Ruy Barbosa (1849-1923) was a Brazilian lawyer, journalist, and politician. He was probably the most intellectually gifted Latin American political figure of his time.

Ruy Barbosa was born on Nov. 5, 1849, in São Salvador, Bahia, into a long-established family of Portuguese descent. From 1866 to 1870 he studied in the law schools of Recife and São Paulo, where he enthusiastically joined the abolitionist movement. His liberal ideas were equally well articulated in his own abolitionist paper, O Radical Paulistano, and in his stirring speeches before organizations and student groups in São Paulo. Returning to Bahia after graduation, he joined the Liberal party and became the editor of the Diário da Bahia to continue his antislavery campaign.

Barbosa's first major publication appeared in 1877 with his translation of The Pope and the Council, a German work published about a decade earlier which attacked the doctrine...