If we know relatively little of his life, José de Arriaga nevertheless left an important legacy in the form of his books. While Manuel de Arriaga distinguished himself essentially as politician, one whose career culminated with his taking the position of President of the Republic, José de Arriaga proved himself as a writer. His first work, A Influência do Cristianismo nas Ideais Modernas [The Influence of Christianity on Modern Ideas], written in 1870, when he was aged 22 and still a student, was never published.

Some ten years later he wrote A Política Conservadora e as Modernas Alianças dos Partidos Políticos Portugueses [Conservative Politics and Modern Alliances of the Portuguese Political Parties] (1880), an account of Portuguese political history from the Marquis of Pombal, taking in the events of 1808, 1820, 1836, and 1846, up to 1879. With the book José de Arriaga started a new career as historian and promoter of a new theory of Portuguese history, with emphasis on the contemporary period, which would play a central role in Republican propaganda. The Republicans believed that in order to achieve a Republic they needed to win over not only the educated elites but also the urban population open to new political ideas. Teófilo Braga, the intellectual leader of the Republican cause, gave himself over entirely to this task. As a lecturer in the Higher School of Letters, in Lisbon, he mainly devoted himself to the history of culture and of literature, while also emphasizing history, which he regarded as decisive. In his own words, “the greatest service that can be given to this country is to remind it of its history” (As Modernas Ideias na Literatura Portuguesa, 1892, p. 9). It was not sufficient to remember, it was necessary to rewrite the history of Liberalism with a view to justifying the Republican project of overthrowing the monarchy, without destroying — rather, deepening, perhaps — the Liberal principles inaugurated by the revolution of 1820. The title of Teófilo’s book, Soluções Positivas de Política Portuguesa – Do Sistema Constitucional como Transigência Provisório entre o Absolutismo e a Revolução [Positive Solutions in Portuguese Politics – On the Constitutional System as Provisional Compromise between Absolutism and Revolution] (1879), was in itself a programme. His aim was to discredit the constitutional regime constructed by the victors in the civil war of 1834, under the banner of the Constitutional Charter, which misrepresented and betrayed the democratic values of the Revolution of 1820 and the Constitution of 1822.

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