Pedro II. came to the throne at a perilous time.  The people were in a state of revolution, while the National Exchequer was practically empty, and the National Bank was bankrupt.  With the abdication of Pedro I. the Ministry and official Service had disappeared.

Yet the crowd that had forced the abdication of Pedro I. drew the new boy Sovereign in triumph through the streets of the city, and, placed in a window of the palace, he watched the great multitude throng past, acclaiming him with immense enthusiasm.  It was soon seen that, in spite of the national upheaval, the mass of the people were fully alive to the necessity for preserving order and preventing licence.  There were riots and disturbances for a time, as was inevitable; but the patriotic, although turbulent, family of the Andradas again came to the front, and suppressed all signs of revolution.  Thus the boy Emperor’s position was secure.

Still, with a country nearly bankrupt, stringent measures were necessary to restore prosperity; official independence and peculation had to be suppressed, and the Regents, who succeeded each other with marked rapidity, had to be watched, while it was necessary at the same time to maintain the executive power.  These exigences led to strenuous scenes in the Assembly, and the succession of Regents became still more rapid.  In this capacity Andrada, Carvalho, Muniz, Feijo, and Lima, succeeded each other, while Ministers and Opposition squabbled and strove together, denouncing each other as the worst of tyrants.

Notwithstanding the confusion, a certain amount of progress was effected.  Abuses were remedied, reforms effected, while the national tendency towards Republicanism strengthened the ultra-Liberal party, to whom the old-time Absolutists allied themselves.  A reactionary party, desirous of seeing the Emperor recalled, came into being, and between these two was the moderate party, composed of the greater part of the population of the country, and represented politically by the Regency and the majority in the legislative chambers.

There was, however, sufficient strength in the Republican and ultra-Liberal party to accomplish revolt in the provinces of such extent as to call for military action in order to suppress it.  Accordingly the provinces became, through the various reforms introduced, self-governing States, and, when the number of Regents had been reduced from three to one, there was little difference between the Constitution of Brazil and that of the United States of America.

The old Emperor, Pedro I., died in Portugal on September 24, 1834, and after that event a strong reaction set in among the Brazilians in favour of the Monarchy.  The democratic party asserted that the Emperor’s sister was, on attaining the age of eighteen, fully capable of exercising the duties of Regent.  Having once granted this, the natural deduction followed that if a girl was fit to rule at eighteen, a boy was fit to rule sooner.  In 1840 the Opposition brought forward a motion to the effect that the Emperor was of age, in spite of the article of the Constitution which declared that the majority of the Sovereign should be the age of eighteen.