203 years of Constitution: utopia of guaranteed rights?
This year marks 203 years since the proclamation of the first Portuguese Constitution, which took place in 1822. Also known as the "vintista" Constitution, it was the first comprehensive document guaranteeing individual rights in Portugal—protecting human rights. At the time, it was considered a very advanced Constitution, largely because it was based on an earlier document known as the Bases of the Constitution .
Before the Revolution of 1820, we lived in a time of duties: a duty of vassalage to the king, a duty of obedience to the lord. Rights were almost unheard of, and the time of human rights—or the "era of rights," as Norberto Bobbio called it—was still far off. Nevertheless, there were some who, little by little and in defiance of censorship, began to identify and emphasize the importance of the figure of rights , of sacred Liberty , of an equality that was by nature , rather than inequalities that were by force.
Among others, Francisco Xavier de Oliveira (better known as Cavaleiro de Oliveira), who lived much of his life outside Portugal, in exile, spoke of fraternal bonds of humanity, albeit with the necessary reservations characteristic of an 18th-century Enlightenment: “I am a man by the grace of God: if you are a woman, my nobility is higher than yours. I am Portuguese: if you are a Hottentot, I have no doubt that I can secure a place for you among my fellow citizens. I am poor: if you are rich, there is a formidable gulf between us that will perhaps separate us for all eternity. But it matters little: Whether you are cowardly, ignorant, or proud, or even petty, wise, or magnanimous, you are undoubtedly a mortal creature, and incontestably my fellow man, my brother. In this capacity I regard you; treat me in the same way. May our bond of union be humanity.” ( Recreação Periódica , 1751)
At the end of the 18th century, we learn of another author with similar concerns. This was Luís Caetano de Campos, who anonymously published the fictional narrative entitled "Viagens d'Altina" (1790-1792) – a curious title, reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's other famous work, "Gulliver's Travels" (1726). "Viagens d'Altina" tells the story of the young woman Altina traveling through various real places, but also through a space of uncertain location, the land of the Balinese people, where everything is different from what is known, but clearly being put into practice. The narrative is composed of several other micronarratives. The themes addressed in these stories range from the exposition of agricultural techniques and methods, to brief treatises on physics, with explanations of tidal movements, or the Copernican system and its critique. They also include critical accounts of slavery, or the submission of children to their parents' will when it comes to free choice in their lives. The author emphasizes human freedom, the value of tolerance, the need to treat others humanely, the constant pursuit of each other's well-being, and fair and equitable treatment, in accordance with the sacred "rights of humanity." In this context, Caetano de Campos also repeatedly evokes the equality between men and women. We highlight an eloquent excerpt in which he appeals to the equal rationality of women and their place as half of humanity: "What reasons can you allege, that are not entirely sophistical, for banishing from the order of rationality the entire female sex, which at least forms half of the human race?"
Bocage also spoke extensively about the value of freedom at the dawn of the 19th century, and for it he paid dearly in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The poet from Sado also appeals for due rights in his seminal "Epistle to Marília," where he consistently confronts despotism: "Claim your power, your rights, / Extorted from despotic justice [...]."
1820 would be the year of Revolution, and from then on, the deposed Ancien Régime would give way to a Constitutional Monarchy. A time of duties shifted to a time of rights, the vassal became a citizen, awareness of the slave weighed increasingly heavily, and a just affirmation of the free man was desired.
According to Telmo Verdelho ( As Palavras e as Ideias na Revolução Liberal de 1820 , 1981), it was, in fact, during the Revolution that the enthusiasm for rights became evident: “This word was used a lot during the revolutionary three-year period [1820-1822], especially at the beginning. It was one of the 'magic voices'”.
Indeed, this same enthusiasm for rights was immediately evident in the aforementioned Bases of the Constitution . Despite the unquestionable relevance of the 1822 Constitution as a pioneering text in the Portuguese constitutional framework, its drafting was actually aided by a shorter but clearly important earlier document, conceived during the Constituent Courts: the so-called Bases of the Constitution. In this regard, the Bases of the Constitution (1821) can be considered a fundamental pioneering document for the implementation not only of a liberal era, but especially of a culture of human rights in Portugal, since its text effectively enunciates and guarantees, in embryonic and official form within the Kingdom, for the first time the design of individual rights and the main values that were to be guaranteed from that point onward. These Bases, a provisional document, served as inspiration for the 1822 Constitution, which immediately opened with a prominent chapter dedicated to the "individual rights and duties of the Portuguese." Security, freedom governed by law and the guarantee of rights became the motto of the new times ushered in by the Revolution.
However, these utopian revolutionary times were interrupted by the Counterrevolution, and reality demonstrated that the utopia of rights for all was still a long way off: distinctions of order became class distinctions, because, while not everyone had enough "capital" to be a citizen, others did not have enough to stop being "second-class citizens"; the issue of slavery perpetuated deep-seated distinctions; civic and political rights for women also continued to be a mirage, among other similar challenges regarding rights.
It should be remembered that, not only with the experience of the 1920s, but with other similar historical moments (remember the paradigmatic example of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of 1789), the outcome of these rights was always, resoundingly, more theoretical than practical.
Yesterday as today, in the same way, and despite all the constant efforts made to protect and guarantee human rights, in many places, in Portugal and in the global world in which we live, they are nothing more than a chimera.
However, the historic moment of September 23, 1822, the day of the approval of the first Portuguese Constitution (as well as many other decisive frameworks that followed), helped to develop the debate around this idea dear to today's societies and to take decisive steps in defense of the dignity of the human person; that is, in defense of the full realization of all human beings, without exception, with a view to the common goal, always on the horizon of utopia, of which hope is the driving force and its project a possibility, of Well-Being and Happiness, of Justice and Peace.
It is up to us to remain ever vigilant and caretakers of the rights already guaranteed, so that they do not retreat in the face of the challenges of the globalized world, of inequalities in access to goods, spaces and services essential to a dignified human life, of indifference or even of the growing affront towards the other, a mirror-of-myself.
[The articles in the Portugal 900 Years series are a weekly collaboration of the Historical Society of the Independence of Portugal. The authors' opinions represent their own positions.]
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