Finally, another concept dear to Arriaga was that of dictatorship. A good dictatorship is that of the people, examples of which are those of Pombal and Passos Manuel, while D. Pedro’s was a bad dictatorship. Passos’s dictatorship was “frank, with broad and bold aims, without being despotic and oppressive, as D. Pedro’s had been” (História da Revolução de Setembro, vol. II, 1892, p. 87).

In the nineteenth century the concept of dictatorship did not have the pejorative sense of despotism, and for Arriaga too it could be “good”. Other Republicans would also defend it, as did Basílio Teles, an “implacable supporter of dictatorships”, although he recognized that only brief dictatorships could count on the support of his fellow Republicans, while prolonged ones were “anathema to the whole democratic orthodoxy” (As Ditaduras, 1911, p. 34). Amongst Spanish Republicans, too, at the end of the century, support for dictatorship was commonplace, as an exceptional form of government (“Dictadura”, in Diccionario Político y Social, 2003, pp. 245-49).

The works of José de Arriaga were quickly forgotten. During the Republic, Portuguese historiography turned away from the nineteenth century, while the Estado Novo was careful to exclude this period from university courses. After the 25 April 1974, the enthusiasm of investigators for the contemporary period led them to rediscover Arriaga, while treating him with caution as someone whose work was unequivocally at the service of ideology. None of his works were republished, apart from one (by Guimarães, in 1980), being a chapter from his book História da Revolução Portuguesa de 1820 concerned with Portuguese philosophy (1720-1780), with preface and notes by Pinharanda Gomes.

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