“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

eject any and all constitutions produced by the forthcoming assembly. In doing so, the
instructions essentially reserved the Banda’s full sovereign authority. Reflecting its decidedly
anti-porteño (and centralist) bent, the document finally called for the new capital to be
established outside of Buenos Aires. In short, Artigas and his followers essentially
demanded complete autonomy within a new, loose federal system. They agreed to surrender
only those powers to a future national government that they did not wish to exercise. They
would do so when, and only when, they chose. 22
Underpinning this federalist vision was a powerful drive to preserve local autonomy
and privileges not only within the national government, but within the Banda Oriental as
well. 23 The instructions openly proclaimed that the “individual sovereignty of the pueblos”
was “the sole object of the Revolution.” 24 By framing sovereignty as residing in various
“pueblos,” the instructions argued that the collapse of imperial authority had reverted power
directly to local corporate bodies. This was generally understood to mean the local cabildo,
though Artigas’ more egalitarian conception of “pueblos” also included small, more informal
settlements established by his followers throughout the countryside. Under the prevailing
constitutional theories within the Spanish empire, cabildos properly exercised their sovereign
authority as the natural representatives of the will of the people. These bodies had formed
pacts with the sovereign to create the empire. Because they had contracted directly with the
King, his removal reverted all sovereign powers back to each local body. In launching its
May revolution, the Buenos Aires cabildo had based its own power precisely on this
22 Chiaramonte, Ciudades, Provincias, Estados: Orígenes de la Nación Argentina, 1800-1846,
380-82, Sujay Rao, "Arbiters of Change: Provincial Elitea and the Origins of Federalism in
Argentina's Littoral, 1814-1820," The Americas 64, no. 4 (2008): 514.
23 Ana Frega, "La virtud y el poder. La soberanía particular de los pueblos en el
proyecto artiguista," in Salvatore, ed. Caudillismos Rioplatenses, 128.
24 Frega, Pueblos y Soberanía, 214.
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