Julio Zegers
Julio Zegers Samaniego (17 November 1830 – 30 June 1918) was a Chilean lawyer and politician who served as Minister of Finance under President Aníbal Pinto and as a member of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile from 1876 to 1894. He was president of the Chamber of Deputies in 1892.
Education
Zegers was born in Santiago on 17 November 1830, the son of Juan Francisco Zegers Duras and Matilde Samaniego de Acedo Rico. He married Micaela García Huidobro Márquez de la Plata in 1859, with whom he had one son. In 1884, he married María Ventura Campbell, with whom he had three children.
He studied at the Instituto Nacional and later at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile, qualifying as a lawyer on 2 January 1860. Before graduating, he was appointed director of the National Printing Office in 1856 and was entrusted with supervising the printing of the Chilean Civil Code.
In 1857, Zegers travelled to Europe and was appointed an attaché to the Chilean legation in Paris. After returning to Chile in 1858, he became vice-rector of the Instituto Nacional. In 1864, he accompanied Manuel Montt as an official on a diplomatic mission concerning Chile's disputes with Spain, which culminated in the Inter-American Congress held in Lima in 1865. After briefly returning to Europe, he established himself as a practicing lawyer in Chile.
Political career
Zegers belonged to the National Party from 1864 until 1875. Following disagreements with the party, he left it in 1876 and joined the Liberal Party. In 1874, President Federico Errázuriz Zañartu appointed him to participate in the commission reviewing the proposed Code of Civil Procedure.
He entered the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 as representative for the newly created department of San Javier de Loncomilla. Reelected for Loncomilla for the 1879–1882 term, he served on the Permanent Commission on Finance and Industry. He subsequently represented Rere from 1882 to 1885 and was a member of the Conservative Commission during the 1884–1885 congressional recess.
Zegers represented Linares for two consecutive terms between 1885 and 1891, serving on the Permanent Commission on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. In 1891, he was elected deputy for Santiago for the 1891–1894 term. He served as president of the Chamber of Deputies from 2 July to 6 December 1892 and sat on the permanent commissions on Elections and Petitions and on Finance and Industry.
Under President Aníbal Pinto, Zegers served as Minister of Finance from 5 August 1878 to 17 April 1879. During his tenure, he signed Chile's declaration of war against Peru and Bolivia at the beginning of the War of the Pacific. He also promoted legislation establishing an inheritance tax, which was enacted on 23 November 1878, and subsequently issued regulations for its implementation.
In 1899, Zegers represented Chile on the commission in Buenos Aires that settled the Puna de Atacama dispute. He also worked as lawyer and representative of the English Nitrate Company of Tarapacá, owned by John Thomas North, while simultaneously serving as a councillor of state. He later resigned from the council.
In his later years, Zegers devoted considerable attention to writing. Beginning in 1906, he published biographies of presidential candidates in El Diario Ilustrado, followed by a series of articles on economic matters in 1907. He also wrote on social and family subjects and authored a study concerning the conflict between civil and religious marriage, which was later published by one of his grandsons.
Zegers died in Santiago on 30 June 1918, aged 88.