The Regency was a moderate government which steered clear of reactionaries and exaltés both, of absolutism and republicanism. Father Feijó, minister of the Regency, became, like many radicals, a conservative; he organised the National Guard, suppressed military meetings and enforced peace in the interior. Subversive movements continued, and the invulnerable minister repressed them. The administration {185} of the country progressed, schools were founded, the Assembly issued wise codes of laws. The Regent, Andrade, imprisoned and deposed, Diego Feijó was elected tutor of the prince in 1835; the old radical politician was now dictator. He represented the moderates as against the revolutionists; in extreme cases he abandoned liberalism for autocracy. As early as 1836 his political autocracy began to decline and the liberal campaign gathered force. Feijó passed over the regency to his friend, Aranjo Lima, and left the Government. This representative of authority in a country which was a prey to anarchy was autocratic by virtue of his patriotism; like all American dictators he stifled revolution in its blood. The liberals of yesterday are often the moderates or conservatives of to-day in monarchical Brazil. Andrade, Feijó, and Pereira de Vasconcellos are examples of this inevitable transformation. Liberty was the creed of these politicians when they were oppressed by colonial absolutism, by the servitude anterior to the monarchy and the Empire; they realised their creed, and the reign of liberal principles resulted in disorder. The excess of authority or the excess of anarchy stood in the way of peace and progress. The political leaders of Brazil swayed from side to side; they were liberals against despotism and autocrats against demagogy. In 1840 the infant prince attained his majority; the liberals, powerful in Parliament, demanded that the Regency should be terminated. The country longed for internal peace, but discord between the parties continued. Numerous revolutions disturbed the country. Minas and Pernambuco, where sedition had passed into a chronic condition, rose in 1842 and 1848 respectively. Pedro II. governed with the liberals, but the dangers of excessive liberalism, of premature democracy, {186} forced him toward autocracy. He was a learned and sceptical Marcus Aurelius, a stoic who had read Voltaire. "A simple and modest democrat, losing nothing of his personal distinction," wrote the historian Ribeiro, "generous and disinterested, an example of all the domestic virtues, he courted the respectful sympathy of the crowd rather than popularity."[1] He was the first republican of Brazil; he presided over a nation in process of transformation. Before the clash of races, the revolutionary unrest, and Utopian radicalism his Government maintained the traditions, reacted against violent reforms, and favoured the gradual formation of a new world.