“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

protect “the development of those good elements [read – the ‘enlightened vecinos’]” in the
town. 53
Embedded within the article’s language was an implicit compromise. On the one
hand, the article referenced the language of borderlands legalities. It highlighted the
patriotism of vecinos, regardless of nationality. In this way, it echoed traditional, peripheral
definitions of citizenship. These definitions were premised more upon local standing than
national boundaries. At the same time, however, the article now linked these peripheral
notions of status with explicit support for the national government and its laws in the service
of maintaining the proper social order in rural society. In short, the article envisioned an
arrangement in which local elites maintained their place in the social hierarchy. This
included an emphasis on localized connections above strict national identities. Peripheral
elites would offer their loyalty to the national government in exchange for the protection of
these relationships. It envisioned the same types of compromises between local autonomy
and national authority that had underpinned Urquiza’s failed political project across the
Uruguay.
The missing element was an assertive central state. The Uruguayan army would fill
the void civilian authorities in Montevideo had failed to do. Much like the internal conflicts
in Argentina during the course of the Paraguayan War, the Revolución de las lanzas brought the
Uruguayan national army to the center of political life. The conflicts in the early 1870s in
particular transformed the Uruguayan military from largely a factional entity tied to particular
commanders like Flores into a professionalized force associated for the first time with the
Uruguayan nation. Career officers like Lorenzo Latorre also benefitted from the army’s new
role. Born only in 1844, Latorre represented a new generation of officers that had come of
53 Ibid.
323