 Alberdi’s thinking was importantly influenced by the German historical school of law (Friedrich Karl von Savigny and his French follower Eugène Lerminier) that repudiated both natural law and the widely held idea that a society could be transformed on the basis of legislation that did not reflect its own state of civilization (Alberdi 1837). His distinction between a “possible” and a “true” republic is based on the idea that political organization must not be oriented by high and utopian ideals, but must be grounded in historical reality. On his view, law has to be adequate to the society that receives it. Since he also held that an examination of the situation of the South American republicans shows that they are not civilized enough to govern themselves through democratic institutions, he maintained that a possible republic should not grant equal political rights to all citizens. He favored a sort of government that was republican in form, but highly authoritarian in practice. This, he thought, was apt in light of what he considered the historical reality of Hispanic America. He famously referred approvingly to Bolívar’s dictum that “The new states of formerly Spanish America need kings with the name of president” (Alberdi 1852: 415). In the end, he favored a combination of federalism with political centralism: a certain degree of autonomy to the provinces combined with a strong executive, since, on his view, both federalism and centralism had important historical roots in South America.