page_title: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná
section_title: First presidency of the Council of Ministers
hierarchical_section_title: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná / Rise to power and fall / First presidency of the Council of Ministers
caption_attribution_description: Português: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, o Marquês de Paraná.
context_page_description: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná was a politician, diplomat, judge and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Paraná was born to a family of humble means in São Carlos do Jacuí, in what was then the captaincy of Minas Gerais. After attending the University of Coimbra in Portugal and having returned to Brazil, Paraná was appointed a judge in 1826 and later elevated to appellate court justice. In 1830, he was elected to represent Minas Gerais in the Chamber of Deputies; he was re-elected in 1834 and 1838, and held the post until 1841.
  In the aftermath of Dom Pedro I's abdication in 1831, a regency created to govern Brazil during the minority of the former Emperor's son, Dom Pedro II, soon dissolved into chaos. Paraná formed a political party in 1837 that became known as the Reactionary Party, which evolved into the Party of Order in the early 1840s and in the mid-1850s into the Conservative Party. He and his party's stalwart and unconditional defence of constitutional order allowed the country to move beyond a regency plagued by factious disputes and rebellions that might easily have led to a dictatorship.
context_section_description: Sometime around 1843 (and certainly by 1844), the Reactionary Party was renamed to the Party of Order to distinguish itself from what the Reactionaries perceived as the "unruly" Liberals. Members of the Party of Order became known as saquaremas. The new name also reflected the maturation of principles the party had long advocated: liberalism, exceptionalism, preserving the authority of the state and a representative parliamentary monarchy. On 20 January 1843, Pedro II appointed Honório Hermeto to head a new cabinet. By personally selecting the cabinet members, Honório Hermeto became Brazil's de facto first prime minister. Prior to this time, the Emperor himself or the regents had always designated the cabinet ministers. Four years later, following Honório Hermeto's precedent, the office of prime minister would be formally instituted under the title of "president (prime minister) of the Council of Ministers".
  A year later, in January 1844, Honório Hermeto requested that Pedro II dismiss the inspector of the Rio de Janeiro customs house, Saturnino de Sousa e Oliveira Coutinho, a younger brother of Aureliano Coutinho. Honório Hermeto had been in the same university class as Aureliano Coutinho and Saturnino Coutinho in Coimbra during the 1820s. However, his strained relationship with Aureliano Coutinho was not entirely the result of political rivalry between two ambitious men. Honório Hermeto nursed a sheer hatred toward him because of the role he had played both in the July 1832 coup and in the Majority movement. Honório Hermeto again pressed to have Saturnino Coutinho fired in late January, and when rebuffed yet again, said, "A boy does not have the right to mock men worn out in the service of the Nation, even if this boy is the Emperor." Pedro II was offended and steadfastly refused to dismiss Saturnino Coutinho.
  Instead of accepting the Emperor's decision, Honório Hermeto offered his resignation, along with those of his colleagues. Astonished by his behavior, the Emperor would say years later when recalling the incident: "Paraná não se curvava!" ("[Honório Hermeto, the Marquis of] Paraná did not bow down!") Pedro II asked the Liberals to form a new cabinet. For most of the next five years, Honório Hermeto and his Party of Order stood in opposition to the Liberals and the Courtier Faction. For the saquaremas, it meant enduring "new elections, fixed results, partisan reprisals and policy shifts". Only a few saquaremas managed to get themselves elected to the Chamber during this period. All the blame for this disaster fell upon Honório Hermeto. He lost much of his influence within the party, even though Vasconcelos alone in the Party of Order possessed the qualifications to challenge Honório Hermeto as the party's elder statesman.
caption: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão at age 42, 1843
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