It was within this context of divided opinions that the work of the Constituent Assembly began in 1823. The meeting resulted in a bill limiting the right to vote or to stand for election to those whose income was equivalent to the price of the manioc flour produced from 150 alqueires23 of land, so people called the bill ‘Manioc’. The measure demonstrated the influence of the agricultural elite, who, having guaranteed full rein to Dom Pedro I during the emancipation process, now wanted to clip his wings. Antônio Carlos de Andrada had outlined the bill, using the French and Norwegian constitutions as models. It had then been sent to the Constituent Assembly for debate and approval.
Delegates from the Brazilian party proposed three powers, along the lines of Montesquieu’s classical division, with the Executive composed of the emperor and six ministers of state. The Legislature was to consist of a General Assembly composed of deputies (four-year terms) and senators (lifetime terms). And finally, the Judiciary, made up of judges and the courts. The most daring component of the project was the supremacy of the Legislature over the Executive. The measure irritated Dom Pedro I and the Portuguese party, neither of whom concealed their desire for an absolute monarchy. The Portuguese were even more irritated by another measure, one forbidding foreigners from participating in Brazilian politics, whether as deputies or senators.
But the divisions in the Assembly went even deeper. For different reasons both the ‘exalted liberals’ and the Portuguese party opposed José Bonifácio, turning the Andrada brothers into a common enemy. And Dom Pedro I, realizing the Brazilian party intended to turn him into a puppet head of state, began to side with the Portuguese party.
The atmosphere was one of unease, with intensifying xenophobia. The proposals became increasingly aggressive. The emperor had no intention of seeing his powers dwindle away. On 12 November 1823 he ordered his troops to surround the Constituent Assembly building. Despite the presence of the army, which remained loyal to the emperor, the deputies remained in session until the early hours of the morning and declared Dom Pedro an ‘outlaw’. The emperor then issued a decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly. The episode became known as the ‘Night of Agony’ due to the resistance of the deputies who refused to leave the building. Despite declaring they would only leave prodded by ‘an imperial bayonet’, most of them were allowed to go home peacefully. However, six of them were deported to France, among them the three Andrada brothers.
It is somewhat ironic that, not only did Brazilian independence establish a monarchy instead of a republic, but the country’s first constitution was vetoed and never became law! Actually, in 1824, Dom Pedro I presented another constitution to, or rather imposed one on, the country. The nickname stuck, and to this day the first Brazilian constitution is known as the Outorgada: ‘the imposed one’. There is no denying that the beginning of the country’s political life as an independent nation was, to say the least, complex and turbulent.
THE 1824 CONSTITUTION: THE PUPPET CUTS THE STRINGS
To avoid any further risks, this time the emperor met behind closed doors with ten people whom he trusted unconditionally to draw up the new constitution. All of them had been born in Brazil, were legal scholars who had studied at Coimbra, and were members of the Council of State that had been created in 1823.24 The text of the constitution was drawn up in fifteen days, based on the ‘Manioc project’.25 The copyist was Luís Joaquim de Santos Marrocos, archivist of the Royal Library and notorious for his dislike of the natives of the former colony. He had arrived in Brazil with the books from the Royal Library, immediately after the prince Dom João, and not a day had gone by without his complaining about the climate, the mosquitoes and the absence of social life. Nevertheless he had never left the country: he both married and met his maker in Brazil.26
The text was then sent to the various Chambers, where, according to the official version, very few comments were made; it was then rapidly confirmed during a ceremony in the Imperial Cathedral on 25 March 1824. The document followed the liberal French model of a representative system based on the theory of national sovereignty. The form of government was monarchical, hereditary, constitutional and representative, with the country divided into provinces. The constitution showed the influence of Benjamin Constant, the Swiss-French liberal political philosopher.27 The novelty was the introduction of not just three powers – executive, legislature and judiciary – but four, following and adapting Benjamin Constant’s proposal, which was for five: the monarchy represented the continuity, had the representation of opinion, the power of the judiciary, and had veto power over the others. Benjamin Constant had been educated at the University of Edinburgh, and had spent time in France, Switzerland, Germany and Great Britain. As a renowned intellectual, he was influential in French politics during the second half of the Revolution – between 1815 and 1830 – when he was the leader of the opposition group known as the ‘independents’, a left-wing liberal movement. In 1819 he published La liberté des anciens est des modernes in which he discussed the role of the individual in relation to the state. He praised the British model of constitutional monarchy but he also defended slavery; he believed the system of slavery allowed citizens to participate in civic activities. He also published a tract entitled Cours de politique constitutionnelle, which included the concept of the ‘Moderating Power’, subsequently introduced into the text of Brazil’s constitution.
The Moderating Power afforded the emperor full powers and exclusive rights, including the use of coercive force, the right to appoint and dismiss ministers of state, lifelong members of the Council of State, presidents of the provinces, ecclesiastical authorities, lifelong senators, magistrates and judges, as well as to appoint and dismiss ministers of the Executive. The emperor was also above the law and could not be prosecuted for his actions. Whereas in the 1823 Constitution the head of the Executive only had the power of veto, he now had the last word. According to the text, the Moderating Power was intended to ensure harmony and balance for the state. As per the definition of the time, it was a ‘neutral power’.
The rest of the constitution was generally accepted. It granted freedom of religion although, according to the law, all temples, synagogues and churches were already permitted. Elections continued to be indirect and very limited, in two rounds. In the first round, voting delegates were chosen, in the proportion of one delegate to every one hundred households. In the second round, the delegates elected the deputies and senators. Initially three senators would be elected; but only one would serve, according to the emperor’s final choice.
The Church was subject to the state, since the emperor had the right to make appointments to the Catholic Church. The General Assembly was made up of two Chambers – the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Senators. As previously mentioned, the deputies were elected for a temporary mandate and the senators, elected by the provinces, for life. The Council of State was maintained with lifelong members appointed by the emperor.
The 1824 Constitution, albeit imposed, was advanced for its time: all men over twenty-five with a minimum annual income of 100 mil-réis were allowed to vote. Freemen could vote in the primary elections and the requirement for a minimum income did not exclude the poor, since the majority of workers earned more than 100 mil-réis per year. Illiterate people were also allowed to vote. The 1824 Constitution remained in effect until the end of the monarchy. A comparison of the data is noteworthy: before 1881, 50 per cent of the adult male population in Brazil voted, the equivalent of 13 per cent of the total population. In Great Britain, around 1870, 7 per cent voted; in Italy 2 per cent; in Portugal 9 per cent; in Holland 2.5 per cent; and in the United States 18 per cent. Universal male suffrage only existed in France and Switzerland.28
Nevertheless, for all its liberal pretensions, the 1824 Constitution concentrated power to a large degree in the hands of the emperor, maintaining an absolute monarchy through the mechanism of the Moderating Power, and it ignored the question of slavery. This was a reaction against the bill of 182
3, which had sought to curtail the powers of the monarch. The constitution was imposed on the citizens of Brazil from above, and the country’s wilful emperor personally oversaw every detail. Two years later, when he also succeeded to the throne of Portugal as Pedro IV, the emperor was to repeat this performance in relation to the Portuguese 1826 Constitution, this time provoking a national crisis. This was a personal style that was soon to become a national problem.
THE CONFEDERATION OF THE EQUATOR, 1831
Dom Pedro I’s dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and imposition of a new constitution made waves. Furthermore, his new inner circle of bureaucrats and merchants were either Portuguese or had strong ties to Lisbon. In Pernambuco, for instance, a province known for its revolutionary disposition and republican and federalist leanings, there were new voices of protest, among them Friar Joaquim do Amor Divino, better known as Frei Caneca. With a humble background, and having been educated at the seminary in Olinda, he became a well-regarded intellectual and strong political activist. In 1824 a rebellion broke out in Pernambuco called the ‘Confederation of the Equator’. It was initially set off by the appointment of an unwanted governor, but the movement also produced the first reaction to the absolutist and centralized politics of the government of Dom Pedro I. Those involved were striving for a republic based on Colombia’s constitution, which at that time in South America most closely resembled that of the United States. The Confederation of the Equator had deep roots, dating back to the eighteenth century, to the Guerra dos Mascates of 1710–11, and to the Pernambucan revolution of 1817, both republican in nature. There were also internal divisions between the north of Pernambuco, where there was a concentration of sugar and cotton cultivation and populous villages, and the monocultures more typical of the south, a virtually exclusive sugar basin where settlements were no more than annexes of the estates.
Pernambuco had accepted the monarchy in the belief that the province’s autonomy would be protected. However, the promulgation of the 1824 Constitution, with its excessive centralization, led to great frustration. Pernambuco was divided into two factions, one monarchist and the other liberal republican. The province was governed by the leader of the monarchist faction, Pais Barreto, who had been appointed by Dom Pedro I. Pais Barreto resigned under pressure from the liberals; and the republican Manuel Pais de Andrade, one of the important leaders of the revolt, was elected. The conflict, however, was not limited to the two men. When Dom Pedro I found out, he ordered that his appointee, Pais Barreto, be returned to the governership, a demand that was ignored. To demonstrate his power, Dom Pedro then sent warships to Recife, the capital of the province, to impose his rule. But the liberals remained steadfast in their support of Manuel Pais de Andrade and the revolt erupted. Dom Pedro tried to negotiate by appointing a different governor, but it was too late. On 2 July 1824 the revolutionaries proclaimed the independence of Pernambuco and invited the other provinces of the north and northeast to join them in the foundation of the ‘Confederation of the Equator’. The hope was that the new independent federalist state would include the provinces of Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Alagoas, Sergipe, Paraíba and Pernambuco. In fact, only a few towns in Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and especially Ceará joined the rebels in Pernambuco.
The confederate revolutionaries advocated the ‘American system’, which they considered ‘the Enlightenment of the century’, rather than that of ‘old man Europe’. They emphasized federalism, characteristic of North American republicanism. Their revolutionary flag featured not only the two products of the region – cotton and sugarcane – but also representations of a republic and of federalism. The emperor condemned the rebels in a royal decree issued on 25 July 1824, and ordered their arrest. But the revolution continued.
On 12 September, Recife was attacked by land forces under the command of Pais Barreto, and the rebels were defeated. Some of the leaders were killed while others, including Frei Caneca, were arrested. The rebels in Paraíba met the same fate. Judicial proceedings to investigate the accused began in October 1824 and continued until April the following year. Of the hundreds of people who had taken part in the revolt in the three provinces, fifteen were condemned to death, including Frei Caneca. Although the executions put an end to the movement, they left a deep impression in Pernambuco, where the frustration was unabated. The people hoped the first constitution of the empire would be federalist, with administrative autonomy in the provinces. All the other provinces involved were pardoned by the emperor on 7 March 1825. This gesture, however, did nothing to conceal divisions, nor decrease resentment.
PROBLEMS IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE OF THE EMPIRE
Meanwhile the emperor’s private life was equally turbulent. In the lives of kings the separation between the public and private spheres is often tenuous. After all, royal births, weddings and deaths are all matters of state. Dom Pedro I was no exception. On 2 December 1825, Dona Leopoldina, the increasingly isolated wife of the emperor (ever since his trip to São Paulo he only had eyes for Domitila), gave birth to a son, the heir to the yearned continuity of the empire – the future monarch, Dom Pedro II.
The new prince held everyone’s high hopes. On his father’s side he was descended from a line of illustrious ancestors, immortalized in Portuguese literature. He was the nineteenth Duke of Bragança, a family closely related to the Capetians of France. On his mother’s side he was related to Emperor Francis I of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, and his wife Empress Maria Theresa. Francis I was the son of Leopold II, the emperor of Germany and brother of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI’s wife. Dom Pedro II’s family tree stretched back to St Stephen, King of Hungary; to Philip II and Phillip IV; to the kings of Castile and Aragon; and to the kings of France. As a descendant of the royal houses of Bourbon, Habsburg and Bragança, his baptism was surrounded by an aura of exceptional mysticism. The ghosts of these kings, saints and madmen, emperors and adventurers, melancholy, romantic and illustrious princes, were to haunt the prince for the rest of his life.
Three months after the prince’s birth, on 10 March 1826, his grandfather King Dom João VI died, aged fifty-nine, at the Palace of Queluz, allegedly from indigestion after a large supper. Dona Carlota Joaquina preferred not to be at her dying husband’s side and, professing illness, left the palace and travelled to Lisbon. Before she left she made it quite clear that she favoured her second son, Dom Miguel I, as her husband’s successor. Dom João VI had always wanted to be succeeded by Dom Pedro I, despite the fact that, as Emperor of Brazil, he was now officially considered a foreigner. However, true to his indecisive nature, before he died Dom João VI appointed his daughter Dona Isabel Maria as regent until such time as the ‘legitimate heir’ assumed the throne, but failed to mention who that legitimate heir was to be. Dona Isabel Maria immediately sent a committee to Brazil to greet Dom Pedro, who received the title Dom Pedro IV as the new King of Portugal. But the impasse continued because the Portuguese Constitution did not allow Dom Pedro to ascend the two thrones. The solution was to have Dom Pedro’s daughter, Dona Maria da Glória, marry his brother Dom Miguel I. Whereas his mother, Dona Carlota Joaquina, was disliked in Portugal, Dom Miguel I had become increasingly popular since his return to Lisbon. Dom Pedro I, on the other hand, after declaring the independence of Brazil, was now virtually persona non grata in Portuguese territory.29
With the Portuguese succession still undecided, the emperor received another unexpected blow. On 11 December 1826 his wife, Dona Maria Leopoldina, died after a complicated birth. Her passing was accompanied by rumours that the emperor himself, because of his brutal treatment of her, had caused her death. Dom Pedro I’s private problems now became extremely public. Maria Leopoldina’s death led to much talk about the ‘barbarous’ prince – as she referred to him in letters to her sister Maria Luisa (who had been married to Napoleon) and to her father, the powerful Emperor Francis of Austria.
Contrary to popular belief, the princess’s life had been anything but a fairy tale.
She had played an important part in the independence process in 1822, but was then completely isolated at court. She began to write letters complaining about her husband and what she called ‘this dreadful America’. She defended the people and stressed her sacrifice, but in the end the impression that remains is one of a melancholy princess without friends and no husband at her side. In her last letter, dated 8 December 1826, and addressed to Maria Luísa, she refers to her husband as a ‘monstrous seducer’ and no longer hides her resentment: ‘He has just given me the latest proof of his negligence toward me, mistreating me in the presence of the very person who is the cause of all my afflictions.’ She was referring to Domitila, the Marquesa de Santos, who now occupied all the young monarch’s time. On 23 May 1824, Domitila had born Dom Pedro I a child, Isabel Maria, who was officially recognized as the emperor’s daughter two years later and granted the title of Duquesa de Goiás.
NEW INDEPENDENCE, 1831
Meanwhile public life resumed in Brazil with elections to the Chambers taking place in late 1824 and the first meeting of the deputies in 1826. Although the sessions were initially hesitant, the opposition soon began to rally and press for social change. When new opposition newspapers were published, the emperor’s reaction was to respond personally to specific articles. He also used his Moderating Power, dismissing ministers for the slightest slip or merely on a whim. His temperamental nature was more in evidence than ever as he continued to allow his private affairs to interfere directly in the affairs of state.
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