reform abuses introduced into it. 7. To select a new dynasty in case of the extinction of the present one. 8. To make laws, to interpret them, and to suspend them. 9. To watch over the constitution, and to promote the general good. 10. To fix annually the public charges, and to assess the direct contribution. 11. To fix annually, on the report of the government, the ordinary and extraordinary forces by sea and land. 12. To grant or to refuse an entrance to foreign troops, by sea or land, within the empire or its ports. 13. To authorize the government to contract loans. To establish convenient means for

14.

Power.

Chapter I-Of the branches of the Legislative Power, and their separate jurisdiction.

Art. 13. The legislative power is delegated to the general assembly with the sanction of the Emperor.

Art. 14. The general assembly is composed of two chambers-the chamber of deputies, and the chamber of senators or senate.

Art. 15. It belongs to the general assembly-1. To take the oath of the Emperor, the Imperial Prince, the Regent or Regency. 2. To elect the Regent or Regency, and to mark the limits of its authority. 3. To recognize the Imperial Prince as successor to the throne, in the first meeting after his birth. 4. To nominate a tutor to the Emperor when a minor, in case his father shall not have nominated one in his testament. 5. To resolve the doubts that may arise relative to the succession to the throne. 6. On the death of the Emperor, or a vacancy of the throne, to institute an inquiry into the administration which has concluded, and to

15. To regulate the administration of the national domains, and to decree their alienation. 16. To create or suppress public employments, and to establish those that are ordered. 17. To determine the weight, value, inscription, type, and denomination of money, as well as to regulate weights and measures.

Art. 16. Each legislature shall last four years, and every session four months.

Art. 17. Each of the chambers shall have the title of "the August and most worthy representatives of the nation."

Art. 18. The Imperial session of opening will every year be the 3rd of May.

Art. 19. The session of prorogation shall likewise be imperial, and both shall take place in general assembly, the two chambers being united.

Art. 20. The ceremonial, and the manner in which the Emperor shall take part in the business, shall be settled by an interior regu❤ lation.

Art. 21. The nomination of the

respective presidents, vice presidents, and secretaries of the chamber, the verification of the powers of its members, the form of the oath, and the internal police, shall be executed according to regulations to be enacted.

Art. 22. In the meeting of the two chambers, the president of the senate shall preside; the deputies and senators shall occupy places promiscuously.

Art. 23. To constitute a chamber at the commencement of a session, it will be necessary that the half of the members, and one more should have assembled.

Art. 24. The sittings of both chambers shall be public, with the exception of cases where the public good shall require secret sittings.

Art. 25. Business shall be decided by a plurality of votes of the members present.

Art. 26. The members of each of the Chambers are inviolable on

account of the opinions which they

shall utter in the exercise of their functions.

Art. 27. No senator or deputy, during his deputation, can be arrested by any authority, except by order of his respective chamber, unless in flagrante delicto of a capital crime.

Art. 28. If any senator or deputy be denounced, the judge, suspending every ulterior proceeding, shall give an account to his respective chamber, which shall decide whether the proceeding is to go on, and whether the member shall be suspended in the exercise of his functions.

Art. 29. Senators or deputies may be elected Ministers, or Councillors of State, with this difference; that the senator may continue in his chamber, while the deputy must be sent to a new election.

Art. 30. They may enjoy the two offices, if they exercised one of them at the moment of election.

Art. 31. No person can be at the same time a member of the two chambers.

Art. 32. The exercise of any other function, except that of councillor or minister of state, ceases as long as the functions of the deputy or senator continues.

Art. 33. In the interval of the sessions, the Emperor shall not have it in his power to employ a senator or deputy beyond the empire: nor shall they exercise these employments, when they would render it impossible to attend on the convocation of the chambers.

Art. 34. If the good of the State should render in any unforeseen case a breach of this rule necessary, the respective

chamber shall determine on that necessity.

Chapter II.-Of the Chamber of Deputies.

Art. 35. The Chamber of Depu ties is elective and temporary.

Art. 36. The Chamber of Deputies has the initiative-1. On taxes. 2. On recruiting. 3. On the choice of a dynasty, in case of the extinction of the reigning family.

Art. 37. The Chamber of Deputies shall likewise have the initiative in the following cases:-1. An inquiry into the past administration, and the reform of abuses introduced into it. 2. The discussion of propositions made by the Executive power.

Art. 38. They shall likewise decree the impeachment of ministers.

Art. 39. The deputies shall enjoy during the session a pecuniary subsidy, besides receiving the expenses of their journey to and from the chamber.

Chapter III. Of the Senate. Art. 40. The senate is composed of members elected for life, and will be organized by a provincial election.

Art. 41. Every province shall elect a number of senators equal to half its deputies, if the number of deputies be an even one-if not, a number less than the half by one. Thus a province which sends 11 deputies shall only elect five

senators.

Art. 42. But if a province has only one deputy, it shall nevertheless have a senator.

Art. 43. The elections shall take place in the same way as for the deputies, but in triple lists, and the Emperor shall choose the third part of the whole list.

Art. 44. Vacancies shall be filled up in the same way as a first election.

Art. 45. To be a senator it is required.-1. That he be a Brazilian citizen, and enjoy political rights.-2. That he be 40, or upwards.-3. That he be a person of knowledge, capacity, and virtue, giving a preference to those who have performed services to their country.-4. That he enjoy an income from land, industry, or commerce, of 800 milreas.

Art. 46. The princes of the Imperial House, are of right, members of the senate, and take their seat as soon as they are 25 years

of age.

Art. 47. It is the exclusive privilege of the Senate.-1. To take cognizance of the individual offences committed by the royal family, the ministers, and the councillors of state, and the senators; and the offences of the deputies during the period of the legislative session.-2. To enforce the responsibility of the secretaries and

councillors of state.3. To expedite letters for the convocation of the assembly, in case the Emperor has not done SO two months after the time prescribed by the constitution.-4. To convoke the assembly on the death of the Emperor, for the election of a regency, when necessary.

Art. 48. In proceeding against crimes, the impeachment of which does not belong to the Chamber of Deputies, the procureur of the Crown shall be the accuser.

Art. 49. The sessions of the senate shall commence and finish at the same time as those of the Chamber of Deputies.

Art. 50. With the exception of the cases ordered by the constitution, every meeting of the Senate beyond the time of the sittings of the Chamber of Deputies is illicit and of no effect.

Art. 51. The salary of the senators shall be one half more than that of the deputies. Chapter IV.Of the Proposition, Discussion, Sanction, and Promulgation of Laws.

Art. 52. The proposing, the opposing, and the approving of projects of laws, are within the power of each of the chambers.

Art. 53. The Executive power exercises, through any of the ministers of state, the proposition of laws; but these propositions can only be converted into projects of law after an examination by a commission of the chamber.

Art. 54. Ministers may assist and discuss propositions, but are not allowed to vote, unless they be members of the chamber.

[Art. 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, and 70, relate merely to the mode of proceeding with respect to bills in the two chambers, and the rules

which regulate the communications between them.]

Chapter V. Of the Councils General of the Provinces and their Jurisdiction.

Art. 71. The constitution recognizes and guarantees the right of every citizen to take a manage ment in the affairs of his province, which may have a relation to his individual interests.

Art. 72. This right will be exercised by chambers of districts, and councils called "councils general of the provinces."

Art. 73. Each of these councils shall consist of 21 members, in the most populous provinces.

[The other articles of this chapter, namely, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, and 89, regulate the composition, business, and mode of proceeding of those councils; matters, which do not seem to come within the range of a fundamental or constitutional act.]

Chapter VI.-Of the Elections.

Art. 90. The nomination of the deputies and senators for the general assembly, and of the councils general of the provinces shall take place by indirect elections, the mass of active citizens electing in parochial assemblies the electors of provinces, and the latter choosing the representatives of the nation and the province.

Art. 91 and 92. All Brazilian citizens have a vote in the parochial assemblies, with the exception of minors, military officers, priests, monks, servants, and a description of persons that may be called paupers.

Art. 98. Those who cannot vote in the parochial assemblies, cannot be members of, or vote for any authority.

Art. 94. Fixes the qualification of a provincial elector at 200 milreas, arising from land, indus try, or commerce.

Art. 95. Freemen cannot vote at provincial elections.

Art. 96. To be eligible to the Chamber of Deputies a qualification of 400 milreas of nett annual income is required. Naturalized foreigners and persons not professing the religion of the state, are excluded.

TITLE V. Of the Executive
Power.

Art. 100. The title of the emperor shall be that of "Constitutional Emperor, and Perpetual De fender of Brazil;" he shall be addressed by the style of " Imperial Majesty."

Art. 101. The Emperor exer cises the moderating power.-1. By nominating the senators as prescribed in article 43. 2. By convoking the extraordinary general assembly in the interval between the sessions. 3. By sanctioning the decrees of this assembly to give them the force of law. 4. By proroguing the general assembly, and dissolving the Chamber of Deputies, in cases in which the safety of 5. By the state shall require it. nominating his ministers. 6. By suspending magistrates. 7 and 8. By pardoning and granting amnesties. Chapter II.

Of the Executive Power.

Art. 102. The Emperor is the chief executive power, which he exercises through his ministers of state. The following are its principal attributions.-1. He convokes the general assembly. 2. He no minates bishops, magistrates, commanders by sea and land, and am

bassadors. He forms alliances and enters into political foreign negotiations, He declares war and makes peace. He gives letters of naturalization, &c. &c.

Art. 103. The emperor, before being proclaimed, shall take before the president of the senate the following oath" I swear to maintain the Roman Catholic religion, the integrity and indivisibility of the empire, to observe, and to cause to be observed, the political constitution of the Brazilian nation, and the laws of the empire: and to provide for the welfare of Brazil as far as in me lies."

Art. 104. The emperor cannot go out of Brazil without the consent of the general assembly; and if he does so, he is considered as abdicating the Crown.

Chapter III. Of the Imperial

Family and its Income.

[Under this head the articles from 105 to 115, are unimportant; they regard income or dotation, and refer merely to future regulations.]

Chapter. IV. Of the Imperial Succession.

Art. 116. The Senhor Don Pedro I., by the unanimous acclamation of the people, now constitutional emperor and perpetual defender, shall always reign in

Brazil.

Art. 117. His legitimate posterity shall succeed to the throne according to the regular order of primogeniture and representation, the anterior line being always preferred to the posterior; in the same line, the nearest degree to the more remote; in the same degree the masculine sex to the feminine; and in the same sex, the person more aged to the younger. VOL. LXV.

Art. 118. In the case of the lines of the legitimate descendants of Don Pedro I. becoming extinct, the general assembly shall, during the life of the last descendant, elect a new dynasty.

Art. 119. No foreigner can succeed to the imperial crown of Brazil.

Art. 120. The marriage of the princess, presumptive heir of the crown, shall take place with the emperor's approbation. In case there should be no emperor at the time when such marriage is proposed, it cannot be concluded without the approbation of the general assembly. Her husband can take no part in the government, and is not to be called emperor, until he have a son or daughter by the empress.

Chapter V.-Of the Regency during the Minority or Unfitness of the Emperor.

Art. 121. The emperor is a minor until the age of 18.

Art. 122. During a minority the empire shall be governed by a regency, to which shall belong the relative nearest of kin to the emperor, who shall be aged more than 25 years.

Art. 123. If there be no relative of the emperor qualified, the general assembly shall appoint a permanent regency, consisting of three members, the oldest of whom shall be president.

Art. 124. Until the permanent regency be appointed, the empire shall be governed by a provisional regency, composed of two ministers of state and of justice, and of the two oldest councillors of state, presided by the empress dowager; and, failing her, by the oldest councillor of state.

Art. 125. [The object of this
M*