The article focuses on the misunderstood loyalty to the monarchy by Nabuco after the Abolition of Slavery, when he began to reflect on the conditions of possibility of building a liberal republican society in Brazil. In studying his writings published between 1888 and monarchists 1896, it is clear that Nabuco remained royalist judge by the advent of the republican regime, in the form proposed by the oligarchic party namesake, instead of help it would impair the advent of a truly republican society, liberal and democratic. Pragmatic considerations led him to see the monarchy as a tool to better prepare the Brazilian society to a republic that would go beyond the mere label, with no gap between form and content, the legal and real country.
Brazilian political tought; Joaquim Nabuco; Empire; Republic; Royalism