CONSTITUTION OF BRAZIL. 285 



Government and Administration. 



In accordance with the stereotyped formulas of modern constitutions, 

 all Brazilians are recognised as equal before the law. The right of association, 

 full freedom of speech, and of the press, are also recognised, excej)t in the case 

 of anonymous publications. Letters passing through the post are inviolable 

 and all professions are open to all citizens. The Republic ignores the old 

 privileges of nobility, suppresses all oiders and honours instituted by the 

 monarchy, and abolishes all aristocratic distinctions. Yet in few countries are 

 barons, viscounts, and marquises more plentiful, not to speak of councillors and 

 doctors. The old régime lavished honours on staunch supporters, and, as is said, 

 still more on reconcilable opponents ; and, since the fall of the empire, both 

 classes have preserved, if not their allegiance to the exiled princes, at least the 

 high-sounding titles which they owed to the imperial favour. 



Besides all natives, citizenship is extended to all the children of Brazilians, 

 to the illegitimate children of Brazilian mothers born abroad on taking domicile 

 in the Republic ; moreover, to foreigners owning land in the country, or marrying 

 Brazilian wives, or having children in Brazil, unless they formally declare 

 themselves of another nationality. 



One of the first acts of the revolution was to extend citizenship to all children 

 of foreign residents who for the space of six months should omit to claim their 

 original nationality in distinct terms. Thus was solved the question affecting 

 immigrants, which had been for so many years a bone of contention between 

 political parties. Nothing, in fact, could be more unreasonable and inconsistent 

 than the treatment of foreign settlers since the middle of the century. They were 

 urgently invited to come over ; they received a free passage, allotments of land, 

 at times even advances in money and live-stock ; but they were denied citizenship, 

 and treated almost as outcasts. Before 1863 marriage was interdicted to them, 

 and in 1881, not one had yet obtained a seat in the provincial assemblies, not even 

 in that of Bio Grande do- Sul, whose trade and industries they controlled. 



The electorate, both for the several States and for the Republic, comprises 

 all citizens twenty-one years old who are not mendicants, illiterate, or engaged 

 in pursuits incompatible with freedom of opinion. Thus are excluded all 

 soldiers, except the military students in the higher schools, and all members 

 of religious communities bound by the vow of obedience. All pleading religious 

 scruples as a ground of exemption from the discharge of duties imposed by law 

 on other citizens declare themselves ipso Jado barred from civic rights. 



Despite the primary importance attached by the constitution to the exercise 

 of the suffrage, official source of all public authority, the privilege appears to be 

 little appreciated, and absence from the voting booths is almost universal. Even 

 in the capital nearly 100,000 electors have been known to abstain from voting. 



When the Federal Republic was proclaimed, the nation was not consulted as to 

 the political groups which should constitute the federation. The names of the 

 administrative divisions under the empire were merely changed; and from "pro- 



