“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

not yet know where they are going to come from.” 185 Urquiza still possessed a large fortune
and he used it to finance his military operations personally. But without revenues, the
Confederation itself failed to emerge as a true state structure. The survival of the interior
union hinged exclusively on Urquiza.
Despite his government’s penury, Urquiza still commanded substantial military
resources and the overwhelming allegiance of provincial leaders. Unable to defeat Urquiza
in a direct confrontation, Mitre used his superior financial resources to court allies
throughout the Río de la Plata in an effort to erode the Confederation from within. 186 The
frequent local clashes between factional rivals in the borderlands provided a vehicle for
Mitre to begin to forge a coalition to challenge Urquiza’s confederation. Mitre’s strategy also
revealed an important aspect of his new national framework. Specifically, while Mitre
worked to consolidate Buenos Aires’ hold on the Argentine provinces, he also sought to
build his personal authority at least in part by using aspects of borderlands legalities. The
result would be a state in which porteño-centered sovereign models were dominant, but
alternative legalities would likely continue to play an important role in defining political
relationships on its periphery. Like Urquiza, Mitre could utilize the substantial powers
granted to the executive under the 1853 Constitution to arbitrate the relationship between
national power and local legal and political associations.
Corrientes provides a good example of the process Mitre employed to bring his
sovereign visions to reality. The province had long been a bastion of opposition to porteño
control over the Río de la Plata’s rivers. The merchant community in the city of Corrientes
had led much of the provincial opposition to Rosas. Under Juan Pujol, correntino merchants
185 Scobie, La Lucha por la Consolidación, 155.
186 Ibid., 154-86.
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