Ruy Barbosa

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Ruy Barbosa de Oliveira was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, on 5th November 1849, and died in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 1st March 1923. A famous writer, jurist, and politician, he was a federal representative, senator, minister of finances and taxation, and diplomat. For his distinguished participation in the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), "peace conference" of the Hague (1907), he earned the nickname "Eagle of the Hague". He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of Brazil in 1910 and again in 1919.

Ruy Barbosa gave his first public speech for the abolition of slavery when he was 19. For the rest of his life he remained an uncompromising defender of civil liberties. His liberal ideas were influential in drafting the first republican constitution (1891). He was a supporter of fiat money, as opposed to a gold standard in Brazil. During his term as minister of finances, he implemented far-reaching reforms of Brazil's financial regime, instituting a vigorously expansionist monetary policy. The result was chaos and instability: the so-called fiat experiment was a dismal failure. An orthodox backlash followed under the Murtinho program later in the decade.