Of all the Hispanic nations, however, Brazil was easily the most stable. Here the leaders, while clinging to independence, strove to avoid dangerous innovations in government. Rather than create a political system for which the country was not prepared, they established a constitutional monarchy. But Brazil itself was too vast and its interior too difficult of access to allow it to become all at once a unit, either in organization or in spirit.
The idea of national solidarity had as yet made scant progress.
The old rivalry which existed between the provinces of the north, dominated by Bahia or Pernambuco, and those of the south, controlled by Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, still made itself felt. What the Empire amounted to, therefore, was an agglomeration of provinces, held together by the personal prestige of a young monarch.
Since the mother country still held parts of northern Brazil, the Emperor entrusted the energetic Cochrane, who had performed such valiant service for Chile and Peru, with the task of expelling the foreign soldiery. When this had been accomplished and a republican outbreak in the same region had been suppressed, the more difficult task of satisfying all parties by a constitution had to be undertaken. There were partisans of monarchy and advocates of republicanism, men of conservative and of liberal sympathies; disagreements, also, between the Brazilians and the native Portuguese residents were frequent. So far as possible Pedro desired to meet popular desires, and yet without imposing too many limitations on the monarchy itself. But in the assembly called to draft the constitution the liberal members made a determined effort to introduce republican forms. Pedro thereupon dissolved that body and in 1826 promulgated a constitution of his own.
The popularity of the Emperor thereafter soon began to wane, partly because of the scandalous character of his private life, and partly because he declined to observe constitutional restrictions and chose his ministers at will. His insistent war in Portugal to uphold the claims of his daughter to the throne betrayed, or seemed to betray, dynastic ambitions. His inability to hold Uruguay as a Brazilian province, and his continued retention of foreign soldiers who had been employed in the struggle with the Argentine Confederation, for the apparent purpose of quelling possible insurrections in the future, bred much discontent. So also did the restraints he laid upon the press, which had been infected by the liberal movements in neighboring republics. When he failed to subdue these outbreaks, his rule became all the more discredited. Thereupon, menaced by a dangerous uprising at Rio de Janeiro in 1831, he abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Pedro, then five years of age, and set sail for Portugal.
Under the influence of Great Britain the small European mother country had in 1825 recognized the independence of its big transatlantic dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking to the same action in regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colonial domain. Even then many years elapsed before the mother country acknowledged the independence of them all.
