A atuação dos deputados da Paraíba na Constituinte do Império – 1823

Abstract

This paper analyzes the political process and constitutional preparation occurred in the early nineteenth century that allowed four influential political figures in the province of Paraíba, former leaders of the liberal revolution of 1817 in this locality, to return to the political scene after a violent counterrevolution and, in 1823, presented themselves in the Court of Rio de Janeiro, in a considered liberal and haughty way, to exercise the mandate of constituent deputies in the first parliamentary assembly of independent Brazil, the Constituent and Legislative General Assembly of the Empire of Brazil. The meeting of these provincial representatives to draft a constitution to the nascent sovereign state of Brazil represented the country's entry into parliamentary and constitutional innovation aligned with the European parameter. The four Paraíba leaders present in the 1823 Constituent Assembly, Augusto Xavier de Carvalho, Joaquim Manuel Carneiro da Cunha, José da Cruz Gouveia and José Ferreira Nobre, are analyzed under the aspects of social and educational background, political activity prior to the independence of Brazil and the parliamentary position they hold in the Assembly. The manner in which important matters were deliberated for the construction of the nation-state, namely: freedom of the press, creation of universities, establishment of provincial legislative assemblies and slavery, receives special attention in this work. This dissertation is justified in view of the significant importance of this political period for the history of constitutional law, Brazilian legislature as well as Paraíba’s. The sources used include, above all, the Annals of the Constituent and Legislative General Assembly of the Empire of Brazil of 1823, cataloged and digitized by the Federal Senate website in the form of Diary. There are three big volumes responsible for bringing to us the parliamentary debates developed in the first Constituent of the country. As for the theoretical background, the contributions of the New Political History are used, clearly marked by analysis of cultural aspects. The political culture, understood as the set of psychological tendencies in relation to politics, favored a study in which the unfolding of politics is analyzed with cultural bias and not as a mere development of facts. Far from presenting mere linear narratives or decontextualized biographies, the cultural political history envisions the subjects within their social contexts, which ensures the possibility to understand such subjects in a social, historical perspective and in their intellectual trajectories. This work follows the line of research on History and Regionalities.