“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

to comply with the law: this is not and cannot be a question of faction [partido], it is, yes, a
question of the dignity, the honor, the liberty, and the guarantees of the citizens and inhabitants of this
Republic.” 91 Parejas and his allies argued that it was Tristani and the blancos that were working
to sow divisions in the city and subvert the laws. They wrote: “there are not circles here
Tristany, here there are free men that as citizens have the right and the obligation to raise
their voices when the authorities of their country violate the laws and fail in their
obligations.” They colorfully called upon the readers to cast their own judgment over which
party in Salto abused its power: “ask yourselves to which party does Tristany belong? In
this way, we will find out if those who have sacrificed justice are blancos, colorados, blacks,
yellows, or the greens.” 92
What emerges from the series of articles is how tightly personal reputation and
factional allegiances intertwined in Salto’s juicios de imprenta. As Tristani and Parejas
challenged each other’s honor in their personal dispute, they drew upon their factional
connections to support their legal maneuverings around Salto’s courts, theater and in the
streets. At the same time, the theatrical nature of the juicio de imprenta cases made them
important scenes for factions to express their power to protect personal reputations publicly.
The trial served as a stage for the blancos and colorados in the town. It offered each side a
public opportunity to manifest their respective political power to the town’s vecinos.
Successfully impugning a rival’s reputation reduced his power to serve as an “honorable
vecino” witness for his allies. This in turn lessened his faction’s broader power to provide
justice for its members, both locally and throughout the borderlands. As we saw in the
91 Ibid., 3 (emphasis in the original).
92 Ibid. (emphasis in the original).
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