Talk:Liberal Revolution of 1820

Liberal Revolution?
Pardon my ignorance, but why is this referred to as the Liberal Revolution? It does not seem liberal, as it involves revoking Brazil's rights and the return of an aristocrat. If doesn't strike me as a revolution either...demanding the return of the existing king doesn't really seem fitting for the standard definition of revolution as an overthrowing of the old system. Based on the article thus far, it sounds like the event was more an angry mob than a revolution.

But again, I know next to nothing about this part of Portuguese history, so I may be mistaken. 24.65.79.139 (talk) 01:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The translation from the Portuguese equivalent of the article should answer your questions. Early 19th-century Iberian liberalism is marked by a sense of compromise to avoid what it saw as the excesses (not to mention the horrors) of French-Revolutionary style liberalism. The Revolution was lead by middle-class types, not aristocrats; although yes, they are asking a king to return. The king, however much he was against the changes, was tightly controlled by a constitution—think Great Britain today—and power truly rested in the people (I'm unclear as to the extent of the franchise under the Port. Const., but it can't be any less than what existed in other const. of the period) and its representative the Cortes (parliament). Now, that said, liberals can be imperialists, too! I'm sure you can think of many such examples. The Portuguese middle class sought to restore the markets it had before the Napoleonic Wars, but this could only come at the expense of Brazilian freedoms. So yes, it was a bundle of contradiction waiting to undo itself, but this does not make it any less liberal, nor any less a revolution in politics. The fight between liberals and conservatives, just like in neighboring Spain and France, won't be resolved for the next several decades and will mark the instability these nations experienced in the 19th century.TriniMuñoz (talk) 21:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Change name
The liberal revolution of 1820 or revolution of 1820 is more than the revolution in Portugal. You can see in spanish wikipedia es:Revolución de 1820. It was the first of the three revolutionary cycles of the first half of XIX century in Europe (revolution of 1820, revolution of 1830 and revolution of 1848). The name of this article must be changed (into Portuguese revolution of 1820 or Liberal Revolution of Porto or another), and a new article (with the title revolution of 1820 -it's a redirection to an article of spanish matter very bad named- or the actual one) must be created for the general case. Sorry for my bad english.--Ángel Luis Alfaro (talk) 14:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)