O crepúsculo do republicanismo militar conservador: José Vicente de Freitas perante a Constituição de 1933

During the Portuguese Military Dictatorship (1926-1933), there existed always a rivalry between the republican and liberal-conservative higher ranks of the armed forces and the new civilian, authoritarian, catholic and technocratic forces, of which Salazar was the ruling face as from 1928. The confrontation between these two positions was very visible in the constitutional question, and climaxed, at the beginning of 1933, in the presentation by General José Vicente de Freitas (head of government in 1928-1929) of a constitutional counter-project, critical of Salazar's own constitutional project. The goal of this article is to recall the political action of Vicente de Freitas in the Military Dictatorship and to explore his public positions, namely his constitutional manifesto, demonstrating how his defeat at the hands of Salazar's anti-liberalism, and the ensuing institutionalization of the "Estado Novo", meant the waning of the military conservative Republicanism. This article is part of the special theme section on Failed Constitutional Projects in Portugal and Brazil, 20th Century, guest-edited by Paula Borges Santos and Ivo Veiga.