The Brazilian republic is not a spiritual offspring of the republics born of the French or American revolutions, even though the Brazilian regime will attempt to associate itself with both.

The republic does not have enough popular support to risk open elections.

It is a regime born of a coup d'etat that maintains itself by force.

The republicans make Deodoro president (1889-91) and, after a financial crisis, appoint Field Marshal Floriano Vieira Peixoto minister of war to ensure the allegiance of the military.

Indeed, the Brazilian people are bystanders to the events shaping their history.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the United States, much of Europe, and neighboring Argentina expand the right to vote.

Brazil, however, moves to restrict access to the polls.

In 1874, in a population of about ten million, the franchise had been held by about one million, but in 1881 this had been cut to 145,296.

This reduction was one reason the empire's legitimacy had foundered, but the republic does not move to correct the situation.

By 1910 there will be only 627,000 voters in a population of twenty-two million.

Throughout the 1920s, only between 2.3 percent and 3.4 percent of the total population will vote.