Life
Arosemena was born in Panama City, the son of Dolores de Quesada and Mariano Arosemena, a national hero during the independence of Panama from Spain in 1821. He attended elementary school in Panama, and when he was 16 years old, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the College of San Bartolomé in Bogota. Later, he graduated in law at the Universidad Central de Bogota. Between 1837 and 1839 he received his doctorate in law at the Universidad de Magdalena. He also conducted studies in the field of sociology.
He was elected deputy to the Provincial House of Panama (1850–1851), and subsequently as a representative to the National Congress of Colombia (1852–1853). As a statesman, he strongly supported both a respect for human rights and a greater autonomy for the Isthmus of Panama in Colombia. For this reason, the federal state of Panama was created, and he was elected as its first president in 1855. He resigned his position a few months later.
By 1863 he was president of the National Convention of Rio Negro, in which Colombia became a confederation of sovereign states, among them Panama. Since 1865, he was involved in diplomacy, was representative of Panama in Washington D.C. for several years, Ambassador of Panama in Chile, Colombia Minister Resident in the United Kingdom, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in the United Kingdom and France (1872), and intermediary in settling the border between Colombia and Venezuela (1880). In 1868 he was responsible for negotiating the conditions in which Colombia allowed the United States the excavation of a canal in the Isthmus of Panama. He was also a lawyer consultant to the Panama Railroad Company (1888).
In 1878, with the help of the educator José Manuel Hurtado and politician Buenaventura Correoso, he prompted the founding of the first public library in Panama, for which he donated more than 60 volumes related to history and law. In 1886, with the promulgation of the Constitution of Panama, he withdrew himself from public life and he is dedicated to the legal profession until his death in the city of Colon, at the age of 78.
His legacy as a jurist was recognized posthumously when the headquarters of the National Assembly of Panama was named after him.
Read more about this topic: Justo Arosemena
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