This paper addresses the issue of political violence after the independence process in the thoughts of the Mexicans Lucas Alaman and Jose Maria Luis Mora, and the Argentines Juan Bautista Alberdi and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. During the first half of the 19th century, they reflected on the complex situation of their nations, immersed in instability and violence due to the conflicts and hatreds that arose between factions after independence. Based on their main works, the causes of such violence, its characteristics, and the consequences they saw for the order and progress of the new republics are analyzed. In general, from their different ideological perspectives, more liberal or more conservative, the four coincide in their concern for violence and in their ambivalence about the influence of the French Revolution on the Spanish-American nations.