Primera Junta
Mariano Moreno had several contacts with groups seeking the removal of Cisneros, but was not strongly involved with the May Revolution, which considered the fall of the Junta of Seville a reason to depose the viceroy and create a local junta. At the time, Moreno was still loyal to Álzaga. He attended the May 22 open Cabildo, but according to the father of Vicente Fidel López and the father-in-law of Bartolomé Mitre (both direct witness) he stayed silent at one side and did not join the debate. He voted for Saavedra's proposal: to remove viceroy Cisneros and replace him with a Junta. Manuel Hermenegildo Aguirre, captain of hussars, proposed that the Cabildo take the reins of government, with five men appointed as counselors, Moreno among them. However, nobody else voted for that proposal, and it was the only one that included him. Moreno felt betrayed when the Cabildo twisted the results of the open Cabildo and created a Junta that would be headed by Cisneros. He refused any further contacts with the revolutionaries and stayed home during the remaining events. The definitive members of the Junta came from a popular petition signed on May 25, which was given to the Cabildo. The reasons of Moreno's inclusion in the list are unclear, as with all other members of the Junta. A commonly accepted theory considers it to be a balance between Carlotists and Alzaguists.
The Junta faced strong opposition from the beginning: it was resisted locally by the Cabildo and the Royal Audiencia, still loyal to the absolutist factions; the nearby plazas of Montevideo and Paraguay did not recognize it; and Santiago de Liniers organized a counter-revolution at Córdoba. Mariano Moreno, an unimportant politician up to that point, became the leader of the most radical supporters of the Junta. He was supported by the popular leaders Domingo French and Antonio Beruti, Dupuy, Donado, Orma, and Cardozo; and priests like Grela and Aparicio. Historian Carlos Ibarguren described that Morenist youths roamed the streets preaching new ideas to each pedestrian they found, turned the "Marcos" coffee shop into a political hall, and proposed that all social classes should be illustrated. Manuel Belgrano and Juan José Castelli supported Moreno within the Junta, and French was promoted to Colonel of the regiment "América". This regiment, also known as "The Star" because of a star that they wore on their sleeves, was composed of radical youths led by French during the riots of the May Revolution.
Moreno established the official newspaper Gazeta de Buenos Ayres through a June 2 decree, and managed its contents. The first newspapers were available to the public five days later. He issued a freedom of the press decree, which allowed the press to publish anything that did not offend public morals or attack the Revolution or the government. Moreno published some works of Gaspar de Jovellanos, and his translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract. In this later work he skipped the chapter about religion, suggesting that the author "has raved in religious matters". This was done to prevent religious disputes among patriots. This publication was criticized by conservatives such as Tomás de Anchorena, who said that it could generate popular unrest. As with the Junta itself, Moreno's writings maintained loyalty to Ferdinand VII. It is unclear to historians whether he was concealing independentist ambitions, or was truly loyal to the deposed king. However, he made specific references to independentism as early as November, 1810. In reference to the Courts of Cádiz that would write a Constitution, he said that the Congress "may establish an absolute disposal of our beloved Ferdinand", meaning that the right of self-determination would allow even that. He did not think the monarchical authority to be absolute, but subject to popular sovereignty, so that a monarch may lose his authority if he worked against the common good of the people. He also considered that if Ferdinand VII returned to the throne, he would not be able to challenge a Constitution written in his absence. However, he wrote that as a hypothetical scenario, to describe the strength of a Constitution, not as a likely possibility.
Moreno issued several decrees during his first days in government. He ordered punishment for anyone attempting to generate disputes, and for those concealing conspiracies against the Junta or other people. The military bodies of "Pardos" and "Morenos", composed of indigenous peoples, were reformed to have military ranks similar to those of the Spanish military bodies. He did this invoking the rulings of the Catholic Monarchs during the early Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Read more about this topic: Mariano Moreno