Death and Democracy. Capital Punishment after the fall of Rosas

Abstract

After the fall of Rosas, the new leadership of Buenos Aires province tried to build a new institutional framework more in tune with liberal principles. Before they could achieve much institutional change, however, liberals had to construct the memories of the past dictatorship and deal with the menace of a resiliente and rebellious rural culture. They accomplished the former through the trials of the 'assassins of 1840'. They dealt with the latter in a notoriously brutal fashion: executing common delinquents and exposing their dead bodies to the public view. Thus, despite the commitment of liberals to construct a liberal (and humane) social and political order, the practice of public executions continued unabated. The very free press, which was one of the achievements of the new democratic regime, helped to create the conditions for the acceptance of public executions. Unable to depart with the pedagogy of exemplary punishment and conscious of the need to mark their difference with the Rosas regime, liberals used public executions in a parsimonious fashion.