I wondered, while reading “The Slaughterhouse”, who Echevarria was writing the piece for. He was obviously denouncing caudillos, Rosas in particular, but I couldn’t tell who his intended audience was. He was so condescending and insulting to supporters of Rosas and the caudillos that I doubt he was trying to speak to any of them, and any fellow libertarians would likely share his view of caudillo-controlled areas already. Maybe he wanted outsiders, those in North America and Europe, to read it and become convinced of the righteousness of his cause. While he was clearly trying to make liberalism seem superior to caudillo rule, I don’t think he did a very good job of making liberalism look good. He mostly focused on how bad the caudillo-run town was, but didn’t do anything to show how the situation would be improved by liberalism. He also made the Unitarian character seem a but naive and idealistic; he rode into a caudillo town covered in posters demanding the death of Unitarians, yet acted perfectly at ease until people began threatening him, as if he hadn’t guessed it might happen. In a way, I think this does represent liberalism, although not in the way I’m sure Echevarria was trying for. Liberalism is very idealistic, and often seems unaware of itself and the situation it’s in, like the Unitarian of the story. It preaches good ideals, but often doesn’t put them into practice, and either ignores or hides its own flaws while criticizing other systems for their shortcomings. Liberal systems can contain violence and mob mentalities, just like the town in the story, the difference lies mainly in how the system presents itself. The caudillo system is much more honest and straightforward about itself, while liberal systems tend to paint themselves as better than they really are. Rather than proving why liberalism was needed in Latin America, I think that this story could be used to discourage anyone trying to spread it. The story very clearly shows that most Latin American people hated liberalism and anyone associated with it, and didn’t want anything to do with it. Trying to establish a form of government that the majority of its people hate would be extremely difficult, if possible at all, and would likely end badly for anyone involved. Instead of showing why liberalism was needed in Latin America, he showed how unlikely it was for Liberalism to be established. I think this story would be more effective in proving his intended points if it included sections better showing why liberalism was better, instead of focusing to much on how horrible caudillos were. One system being bad doesn’t automatically make a different system good, but he didn’t seem to take that into account.