“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

the region’s departmental commanders was provincial attempts to assert greater control over
the recruitment of militias. Several departmental heads loudly protested the provincial
government’s efforts to bypass them in recruiting correntino forces. A local leader from
Curuzú-Cuatiá informed the government that it “would lose its prestige” in the department
if it continued the recruitment of “vecinos” there. 189 Mitre could use these types of highly
localized conflicts to pry upon the interior and forge a basis for porteño hegemony.
Mitre’s efforts ensured that numerous local factional clashes were simmering
throughout the Confederation. The combined weight of these interventions threatened to
destabilize Urquiza’s government. By the late 1850s, the Confederation and Buenos Aires
were engaged in nearly constant proxy wars along numerous local fault lines throughout the
interior. As they jostled for local allies and waged an ongoing financial war against each
other, Buenos Aires and the Confederation slowly moved towards open war. Events
reached a breaking point in 1859. Increasingly starved for revenue and struggling to hold the
Confederation together, Urquiza finally sought to compel Buenos Aires to rejoin the interior
provinces through force. Urquiza swept into Buenos Aires province in October of 1859 and
defeated Mitre at the Battle of Cepeda. Following the defeat, Buenos Aires reluctantly
agreed to reenter the Confederation. To smooth the transition, Buenos Aires received
several important concessions. Buenos Aires city would not be federalized. Further, with
the notable exception of customs revenues, all provincial resources would remain within the
province. 190
Although he had successfully brought Buenos Aires back into the fold, political
conflicts now erupted within the Confederation itself over the role of the former breakaway
189 Ibid., 119-20.
190 Adelman, Republic of Capital, 216.
236