Abstract
Abstract The article analyzes the elaboration of the Brazilian civil code of 1916 as part of a broader political project of Republican modernization, focusing on the relation between private law, politics and economics in Brazil at the turn of the 20th century. The basic argument is that the consolidation of the Republican regime during the presidency of Campos Sales (1898–1902) provided the institutional conditions that paved the way for the codification of civil law. From the political perspective, parliamentary debates indicate that the civil code draft quickly turned into an instrument of political bargain and opposition to the president’s authority. From the legal point of view, the paper argues that, contrary to the prevailing view in Brazilian private law scholarship, the code represented a real attempt to break with the old order and create the conditions for a private law system based on equal juridical freedom. Finally, the paper explores the connections between the reform of legal methodology and legislative modernization, pointing both at the normative principles guiding the civil code elaboration and at the opposition it was faced with in Brazilian society.
Published Version
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