We know that Brazil became independent from Portugal in September 7, 1822 and that the main protagonist of this event was the then Prince Regent SunPeter, son of the Portuguese king D. John VI. The 1820s and 1830s were turbulent for both Brazil and Portugal, given that, after the definitive fall of NapoleonBonaparte in 1815 (and his death in 1821), the entire process of political transformation unleashed by the French emperor in Europe, started to fight against the attempt of the absolutist aristocracies to reestablish the political model that had been in force before gives RevolutionFrench.
It was in this context that the newly independent Brazil needed to elaborate its Constitution, in which he would make clear the path to follow: that of the absolutist structure or of monarchies imbued with liberal and bourgeois values. THE Constituent of 1823 its mission was to draw up the draft of this Constitution and provide the country with the missing legal system. The Assembly, formed by the Luso-Brazilian courts, met in the city of Rio de Janeiro and had, among its members, supporters of the traditional absolutist model and moderate liberals. No exalted liberal, like the insurgent of the Revolution of 1817 CyprianCockroach, was present among the constituents.
Among those who most tried to articulate the divergences between liberals and reactionaries were the Andrada brothers, among whom stood out José Bonifácio de Andrade e Silva, who was minister of the emperor and, afterwards, was preceptor of Dom Pedro II. However, José Bonifácio and his brothers rebelled against the interference undertaken by the emperor and his minions, who wanted at least the establishment of two premises: the power of dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the power to veto the drafted laws, as reiterated by historian Boris Faust:
Times were of political uncertainty. Less than a year after independence, in July 1823, José Bonifácio was removed from the ministry because he had been squeezed between the criticism of the liberals and the dissatisfaction of the conservatives. They looked down on the personal command of the government by the minister, who denied him direct access to the throne. From then onwards, at the Constituent Assembly, to which they were elected, and on the pages of the newspaper O Tamoio, José Bonifácio and his brothers Antônio Carlos and Martim Francisco would be constant opposition to the government and the Democrats, insinuating that the country's independence was threatened both by the 'hunchbacks' (reactionaries) and 'lead feet' (Portuguese) and by the 'radicals'.[1]
The Constituent Assembly was eventually dissolved by Dom Pedro I, who did not approve the original text because he thought that its power would be compromised by the influence of liberal ideas. The Constitution approved in 1824 had another text, which endorsed the absolutist intentions of D. Pedro I, granting the executive power a superlative capacity in relation to the other powers and giving the emperor also the attributions of the PowerModerator, how to appoint lifetime political positions and dissolve Congress.
GRADES
[1] FAUSTO, Boris. history of Brazil. São Paulo: Edusp, 2013. P. 128.
By Me. Cláudio Fernandes
