“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

period; a “necessary prelude to the creation of those parties of ideas that are compatible with
peace and the ordinary development of free institutions.” 10
These fusionist efforts to forge a new national coalition based in Montevideo began
with the election of Juan Giró to the presidency in 1852. Berro served as his Interior
Minister. Giró, a blanco during the war, embarked on a campaign to incorporate important
elements of the colorado faction into his government. Giró nominated Venancio Flores, a
prominent colorado military officer in Montevideo, to the position of the capital’s jefe politico.
He further appointed César Díaz, another colorado officer, his Minister of War. Still, these
initial efforts to fold colorados and blancos into the new government largely failed to overcome
political conflicts. The government faced constant financial hardships and crushing debt
obligations to the neighboring Brazilians. Giró resorted to ever-increasing taxes on
Montevideo’s powerful merchant community to keep the government running. Eventually,
Giró’s government collapsed when colorados in Montevideo revolted against his policies.
With the failure of their initial efforts to tramp down factional divisions, the
fusionists in Montevideo sought to establish a new basis for the project through the creation
of a plural executive. The old leaders of the Guerra Grande, Fructuoso Rivera and Juan
Lavalleja, along with Flores, made up the new 1853 triumvirate. Although initially successful
in unifying elites in the capital, the uneasy balance ended when Rivera and Lavalleja died in
early 1854. Almost immediately, old factional divisions reemerged. In this instance, the
blanco party rose in opposition to Flores. Flores in turn requested aid from the Brazilian
government. Some 5,000 imperial troops occupied Montevideo for nearly year. Flores
eventually fled the country for Buenos Aires.
10 Bernardo P. Berro, Escritos Selectos (Montevideo: Bibilioteca Artigas, 1966), 178.
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