“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

largely prospered by supplying the allied forces fighting in Paraguay. This temporarily eased
political pressures. 34 Yet, as the 1868 national elections approached, the political violence in
the interior began to spill over into Río de la Plata borderlands as well. Urquiza himself
made preparations to run for national office. He secured support from federalist allies
throughout the littoral provinces for his candidacy. In Corrientes, however, tensions over
Urquiza’s campaign exploded into open violence. Recall that Mitre and Urquiza had both
maneuvered to exploit the struggles between the provincial government and departmental
heads in the southern correntino borderlands. Mitre had backed a revolution by Nicanor
Cáceres and others against José María Rolón in 1861. Seven years later, the federalist
Evaristo López held the governorship largely with the continued backing of Cáceres and
other prominent correntino ranchers. Evaristo López also appeared likely to support Urquiza
in the coming elections. Seeking to check the power of the federalists in the province and
secure support for their own electoral slate, the opposition liberals overthrew the governor.
Cáceres quickly organized his own forces and marched towards the correntino capital. The
liberals in the capital urgently requested that Mitre send national forces to support their still
tenuous position. Cáceres issued similar calls for aid from the federalists in Entre Ríos. In
effect, Cáceres now reached out to Urquiza in an effort to check the power of the national
government. The long-simmering conflict between the provincial federalists and the
national liberals that Urquiza had worked to contain now appeared to be finally boiling over.
It did so along the old fault lines between local borderlands leaders and their provincial and
national rivals. 35
34 Rock, State Building, 42.
35 Newton, Ricardo López Jordán, 84-85.
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