Despotismo e retórica no Reverbero Constitucional Fluminense

Abstract

The present work intends to analyze the discursive action of a periodical that sought to reverberate constitutional principles amongst the Rio de Janeiro reading public. It was aimed to establish a constitutional representative monarchy, condemning any possibility of despotism, whether the old one, mimicked in the absolutist government, or what became, at that juncture, the “new despotism”. The propagation of constitutional principles and the establishment of the representative regime, of the “new Political Religion”, was shared in the edition of the Reverbero, between Januário da Cunha Barbosa and Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo. The publicizing of the political thought of these two figures, each with their own rhetoric, influenced the political events of the Independence, persuading and mobilizing the public opinion; one consequence, amongst others, was the election of Gonçalves Ledo as deputy to the Brasílica Assembly and, later, the judicial inquiry that pursued them. For the development of the research work, it was necessary not only to search for other periodicals, but also a set of pamphlets that allowed the understanding of central concepts or those that demonstrated different political perceptions of the time course. In order to understand which mechanisms were used for the construction of the political discourse, were not discarded some sources referring to rhetoric. Furthermore, rhetoric, as an important technique for the operationalization of the political discourse, allowed them to build a mean that not only began in the fight for the Regeneration of the Portuguese kingdom through liberal constitutionalism, but also disseminated, in 1822, and in a situation of civil conflict with the Lisbon Congress, a separatist language.