The Saraiva Law (1881): On the arguments invoked by liberals to exclude illiterates from the right to vote

Abstract

The text discusses the arguments invoked by liberals to exclude illiterates from the right to vote in the debates that took place in parliament during the discussion of the Sinimbu and Saraiva bills on electoral reform to introduce direct voting in the Brazilian Empire. This reform was substantiated in the Saraiva Law of January 9, 1881. The article is part of a set of studies whose sources are the Proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, available on the Internet, concerning the period from December 1878 to January 1881. In the part that is of interest here, the survey revealed how, suddenly, illiteracy, which was the status of over 80% of the Brazilian population according to the 1872 census, began to mean blindness, ignorance, dependence, incapacity and even dangerousness. Indeed, it became a stigma, invoked to disqualify and keep the large illiterate mass from voting. This occurred through the voice and vote of a massively liberal representation and in the name of the principles of liberalism. Of course, this was the liberalism possible in a nation dominated by a predominantly agrarian elite made up of large landowners who were still stubborn slave owners.