“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

to gain power at the expense of public order, the electoral process and judicial impartiality.
The petitioners requested the provincial government intervene to secure “the liberty of the
vote” by dismissing Vital and Canabarro from their posts until at least after the election. 69
Teixeira and his allies had other reasons to focus their efforts on Vital. In particular,
the judge represented Canabarro’s preferred candidate to stand for his new Liberal Party in
the local elections. Canabarro seemed concerned about the campaign against his judicial ally.
In a letter to yet another municipal judge in São Borja, Timoteo Pereira da Rosa, Canabarro
discussed whether they would have to substitute Vital for another candidate due to the
charges pending against him. Canabarro seemed confident, however, that “this would not
happen because the voters in Alegrete want [Vital] anyway.” 70 The letter suggested
Canabarro’s belief that the Liberal Party possessed sufficient electoral strength to overcome
Teixeira’s political and juridical attacks on their local members.
Teixeira’s appeals to the provincial government, however, worked. Three weeks
after receiving the letter, Ferraz dismissed Canabarro from his National Guard command. 71
O Brado do Sul, celebrating the decision, noted: “[A]s supporters of the Ribeiros, we all must
be ecstatic to see their enemy deprived of one of his most powerful sources for illegal
influence [açcões] over the will of the frontier inhabitants.” 72 Teixeira and his allies further
forced Vital to step down from his judicial post. For the moment, the Ribeiros were in
control.
Yet although initially successful, Teixeira’s strategy of appealing to the provincial
president and using the courts to blunt Canabarro in the borderlands ultimately eroded his
69 Ibid.
70 CV-3427 (November 6, 1861).
71 Brado do Sul, No. 150 (September 15, 1860).
72 Ibid.
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