Organizing Sovereign Provinces in Independent America.
The Republic of Córdoba (1776-1827)
Geneviève Verdo
From 1820 to 1852, the Republic of Córdoba constituted what could be called an
“unidentified political object”. Endowed with its own form of sovereignty and institutional
system, it constituted neither a completely independent state nor a broader political entity, in
spite of its ambitions to become one. The existence of this type of political unit during three
decades challenges the idea whereby the transition “from empires to nations” is said to have
resulted from some sort of direct and spontaneous territorial and institutional shift. This
presentation seeks to demonstrate that on the contrary, the dismantling of the Atlantic empires
led to a plurality of experiences concerning the way in which sovereignty was conceived and
institutionalized, leading to forms of political organization that provided alternatives to the
nation-state model.
While the Bourbon Reforms considerably increased the city’s prestige and the role of the
corporative government by placing Córdoba at the head of a vast district (intendencia), the
revolutionary changes made an even greater impact in that it marked the advent of popular
sovereignty. Nonetheless, popular sovereignty fell under two very different types of
definitions, which were at once opposed and territorially defined. The sovereignty of the
pueblos, which had emerged from the dismantling of the monarchy’s corporative order, bore
the mark of natural law and the jurisdictional government. It considered the city a community
capable of governing itself and its jurisdiction to be the natural territory over which to
exercise its authority. Then there was the national and monist version of sovereignty defended
by the central government established in Buenos Aires and which was aimed at all of the
provinces without ever managing to impose itself. At the start of the process, the tension
between both definitions was reflected in the sometimes difficult relationship between the
intendant governor, who represented the central government, and the local government, which
was incarnated by the town body. The institutions gradually came to favor the pueblos’
sovereignty, while the war endowed the local government with regalian duties and forced it to
better supervise its territory.
In 1820, the defeat of the central government in Buenos Aires marked the advent of a new
political entity equipped with a Constitution and named the “Republic” (or province) of
Córdoba. Over the course of the decade, the assertion of a provincial sovereignty occurred
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under the effect of a dual process of homogenization. The first process included the
establishment of a new institutional configuration through the adoption of a Provisional
Regulation, the removal of the town body (cabildo) and the creation of a Chamber of
Representatives and other authorities directly controlled by the governor. The second process
concerned the transformation of the relationship between urban and rural areas, the latter
ceasing to be politically represented by the former. With the pueblos’ assertion of sovereignty,
the campaign gained true political presence, and the inhabitants’ political expression thus
ensured the cohesion of the province. On the other hand, the 1823 regulation had the purpose
of retrieving control of the jurisdiction’s territory, legitimating governmental action and
reestablishing a social order that had been misled by revolution and war. This process of
homogenization also unfolded on a discursive and symbolic level with the imposition—by
means of official discourse, parliamentary debates, and the press—of a provincial identity
meant to preserve the regime’s political stability. This latter was elaborated in relation to other
provinces, notably in opposition to the former capital.
Actually, the assertion of provincial sovereignty was considered from the beginning as
indissociable from its “external” side, that of the relationship with other entities and the
construction of a larger political whole. Yet the 1820s were marked by intense confrontation
between rival notions of sovereignty that opposed supporters of “federalism” and those of
“unitarianism,” each tendency identifying itself with a particular territory.
Between 1820 and 1821, Córdoba became the epicenter of the political reorganization of the
United Provinces, proposing that a Constitutive Congress should meet in order to reorganize
the nation on the basis of the pueblos’ sovereignty. However, the project was hindered by the
new centralist-leaning group that acceded to power at the same time in Buenos Aires. In its
turn, Buenos Aires again took the initiative to convene a Congress in order to relaunch the
project of national organization. Nevertheless, the unitary group in power in Buenos Aires
supported a conception of national construction based on the monist notion of sovereignty and
bound up in the the former capital’s claim to recover political leadership of the United
Provinces. Its influence progressed within the Congress, leading to a conflict with the leaders
of Cordoba that ended with the recall of its deputies and the rejection of the Constitution
promulgated on December 1826.
Even so, the assertion of provincial sovereignty and its inscription in a confederal type of
construction remained the supreme goal of Bustos’s projects and after the dissolution of the
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Congress, he ended up adhering to the governor of Santa Fé’s proposal of rebuilding
“national” representation on a confederal base. The project for union was thus never
challenged but could only ever exist in the eyes of Córdoba’s leaders on the basis of
preliminary recognition of the provinces’ sovereignty.
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