Judge and Jury in Imperial Brazil, 18081871

In nineteenth-century Brazil the power of the courts rivaled that of the central government, bringing to it during its first half century of independence a stability unique in Latin America. Thomas Flory analyzes the Brazilian lower-court system, where the private interests of society and the public interests of the state intersected. Justices of the peacelay judges elected at the parish levelplayed a special role in the early years of independence, for the post represented the triumph of Brazilian liberalisms commitment to localism and decentralization. However, as Flory shows by tracing the social history and performance of parish judges, the institution actually intensified conflict within parishes to the point of destabilizing the local regime and proved to be so independent of national interests that it all but destroyed the state. By the 1840s the powers of the office were passed to state appointees, particularly the district judges. Flory recognizes these professional magistrates as a new elite who served as brokers between the state and the poorly articulated landowner elite, and his account of their rise reveals the mechanisms of state integration. In focusing on the judiciary, Flory has isolated a crucial aspect of Brazils early history, one with broad implications for the study of nineteenth-century Latin America as a whole. He combines social, intellectual, and political perspectivesas well as national-level discussion with scrutiny of parish-level implementationand so makes sense of a complicated, little-studied period. The study clearly shows the progression of Brazilian social thought from a serene liberal faith in the people as a nation to an abiding, very modern distrust of that nation as a threat to the state.