Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos
This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2016) |
Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos | |
---|---|
Minister of Justice | |
In office 19 September 1837 – 16 April 1839 | |
Preceded by | Francisco de Montezuma |
Succeeded by | Francisco de Paula |
Personal details | |
Born | Vila Rica, Minas Gerais, Brazil (Portuguese colony) | 27 August 1795
Died | 1 May 1850 Rio de Janeiro, Empire of Brazil | (aged 54)
Political party | Liberal Party |
Occupation | Politician |
Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos (Vila Rica, 27 August 1795 - Rio de Janeiro, 1 May 1850) was a Brazilian politician, journalist, judge and law expert of the Imperial era.
He is considered one of the most important political personalities of the imperial period, below only
Political career
Vasconcelos begun his public service in 1825, as a member of the Government Council of the Province of Minas Gerais. Diamonds and the Doce river were two subjects of interest at the time, and he bravely fought the concession to the Diamond Company, prompting the council to represent the Emperor on his inconvenience, and the decree of May 6, 1825 approving the grant of the Doce River Agriculture, Commerce, Mining and Navigation Society, freely given to the British (defended by the Marquis of Baependi) when the river had long been navigable and the major obstacle to trade came not from waterfalls but from Botocudo Indians.
In 1825 also began his collaboration as main editor of the newspaper O Universal, published in Vila Rica (Ouro Preto). Thus, for 25 years, a man of precarious health, he kept uninterrupted work in drafting laws and codes, from the discussions in the provincial House of Representatives, until his unforeseen end. As soon as the Lower House was closed down, returned to Minas and took part in the works of the Government Council of the Province and later in the Provincial Assembly. In order to be able to go to court in March 1826, he sold a farmhouse.
He was a deputy in the first
On August 7, 1826, he authored the project that created the
The constitutional Monarchy, then the preferred form of government of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, constituted the ideal of Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos. He was always guided by an English liberalism with a sincere liberal, without ever being an ideologue (attached to only theoretical constructions). The monarchist principle seemed to him the agglutinative element par excellence of a country shaken by internal struggles and threatened with secession. There are those who claim to be the key to all their attitudes in the phrase - "Why should we question what is best to do, if the tightness of our current circumstances only allows us to ask what can be done?"
José Pedro Xavier da Veiga, in Ephemerides Mineiras, says: "Practical and positive spirit until insensitivity, he recommended to social problems solutions according to the tangible interest of the State, although high principles of a moral order perished." Therefore, the coming of slaves Negroes to Brazil seemed to him an imperious necessity of civilization and the development of the country.
In 1826,
He died in May, 1850, of yellow fever.[1]
References
- S2CID 144094254.