of the fever of speculation excited by the large issues of paper
money authorized by Ruy Barbosa during his year of office as
Secretary of the Treasury. Besides, the cabinet of the provisional
government had been weakened by the withdrawal of the Secre-
taries of the Interior and Agriculture, Señors Aristides Lobo
and Demetrio Ribeiro, two historical republicans. Under the
advice of unwise counsellors, General Fonseca, even before his
election as president, formed his second cabinet, in which the
only historical republican was Señor Justo Chermont, all the
other secretaries being taken indiscriminately from the ranks of
the former monarchists. The writer does not wish to be under-
stood as advocating the exclusion from the administration of
men who had served in the time of the empire : the error lay in
the selection of the individuals.
If, instead of having himself elected president, or allowing his
friends to present him as a candidate, the chief of the provisional
government had used all his influence towards the election of a
civilian, such as Señor Saraiva or Señor Paulino de Souza, both
prominent leaders in the former monarchical parties, Liberal and
Conservative respectively, but both true patriots who had accepted
the new order of things, he would at once have placed the new
republic upon a broad and solid basis, and under a flag whose ample
folds would have covered Brazilians of every shade of political
opinion. Instead of so doing or of organizing a new cabinet en-
tirely republican, the new president surrounded himself with men
of very narrow views, and who did not, with a few exceptions,
even understand the form of government into whose service they
were called. This was a step backwards ; Congress insisted on
following the path marked out by the constitution ; the executive
could not agree with the Congress, and a conflict was unavoidable.
Wisdom would have dictated a policy of conciliation, but that
wisdom was lacking in the president of the republic. The cabinet,
as might have been expected in view of its origin, clung obstinately
to the old parliamentary usages which were wholly out of place
under the new form of government. The result was the dicta-
torial decree of November 3, 1891, which in violation of the con-
stitution dissolved the federal congress, and declared the capital
of the republic in a state of siege.
From the two extremes of the union, the States of Para and Rio Grande do Sul, came the first outcries of protest against this
