Mr. Adams to Mr.
Blaine.
Legation of
the United States,
Petropolis, December 28, 1889.
(Received January 30, 1890.)
No. 30.]Sir: I have the honor to inclose translation of the
speech of the minister of agriculture, referred to in my No. 26.
On the 18th instant a mutiny occurred in the Second Artillery Regiment. At
about 2 o’clock some fifty privates left their quarters carrying an imperial
flag and attempted to seduce other regiments into a
[Page 17]
pronunciamento, but were repelled, driven back, and
besieged in their quarters. They fortified themselves, and turned artillery
against their pursuers. At midnight they surrendered. The Government
announced this to be a drunken brawl of the privates, all the officers being
absent at a reception on the Chilean man-of-war. This occurrence was at once
followed by a decree (translation inclosed) banishing the late premier and
other citizens, followed by another decree (translation inclosed)
practically declaring martial law. On December 23 a decree was issued (copy
inclosed) revoking the grant made to the late Emperor, at the time of his
departure. His reconsideration of his acceptance of this grant made this
action on the part of the Provisional Government necessary.
On December 23 a decree was issued for an election for a constituent assembly
to meet at the capitol on November 15 following. This action, following the
speech of Minister Rebeiro, was a surprise, and is supposed to have been
hastened by popular sentiment and the facts that both Portugal and England
refused to recognize the new republican flag for want of constitutional
authority, the announcement in the corps legislative of France that the
republic would be recognized when a constitution had been adopted by the
people, and the instructions to this legation of a similar import, announced
in the President’s message.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1 in No.
30.—Translation.]
Speech of minister of agriculture.
This manifestation, which proves not only the actual aid of the public
force, but also the moral assistance of the doctrine that prevails
throughout the army and navy, produces in my mind the conviction that,
as a member of the Government, I shall be able to coöperate in directing
our country on the way towards the most complete liberty—religious
liberty, liberty of teaching, liberty of manifesting thought, liberty of
a responsible press—all this by means of the maintaining of perfect
order by the public force. These conditions alone can be obtained
through a strong and moralized government, one which, as remarked by one
of the previous orators, looks for support to public opinion.
These conditions only will permit a dictatorial, not despotic,
government, constantly fiscalized by public opinion, not only desiring,
but even seeking, the manifestation of that opinion.
If at the present moment that opinion is in active operation, if it has
every day occasion to pronounce itself in regard to the acts of the
Government, it would seem there should be no great anxiety to consult
the urns. Gentlemen, consider for a moment that the urns should decide
against the Republic. And yet the Republic has been established.
One of the defects of the elective system is just this, that each citizen
supposes that by carrying his vote to the urn he has given all due
manifestation of his opinion, and that he should no longer take any
share in fiscalizing the march of public affairs. * * * I should not
have taken the position I assume as coworker in the Government if I were
not sure that my country is now in special circumstances to be adapted
to a special regimen, to be not the imitation of defects and errors
found in other countries, but a kind of governmental model. * * * Very
well, then, if we wish to constitute the Republic we must find support
in a truly organic doctrine, to respect and consult the real conditions
of existence and improvement of society according to the revelation of
that philosophy to which the representatives of the army and navy
alluded.
My place is to treat of religions liberty. And I shall not hesitate for
one instant in demanding of the Government, as an immediate measure, the
separation of the church from the state, because this opinion is
universal throughout the nation, because this is already, we may say,
the law of the land though it has not yet entered into our code, which
is an artificial order. We must cause this anomaly to disappear,
[Page 18]
placing our written law in accord with the natural order of society. I
shall always rejoice to see the priests of our faith employ all their
activity in getting proselytes. If the Catholic faith have in our
country sincere and devoted representatives, it is their duty to
propagate their doctrine without the material aid of force, without the
actual support of the state. * * * My motto in the administration may he
expressed in two words: The strictest honesty, and the most complete
publicity. * * *. The Republic is the rule of the public good; the
public good is prepared by society itself, the principal part of which
is formed by the enormous mass of laborers who produce the principal
element of production for the formation of the public wealth. * * * It
is the laboring class that shall receive special attention from the
Government. * * *
[Inclosure 2 in No.
30.—Translation.]
Decree banishing certain citizens.
The Provisional Government considering that the maintaining of order and
of peace in the Republic is the principal duty of the Government and
constitutes a social interest superior to all conveniences, whether of a
political order or personal; that by positive acts and public
manifestations, inimical to the national character and detrimental to
order established by the public opinion of the nation, certain persons
have attempted to foment within Brazil and abroad the discredit of the
mother country by means of agitation which might bring disturbance of
the public peace by throwing the firebrand of civil war in the country;
that, however disagreeable may be the necessity of having recourse to
measures of rigor, from which result limitations to the principles of
individual liberty, the superior interests of the nation can not be made
subordinate to the individual interests of the enemies of the nation, it
is hereby decreed:
- Article I. The citizens Alfonso
Celso de Assis Figueiredo, called Viscount de Ouro Preto, and
Carlos Affonso de Assis Figueiredo are hereby banished from the
national territory.
- Article II. The citizen Gaspar da
Silveira Martins is ordered to leave the national territory and
take up his residence in one of the countries of Europe.
By the Provisional Government.
[Inclosure 3 in No.
30.—Translation.]
Decree ordering military trials.
Marechal Manoel Deodora da Fonseca, chief of the Provisional Government
constituted by the army and navy in the name of the nation,
considering:
That the entire nation, through all its organs of opinion expressed
openly by all ranks and social classes, has adhered frankly to the
Republic, the work of the revolution of November 15 last;
That this general incorporation of all opinions in adhering to the
Republican form of government creates for the Provisional Government new
duties, making it the depository of this situation and obliging it as
such to defend it with the greatest energy against all attempts or
threats until its final delivery intact into the keeping of the
constituent assembly convoked for the adoption of the future
constitution of the United States of Brazil;
That the meeting of the constituent assembly having been marked for the
near future, nearly all the liberal reforms having been already decreed
whose delay caused the revolution, and others being almost ready for
promulgation, the Provisional Government has given every possible proof
of fidelity to its promises made to the people of Brazil, who on their
part do not cease from showing their unbounded confidence;
That, under such circumstances, the greatest of all the duties imposed on
the Government is absolute firmness and the most inexorable severity in
the measures necessary for the preservation of peace and in the
maintaining of all interests founded on the security of propriety;
That, all possibilities of any restoration of the old order of things
being eliminated, and there being no other alternative than the Republic
or anarchy, any attempt against the security of the actual situation
would be simply an act of disorder, destined to explore the fear of the
people;
That, on the part of the Government, it would be stupid cowardice and
treason to allow the good name of the Republic to be at the mercy of the
ignoble sentiments of
[Page 19]
the dregs
of society employed in spreading the seeds of discontent and corruption
in the minds of Brazilian soldiers always generous, disinterested,
disciplined, and liberal;
That the perversity of such proceedings has no parallel, but in the
horror of incalculable misfortunes necessarily connected with the
triumph of disorder, decrees:
- Article I. All individuals who
conspire against the Republic and its Government; those who
counsel or promote, by words, writing or acts, civil revolt or
military indiscipline; those that attempt bribery, or allurement
of any kind of soldiers or officers from their superiors or from
the republican form of Government; those that spread amongst the
soldiers of the army and navy false and subversive notions
tending to indispose them against the Republic; those who make
soldiers drunk, in order to make them disobedient, shall be
judged by a military commission, nominated by the minister of
war, and shall be punished with the penalties of
sedition.
- Art. II. All provisions to the
contrary are hereby revoked.
Done in the hall of the Provisional
Government of the Republic of the United States of
Brazil, on the
23d of December, 1889, first year of the
Republic.
- Marechal Manoel Deodora do
Fonseca,
Chief of the
Provisional Government. - Benjamin Constant Botelho de
Magelhaes.
- M. Ferraz de Campos
Salles.
- Edward Wandenkolk.
- Demetrio Nunes Ribeiro.
- Ruy Barbosa.
- Quintino Bocayura.
- Aristides da Silveira
Lobo.
[Inclosure 4 in No.
30.—Translation.]
Decree revoking the grant made to the
Emperor.
Marechal Manoel Deodoro da Fonseca, chief of the Provisional Government,
constituted by the army and navy in the name of the nation, considering
that:
Whereas, D. Pedro de Alcantara, after accepting and thanking the
Government for the settlement of 5,000 contos of
reis for establishing his residence in
Europe, at the time when he received the decree in reference to this
subject from the hands of the general who presented it to him, has now
changed his deliberation declaring that he refuses this liberal offer;
and,
That, repelling this act of the republican Government, D. Pedro de
Alcantara pretends at the same time to continue to receive the annual
endowment to himself and to his family in virtue of the right which he
presumes to subsist through force of law;
That this distinction involves evidently the denial of the legitimacy of
the national movement and the idea of revendication absolutely
incompatible with the national will, expressed throughout all the former
provinces, now states, and with the interests of the Brazilian people
now indissolubly bound to the stability of the republican regimen;
That the cessation of the right of the former imperial family to the
civil list is the immediate consequence of the national revolution which
deposed him abolishing monarchy;
That the procedure of the Provisional Government, maintaining, in spite
of this, the advantages allowed to the fallen prince, was simply a
measure of republican benevolence, intended to prove the peaceful and
conciliatory desires of the new regimen, and at the same a retrospective
homage to the dignity which the ex-Emperor had held as chief of the
State;
That the attitude at present assumed by D. Pedro de Alcantara on this
subject, presupposing the survival of rights extinguished by the
revolution, contains the idea of crushing the Republic and otherwise
encourages hopes that are not to be reconciled with a republican
regimen;
That in consequence the reasons of state and of public order which bad
inspired the Provisional Government, granting to D. Pedro de Alcantara
the subsidy of 5,000 contos of reis and respecting temporarily his annual dotation;
It is hereby decreed:
- Article I. D. Pedro de Alcantara and
his family are banished from the territory of Brazil.
- Art. II. The imperial family is not
allowed to possess real estate in Brazil; they shall liquidate
within two years all property of this kind held by them.
- Art. III. Decree of 16th November,
1889, granting to D. Pedro de Alcantara 5,000,000$000 as
subsidiary expenses for his settlement in Europe is
revoked.
- Art. IV. All endowments to D. Pedro
de Alcantara and to his family are hereby considered as revoked
from the 15th of November past.
- Art. V. All provisions to the
contrary are hereby revoked.
- Manoel Deodoro da
Fonseca.
- Ruy Barbosa.
- Quintino Bocayura.
- Manoel Ferraz de Campos
Salles.
- Aristides da Silveira
Lobo.
- Demetrio Nunes Ribeiro.
- Eduardo Wandenkolk.
- Benjamin Constant Botelho
Magelhaes.
