"
In justice to the inhabitants of Montevideo in general, it must be said
that this fulsome and despicable effusion was the work of only a few,
and was hostile to the sentiments of, and strenuously condemned by, the
general public.
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.
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