Publicism and conservative politics of Brazil in the XIX century

Abstract This article focuses on the political uses of the Law, more specifically on the way that fractions of the Brazilian imperial elite mobilized discourses. The main goal of this approach is to discuss the mobilization of legal knowledge in the context of the conflicts engendered in the 19th century about the definition of a model of State in Brazil, through socio-historical methodology. This research shows the uses of publicism , as well as the invention of constitutionalism, as strategies in the political game, which correspond to the rivalry between elites in the process of construction and legitimation of a regime with monarchical features and centralized.