Nineteenth-century Brazilians who took an interest in English developments recognized the Reform Bill of 1832 as one of the most important events in British history. Indeed, it had meant a transformation in the texture of British politics and was the result of new patterns in the economic and social fabric of the nation. Napoleon is supposed to have said that England was a nation of shopkeepers; but it was only through the Act of 1832 that the shopkeepers secured political power to match their pre-eminent position in the economy. And throughout the first half of the nineteenth century the British middle class sought to strengthen this newly acquired power by propagating ideas which would clear away the vestiges of the old aristocratic order or protect its position from any threat posed by the lower classes. Nineteenth-century political liberalism served these purposes abundantly. Although intellectuals heaped a growing pile of criticism upon these concepts, the bourgeoisie continued to accept most of them without question at least until the First World War. Their example was not lost on similarly motivated groups in Brazil.

Four ideas of this social class in Britain were to prove most important in Brazil. First, the privileges of special groups or individuals must all be ended as relics of an outworn system. Instead, all members of society, even the sovereign, should be subject to the rule of a uniform law. Second, British industrialists and businessmen placed their faith in results. They believed laws should be formulated for the rational solution of problems even if this were to mean radical departures from past tradition.