés y el derecho internacional en el siglo XVI (1939)
• Biografía de don Francisco Javier Gamboa: ideario político y jurídico de Nueva España en el siglo XVIII (1941)
• Apuntes para la historia del derecho en México (1943–1948; 4 volumes)

External links

• Works by Toribio Esquivel Obregón at Open Library