A constituinte de 1823 e a sala de máquinas da carta de 1824: formação constitucional brasileira e a organização do poder

Abstract

The research summarized herein has the scope of analyzing the period of Brazil's constitutional formation, specifically between independence and the enactment of the Constitutional Charter of 1824, with special focus on the Constituent Assembly held in 1823 and on the constitutional document itself, which ruled the entirety of the Brazilian imperial period. The purpose of the research is to verify whether the course of the Brazilian constitutional formation led to a centralization of power promoted by the resulting constitutional text, specifically through the locking of the "Engine Room" of the constitutional document. Therefore, the problem in scope is: By means of an analysis based on conceptual history, is it possible to conclude that the path taken from the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly held in 1823 to the result seen in the Constitutional Charter of 1824 led to centralization of power promoted by the constitutional text, especially through the locking of the so-called "Engine Room" of the constitutional document? If so, what are the foundations and consequences of such a centralization? Aiming to answer these questions, an analysis based on Reinhart Koselleck's Conceptual History was conducted, in an attempt to rescue important concepts. This is the theoretical framework of the thesis. The research sources are composed of 19th and 20th century documents, as well as several academic articles. The suggested research hypothesis is that the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of 1823, occasioned by the incompatibility of interests between liberals and conservatives, and its result, i.e., the Constitutional Charter of 1824, arising from the compromise derived from the Fusion Constitutionalism, were decisive events for the centralizing conformation of the Engine Room of that document, severely empowering the Executive and the Emperor, especially in face of the advent of the Moderator Power as it was conceived in Brazil. It is possible to point out the result of the research in a very objective manner by affirming that the Constitutional Charter of 1824 was the conclusion of Dom Pedro I's liberal drive, rooted not only in the Brazilian Independence but also in the European revolutionary movements that preceded it and in the Revolução Pernambucana of 1817, which contributed to the so-called Antônio Carlos Project that sprang from the Constituent Assembly of 1823. Having the Emperor granted the Constitutional Charter of 1824 with the prominent addition of the Moderator Power, he closed the Engine Room of the constitutional document in his hands. This does not suggest that the Moderator Power and the Constitutional Charter of 1824 were devices for the monarch to hold absolute powers, escaping many of the innovations of control brought by the constitutional monarchy – the Emperor was the figure in charge of maintaining that political cohesion achieved at the moment of independence, called by Gargarella "the liberal-conservative pact".