The first Brazilian Assembly, as soon as convoked, set to work to frame its first Constitution, a matter which was found extremely difficult. The fact that Brazil had been an independent monarchy for some years helped to combat the views of those who shouted "Liberty!" too loudly, and would fain have abandoned practice for theory. It was understood that the first requisites were order and security, together with reasonable checks on authority. Further, it was realized that there must be sufficient elasticity to meet future needs and circumstances.
But for the Emperor, the forming of the Constitution would have been a failure. Almost immediately after his first opening of the Assembly he laid before it a sketch of the Constitution that they had to form. "The recent Constitutions," he said, "founded on the models of those of 1791 and 1792, had been acknowledged as too abstract and metaphysical for execution. This had been proved by the example of France, and more recently by that of Spain and Portugal. We have need of a Constitution where the powers may be so divided and defined that no one branch can arrogate to itself the prerogative of another; a Constitution which may be an unsurmountable barrier against all invasion of the royal authority, whether aristocratic or popular, which will overthrow anarchy and cherish the tree of liberty, beneath whose shade we shall see the union and the independence of the Empire flourish—in a word, a Constitution that will excite the admiration of other nations, and even of our enemies, who will consecrate the triumph of our principles by adopting them."
There was, however, too much of self-denial in the Emperor's views to meet with the approbation of the Assembly. At the head of the Ministry were the brothers Andrada—men who in earlier days had rendered great services to Dom Pedro, but who had grown somewhat arbitrary, overbearing, and impatient, and now presumed on their past services in establishing the Empire to tyrannize over both the Emperor and the Assembly. In the end the members of the Assembly forced the brothers to resign, at which the people rose and drew José Bonifacio in triumph through the streets of Rio to his official residence.
Fearing the people, the Assembly reinstated the Andradas for a period of eight months, after which they were again ejected. From this time on they became violent opponents of the Assembly and the Court, seemingly determined that if they could not rule, nobody else should. Their newspaper, the Tamayo, was a powerful organ in the capital, and proved itself as unsparing as it was libellous in its attacks.
It was owing to obstruction of this kind that for a long while no advance was made in the formation of a Constitution, for as the Emperor made suggestions, the Andradas caused them to be thrown out. Bills brought in by members were never read, and the brothers even went so far as to attack the Portuguese employés of the Emperor, and when one of these wrote a scathing article against them, they used personal violence toward him. He appealed to the Assembly, whereupon the Andradas insisted that he and all his fellows should be dismissed.
Week by week the Tamayo grew more virulent and threatening against the Emperor. Dom Pedro grew alarmed, for the Andradas were wealthy and powerful, and the Emperor felt that their disaffection might be a sign of general popular feeling—that the republican movement was gaining ground too much for his safety. His actions against the republican movement in various parts of the Empire, necessary though they were, had, nevertheless, forced him into connection with, and reliance on, the Portuguese residents and militia, a class almost as distasteful to the liberal Brazilians as the Portuguese whom they had driven out of the country. Thoroughly liberal in his own tendencies, Pedro yet felt that the Andradas might be expressing a general discontent with his rule.
The Andradas, at the head of the popular party, drove the Emperor to the use of extreme measures by their insolence and turbulent intrigues. He took the law into his own hands. The brothers had induced the Assembly to declare itself permanent, but, not unlike Cromwell in a different species of crisis, Pedro surrounded the Chamber with troops and guns, dispersed the Deputies, and captured the three Andradas, together with two of their principal friends. These five he deported to France without the formality of a trial.
At this the popular party took alarm, but the Emperor pointed out that he had no other course left; he had acted from no desire to impair the freedom of the people, but from necessity. The proclamation which he issued at this time stated that "though he had, from regard to the tranquillity of the Empire, thought fit to dissolve the third Assembly, he had in the same decree convoked another, in conformity with the acknowledged constitutional rights of his people."
With regard to the forming of the Constitution, he left it no longer to the Assembly, but appointed a committee of ten persons to settle the sketch he had drawn up.
The Republican and ultra-Liberal party, awed by the salutary treatment meted out to the Andradas, grew furious at the further energetic measures of the Emperor, for they saw in Dom Pedro's policy an attempt to gain absolute dominance. Open rebellion broke out all over the country, and a Republic was actually proclaimed in Pernambuco, Ceará, the northern provinces generally, and in the south. Uruguay for the last time revolted, and severed the tie which bound her to the Empire, having never since been subject to Brazil.