The patriots of Sao Paulo, Minas, and Rio, after the return of
Joam VI. to Portugal, encouraged the ambition of Prince Dom
Pedro, and by offering him the empire brought about the inde-
pendence of the country in 1822. They had secured from the
prince the promise of a representative government under a con-
stitution ; but when the constitutional convention elected for that
purpose had framed a constitution, it was dissolved by force of
arms, and the assembly was dispersed under the menace of a park
of artillery posted in front of the building where it was sitting.
Instead of a constitution adopted by the representatives of the
people, Brazil was given one dictated by the prince, into which
was introduced the so-called moderative power belonging exclu-
sively to the crown, and which effectually overshadowed all the
other powers of the charter.
Pedro I. governed Brazil with the same whip with which he drove his carriage horses, and whose lash was more than once felt by the press. His complaints in the circle of his favorites against the radical press instigated the assassination of Libero Badaro in Sao Paulo.
In the desire of securing the election of his minister Maia by
the vote of the people already estranged from him, he made a visit
to the State of Minas, where, instead of the rejoicing with which
he had been received in the interior at the proclamation of inde-
pendence, he met with a cold reception from a tax-burthened
people who had lost their illusions, and listened to masses of re-
quiem chanted for the murdered republican journalist.
Returning to Rio de Janeiro he was forced by the people of the capital assembled in the public square to remove from his head the imperial crown on the 7th of April, 1831. The exotic monarchical plant appeared to have reached the end of its brief existence, but the leaders of the revolutionary movement, or at least the most influential of them, as Vergueiro and Evaristo da Veiga, advised the continuance of the existing form of government.
The son of the deposed emperor was not yet six years old; a
tutor was appointed for him, and a regency established which
lasted ten years, and under which the scope of constitutional
liberty was considerably broadened while the evolution of the re-
publican idea still went on. Some time after, during the reign
of Pedro II., when the ex-Regent Feijó engaged in the revolution of
of Sao Paulo, crushed as well as that of Minas by General Caxias,
