A Tale of Tailings: The Origins of the Argentine Vice Presidency

that, and within that territory lie the keys to understand the current performance of this office. But that history has never been investigated thus far. This article aims to fill that gap in the literature for the Argentine case, enriching the scrawny reference to imitation with a fourfold argument based on the following elements: the growing trend towards receiving foreign influences through the period 1810–1853; the growing influence of the United States, which will be evident in the 1853 text and even more so in its reform of 1860; the little importance given to the presidential succession (both in Argentina and in the United States); the haste with which the Constitution of 1853 was written.