Toro, Fermín (1806–1865)

Fermín Toro (b. 14 June 1806; d. 23 December 1865), Venezuelan intellectual, politician, and diplomat. Toro entered public life as a functionary in the ministry of finance in 1828. In 1831 he was a representative in Congress. He was appointed by the regime of José Antonio Páez to preside over the commission charged with bestowing funerary honors on Simón Bolívar's remains when they were repatriated to Caracas. He provided an important synthesis of his economic ideas in his Reflexiones sobre la ley del 10 de abril de 1834 (1845). He was the secretary of Alejo Fortique, Venezuela's minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain (1839–1846), in London (1839–1841) as well as minister plenipotentiary in New Granada and then in Spain, France, and England in 1846–1847.

During the first years of the José Tadeo Monagas regime, Toro was minister of finance. But as a representative in Congress, he confronted Monagas after the January 1848 assault on Congress. When Monagas was overthrown in 1858, Toro again became politically active, assuming the posts of minister of finance and minister of foreign affairs under President Julián Castro. He was a member of the Valencia Convention in 1858 before retiring from public life and devoting himself to his research in botany, anthropology, and linguistics.

See alsoMonagas, José Tadeo; Páez, José Antonio.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

See Augusto Mijares, Libertad y justicia social en el pensamiento do Don Fermín Toro (1947); Virgilio Tosta, Fermín Toro; Político y sociólogo de la armonía (1958); José Antonio De Armas Chitty, Fermín Toro y su época (1966). A selection of Toro's most important writings are in Fermín Toro: La doctrina conservadora.

Additional Bibliography

Arratia, Alejandro. Etica y democracia en Fermín Toro. Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1993.

Carrillo Batalla, Tomás Enrique. Historia del pensamiento económico de Fermín Toro. Caracas: Fuentes para la Historia Republicana de Venezuela, 1998.

Edición homenaje a la memoria de Fermín Toro: Símbolo y ejemplo del diputado de Venezuela. Caracas: Congreso de la República, Ediciones de la Cámara de Diputados, 1996.

                                        InÉs Quintero