“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

the JEA over their roles within the town, they actively looked to the national government to
ratify their position as the dominant faction. This give and take between national and local
elites embodied the compromises between borderlands legalities and state-centered legal
norms that began to define Salto’s legal politics by the end of the 1870s.
Malta’s case against Thevenet is particularly instructive on this point. While awaiting
Arteagada’s decision, both factions arranged for articles detailing the political circumstances
surrounding the trial to appear in the Montevideo press. Thevenet penned an article in
Montevideo’s La Tribuna criticizing the proceedings. Malta drafted a lengthy reply claiming
to correct “the complete ignorance in the capital as to what is occurring in nothing less than
the Republic’s second city.” 33 The article particularly aimed to make clear Thevenet’s low
status in the town. Malta noted: “instead of being esteemed [apreciado] in Salto, he is
generally despised.” 34 His poor reputation threatened “disorder” that neither local officials
nor the national government could tolerate. Malta then concluded with a profession of
loyalty. He wrote: “La Tribuna knows that we have been and are ardent defenders of the
honorable Government that reigns over our land, and for this reason, we do not wish it to
remain unaware of absolutely anything that takes place here that might affect its moral.” 35 In
a second article the following day, Malta set forth why Latorre’s government should support
his side in direct terms: “Colonel Latorre, the honorable Governor of the Republic, would
not ignore the reasoned voice of the pueblo when the pueblo says to him that such an
employee, having this or that stain, is not dignified to occupy the position in which he
33 Ibid. The case includes a reprint of the article appearing in the Montevideo paper La
Tribuna from El Salteño, Año I, n. 186 (December 14, 1876), 1.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
346