“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

CHAPTER 8
NEGOTIATING NATIONS
ALTHOUGH THE MILITARY CONFLICTS OF THE LATE 1860S AND EARLY 1870S
revealed the power of the state to coerce peripheral elites to work within the framework of
national systems, they equally encouraged them to do so by guaranteeing their own
preeminence in local settings. In Uruguay, where the central state still possessed significantly
less power than in Argentina or even Brazil, persistent concerns about maintaining order
pushed local elites to embrace a more assertive national government. In a similar vein, the
perceived threat of widespread social uprisings connected in particular with the Paraguayan
campaign ensured that local elites in Rio Grande do Sul would continue to work within
national frameworks that guaranteed their social standing. This combination of pressure and
persuasion gradually fostered the legitimacy of would-be state structures. The question
became less whether there would be national authorities on the periphery and more about
on what terms they would govern.
To varying degrees, therefore, compromises like the one Urquiza had envisioned
were being enacted throughout the Río de la Plata borderlands by the 1870s. In negotiating
the terms of these relationships, borderlands courts played a decisive role. The ability of
courts to serve simultaneously as sites of integration and disintegration made them vital
arenas in the process of negotiating nations. On the one hand, courts provided a mechanism
for states to declare their authority over their peripheries. Legal reforms such as the
professionalization of the judiciary, the creation of federal courts and the proliferation of
legal codes all played a prominent role in centralizing authority. At the same time, the courts
provided a mechanism for borderlands legalities to survive within national structures.
Courts continued to represent important arenas where local political factions could publicly
331