Thoughts on the Brazilian Liberal Project's Failure at the Imperial Era

AutorMarcus Santiago
CargoCentro Universitário do Distrito Federal - UDF
Páginas817-848
THOUGHTS ON THE BRAZILIAN LIBERAL PROJECT’S
FAILURE AT THE IMPERIAL ERA
Marcus Firmino Santiago
Centro Universitário do Distrito Federal - UDF
Summary: INTRODUCTION. I. THE EUROPEAN REALITY OF THE EARLY
NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE PORTUGUESE TRADITION AND THE COLONIAL
HERITAGE. 1. Brazil on the Independence’s Eve: a brief portrait. II. BUILDING
THE COUNTRY: DIFFERENT STATE PROJECTS IN CONFLICT. 1. Which were the
groups that fought for the power and what they wanted? 2. The clash of ideas
between the Constituent Assembly and the Emperor. 3. The granted Constitution:
authoritarianism in the Brazilian constitutional genesis. III. THE LIBERAL
THOUGHT SURVIVES: THE HOUSE OF DEPUTIES AS A SPACE OF
RESISTANCE, THE COUP OF APRIL 07, 1831 AND A NEW BALANCE OF
FORCES DURING THE REGENCY. IV. THE ADDITIONAL ACT: INTRODUCTORY
NOTES AND ESSENTIAL ASPECTS OF A DECENTRALIZING EXPERIENCE. V.
THE MYTH OF THE THRONE: THE INTERPRETATION LAW OF THE ADDITIONAL
ACT, THE COUP OF LEGAL AGE AND THE STABILIZATION BASED ON THE
CONSERVATIVE PROJECT. CONCLUSION.
Abstract: The word liberal was a constant presence in the speeches of the main
leaders of the Brazilian State process of independence and formation. However,
it’s important to understand the different concepts of liberalism that were used
by the political speech, frequently not linked to the reality. In fact, the new
country stands firm to the Portuguese heritage, seeing in the authoritarian
centralism of the monarchy the key to the State organization. Order, stability and
unity are common values that guide political leaders of different orientations,
placing themselves above any transformer project, especially those who could
touch the social and economic structures centered on slavery.
Key words: Political liberalism. Authoritarianism. Brazilian State formation.
INTRODUCTION
The Brazilian institutional life analysis is always an enriching exercise,
especially concerning to their specific characteristics that differentiate it from
similar Europeans and, usually, make it very difficult to categorize in traditional
legal frameworks. It’s a pertinent observation when we discuss the national
liberal tradition, theme particularly interesting in these times in which the word
liberalism (but not necessarily with the meanings that it had before) is being so
repeated.
Brazil emerged as an independent country in 1822, a time when Europe had
been flooded by the liberal waves stirred by the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars. The liberal political thought gave the keynote of modernity and
was naturally embedded to the speech of the elites who have led the process of
national independence, a group that became so delighted with the Porto
Revolution and the Lisbon Courts. No wonder, therefore, that the European
Historia Constitucional
ISSN 1576-4729, n. 21, 2020. http://www.historiaconstitucional.com, págs. 817-848
paradigm made itself present, influencing in the institutional design of the
Brazilian State.
However, a more detained analysis of the forces’ game present at the first
half of the nineteenth century reveals that many of the ideas in vogue in Europe
have landed here with different colors. The lexicon of the time and the
disseminated and even random use of the term liberal helps to give an even more
complex tone to the ideological conflicts present between independence and
stabilization of the Second Reign, troubled period of national life marked by
successive clashes between different political currents.
To understand the institutional legal design of the Brazilian State it is
necessary to face some questions: Who are the Brazilian liberals of the first half of
the nineteenth century and what is their State project? What is the trajectory of
liberal political thinking in this first stage of institutional life? These are the
issues that guide the present research, whose objective is to analyze the main
ideological currents that dispute the primacy in the definition of a country project
and understand the factors that provoke the collapse of the liberal project.
Therefore, it is necessary to outline the most striking attributes of the three
ideological currents present at the time of independence and the dissolution of
the Constituent Assembly (here called Monarchists with absolutist tendencies,
Conservative Constitutionalists and Liberal Constitutionalists), to clarify the project
of State of Conservatives and Liberals (remaining groups after the collapse of the
nostalgics of the absolutism) and to understand the hegemonic model that is
imposed in 1840’ decade and that will characterize almost all the Second Reign.
Thereby is that the proposed time-cutting limited the study between the events
immediately related to the independence and the early years of King Pedro II
government.
The research was based on bibliographic sources, highlighting the works of
Raymundo Faoro, Octávio Tarquínio de Sousa and Aurelino Leal, authors
representing different ideological lines, in a purposeful choice that aims to
balance the various nuances and personal preferences that inevitably permeate
the readings made about the Brazilian historical reality. Flanked by thinkers with
different backgrounds, such as the jurist Paulo Bonavides or the economist Celso
Furtado, this study seeks to weave a data network that allows sustainable
analysis of Brazilian liberalism.
The research is justified not only by the constant need to revisit essential
moments of Brazilian State formation, but especially by the influence that the
events and debates of these early decades enforce on the next stages of national
life. There is an undisputed logical thread between the imperial era and the
following, a constant reliving of aspirations, ambitions and revenges that induce
successive generations to hoist very similar flags. The present’s understanding
and the future’s design depend on the proper vision of the past. In a moment in
which the role of the Brazilian State is deeply rediscussed, the eyes cannot stray
from the traditions, achievements and misconceptions that mark the national life.
Marcus Firmino Santiago
818
I. THE EUROPEAN REALITY OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE
PORTUGUESE TRADITION AND THE COLONIAL HERITAGE
In the transition between the 1810’ and 1820’, European monarchies
struggled to survive amid the uncontained whirlwind of claims by liberal matrix
reforms, the legacy of the French Revolution and the conquests of Napoleon
Bonaparte. The Vienna Congress, with its conservative concert, braked, but not
avoided, the imminent collapse of the absolutist tradition.
The desire of the restored monarchs was to regain the throne splendor,
supported by the structures of the old regimes, but there was no condition for it.
The French values and their legislation, imposed by the strength of cannons and
bayonets, put an end to the remains of servitude still in force, implemented the
belief in civil equality before the law and abolished the privilege systems.1 New
societies emerged from the wreckage of the Napoleonic Wars.
That was necessary to suppress social upheaval. There was a strong demand
for order, stability, and the monarchical centralism was once again remembered
as the solution. The time had come, however, to give in to survive, which initiated
a conciliation process between elements of liberal constitutionalism with some
typical traits of the old political regimes, in what is called Conservative
Constitutionalism. Monarchy without despotism and freedom without anarchy:
this was what the concert drawn at the Vienna Congress offered.2
As Fioravanti explains, in the early nineteenth century “(...) the fundamental
value that encourages constitutionalism is that of the conservation of the social
and political order of which everything derives, including rights, which can only
find effective guardianship in the law of the sovereign State representative of that
order.”3 Emerged, then, Constitutions, sometimes promulgated by assemblies,
sometimes granted based on the ancient monarchical principle,4 that reflected
the agreement between the monarchy and the bourgeoisie, King and Parliament,
in a system of reciprocal concessions that sought, on one hand, the fulfillment of
liberal demands and, on the other, the conservation of the maximum of
prerogatives for the Crown.5
1 MONDAINI, Marco. Guerras Napoleônicas. in MAGNOLI, Demétrio (org). História das Guerras.
3. ed. São Paulo: Contexto, 2006. p. 214.
2 MAGNOLI, Demétrio. Congresso de Viena (1814-1815). in MAGNOLI, Demétrio (org.) História
da Paz. Os tratados que desenharam o planeta. São Paulo: Contexto, 2012. p. 77. On the topic,
see also: LINCH, Christian Cyril. ‘Monarquía sin despotismo y libertad sin anarquía’. Historia del
concepto de liberalismo en Brasil (1750-1850). in SEBASTIÁN, Javier Fernández (org.). La Aurora
de la Libertad. Los primeros liberalismos en el mundo ibero-americano. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2012.
3 FIORAVANTI, Maurizio. Constitucionalismo. Experiencias históricas y tendências actuales.
Madrid: Trotta, 2014. p. 19-20. Original text: “(...) el valor fundamental que anima al
constitucionalismo es el de la conservación del orden social y político del que todo deriva, incluidos
los derechos, que solo pueden encontrar una tutela eficaz en la ley del Estado soberano
representativo de ese orden.”
4 To better understand the foundations of the constitutional grant, see the article of: LACCHÉ,
Luigi. Las Cartas Otorgadas. La teoría de l’octroi y las experiencias constitucionales en la Europa
post-revolucionaria. In Fund amentos. Cuadernos Monográficos de Teoría del Estado, Derecho
Público e Historia Constitucional. Oviedo: Junta General del Principado de Asturias, n. 6. 2010.
5 FIORAVANTI, Maurizio. Constitucionalismo... Op. cit., p. 98.
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