Manuel da Silva Passos

Manuel da Silva Passos (born January 5, 1801 in Bouças (Matosinhos) , † January 16, 1862 in Santarém ) was a lawyer and politician from Porto . He was an important leader of the Setembrists and several times a minister in various Portuguese governments. As such, he initiated a number of crucial reforms in Portugal .

Life

Manuel Passos

Manuel da Silva Passos studied law at the University of Coimbra and practiced as a lawyer in Porto, where Setembrism had its greatest support. He was elected as a member of the Portuguese parliament, the Cortes , from Porto , where he quickly attained the stature of an opposition leader during the cartistic governments of 1834 to 1836.

In 1836 the so-called September Revolution took place in Lisbon . The cartistic government of the Duke of Terceira had the parliament dissolved and new elections called. The Cartists won - probably because of electoral fraud - only in Porto and Viseu were Setembrist MPs elected, including Manuel Passos in Porto . The election result, however, probably did not reflect the true mood of the people, because when the Setembrist MPs from Porto with Passos at their head arrived in Lisbon on September 9, 1836 (the new Cortes were to open on September 11), they were taken over by received enthusiastically by the population. The National Guard then put on a coup against the Terceira government, submitted to the Setembrists and proclaimed the reintroduction of the constitution of 1822. Terceira sent troops against the rebels, but these fraternized with the National Guard. When Queen Maria II saw that it was not possible to suppress the uprising, she decided with a heavy heart to appoint a Setembrist government, in which Passos entered as "minister of the kingdom" ( ministro do reino) . In particular, Passos reformed the country's school system, and he founded famous institutions such as the Academy of Fine Arts and the National Theater.

After an attempted coup by the Queen and the Cartists allied with her failed (the so-called Belenzada , named after the Royal Palace of Belém , a suburb of Lisbon, where the Queen and her Cartist conspirators had holed up), the Margrave of Sá finally became da Bandeira , another important leader of the Setembrists, head of government. Manuel Passos continued to play a prominent role in the government as finance and justice minister. During this time, he laid the foundations for the Portuguese tax system, which has remained unchanged to this day, and, together with his older brother José, developed a modern administrative procedure law ( código administrativo ).

Through his courageous reforms, some of which were far ahead of his time, Manuel Passos had made many opponents even among the Setembrists. These used the constituent Cortes, who met from 1837, as a podium against Passos . He gave up and, tired of political intrigues and intrigues, looked for an excuse to withdraw from active politics. He found this when the constituent assembly rejected the creation of the posts of state secretaries previously proposed by Passos . Passos then submitted his resignation on May 10, 1837, which the Queen, whom he was personally unsympathetic, accepted only too gladly. He then sat as senator in the second chamber of parliament until the Cartish takeover of power in 1842 by the coup of the Margrave of Tomar , but no longer played a special role in Portuguese politics. The Setembrist movement lost one of its outstanding and charismatic leaders.

See also: History of Portugal , Timeline of Portugal