The press of the triénio liberal and the portuguese revolution: between iberism and liberal internationalism

Abstract

This article explores the reception of the Vintista Revolution in the press of the Triénio Liberal. We begin with a comparative analysis of the respective revolutionary processes in order to establish the connections between Spanish and Portuguese liberalism, here considered as a consequence of the Enlightenment’s ideology, the French Revolution and events triggered by the Peninsular War. Therefore, we give special attention to Constitutional questions marked by the legacy of the Constitution of Cádiz.
From the analysis of two Spanish newspapers, representing moderate visions of Triénio’s liberalism, we evaluate the attention given to the Portuguese Revolution and to the Debates in the Constitutional Cortes. We then examine the interpretation made regarding the decisions taken by Portuguese parliamentarians. We conclude that, while the newspapers include the Portuguese Revolution in an international movement of Liberal Revolutions that spread in the beginning of the 1820s, they did not abandon the idea of a special relationship between the two Iberian kingdoms.