“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

government action to protect the town. The paper then printed new assaults on Thevenet,
declaring him to be a “thief.” The article further noted that while Thevenet had brought
“outrageous” [tremendo] charges “in the theater, the allegations against him by the entire
population that detests him and only looks upon him with distain were even more
outrageous.” The article further noted that Latorre’s government had, “in view of Sotto’s
report” fully vindicated the JEA’s honor, “a word one cannot direct in the same way towards
[Thevenet].” 58
Confronted again with a direct challenge to his honor, Thevenet brought charges
against the paper and the JEA for libel. Berro, however, blocked the action and rejected
Thevenet’s claims. 59 In effect, Berro proclaimed the matter of Thevenet’s reputation settled
in the town. Further trials to protect his honor were no longer necessary. The verdict in
essence reconfirmed the outcome of the local struggle over control of the JEA. The
national government’s designated representative publicly declared the relative status of the
competing groups in the town. In doing so, the verdict also reaffirmed the relationship
between the increasingly dominant faction of local colorados in Salto and Latorre’s national
government. Specifically, Berro’s verdicts preserved the rights of elites in the periphery to
determine questions of personal reputation and with it the distribution of private law rights
locally. In effect, the judge ratified the local outcome. Berro offered the national
government’s support, including its ability to eliminate local dissent through the military, in
exchange for recognition of its sovereign authority. In this way, the courts played an
important role in blending locality and loyalty together to forge the compromises at the heart
of emerging states in the borderlands.
58 D. Emilio E. Thevenet c. D. Eulogio Arisaga por injurias, AGN-SJ. Salto. Letrados Civiles,
n. 318 (1879).
59 Ibid.
354