UN General Assembly
1959

122. Among the things that entitle us to be represented in this Assembly I have mentioned our love of freedom, our respect for law and our sense of international coexistence. Those values are the very fabric of our existence; they are the goals we are constantly pursuing. They are the product of our earliest history, of the legal memories, the municipal, legal and practical freedoms we inherited from Spain. From the earliest days of our country they were a clear and permanent feature and they found expression in the remarkable personality of our greatest national hero, Jose Artigas, who in the last century paved the way for the solidarity and coexistence of nations when he became the champion of self-government for all countries and fought to unite the peoples of the old viceroyship of the Rio de la Plata under federal rule. In that struggle he received the title of "Protector of Free Peoples" — an incomparable prize. In that single title we find the two cardinal features of our idea of international solidarity: union in freedom, and freedom within the united community.