eculiar affairs of the states except to repel foreign invasion, to
maintain a republican form of government, to re-establish order at the
request of a state, or to enforce federal laws and sentences. The states
are forbidden, likewise, to tax federal property, to tax inter-state
commerce, to impose duties of their own on foreign imports, or to resist
the execution of judicial sentences originating in other states. The
separation of church and state is provided for by the constitution, and
both the nation and the states are forbidden to establish, subsidize or
restrict the exercise of any religious worship. Foreigners are eligible
to Brazilian citizenship, and the right of suffrage is conferred upon
all male citizens over twenty-one years of age, except beggars,
illiterates, the rank and file of the armed forces, members of monastic
orders, &c., bound by private vows, and all unregistered citizens.

The executive power of the nation is vested in a president, elected for
a term of four years by a direct vote of the electors. He must be a
native Brazilian over thirty-five years of age, in the full enjoyment of
his political rights, and is ineligible for the next succeeding term. A
vice-president is elected at the same time and under the same
conditions, who is president of the senate _ex officio_, and succeeds to
the presidency in case the office becomes vacant during the last two
years of the presidential term. Should the vacancy occur during the
first two years of the term, a new election must be held. The president
receives a salary of 120,000 milreis and the vice-president of 36,000
milreis. The president is advised and assisted by a cabinet of six
ministers, viz. foreign affairs; finance; agriculture, industry and
commerce;[9] communications (_Viacao_) and public works;[9] war; and
marine. The ministers are appointed and removed by the president, take
no part in the sessions of congress, and are responsible to the
president alone for their advisory acts. The president sanctions and
promulgates, or vetoes, or ignores the laws, and resolutions voted by
congress, and issues decrees and regulations for their execution. His
veto may be over-ridden by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and
permitting ten days to pass without signing an act is considered as
acquiescence and it is promulgated by congress. The president is charged
with the duties (among others) of commanding the armed forces of the
republic, appointing the pref