_Government._--The overthrow of the monarchy by a military revolt in Rio de Janeiro on 15th November 1889, resulted in the creation of a federal republic under the name of United States of Brazil (Estados Unidos do Brazil). The constitution under which the republic is governed was drafted by a constituent assembly convened on the 15th of November 1890, and was adopted on the 24th of February 1891. The supreme powers of the nation are vested in three partially independent branches of government--executive, legislative, and judicial--represented by the president and his cabinet, a national congress of two chambers, and a supreme tribunal. The states forming the federation consist of the twenty provinces and municipal district of the empire, but the number may be increased or diminished by the states concerned with the approval of the national congress. The states are self-governed, and have exclusive control of the public lands, mines, industries, and all local affairs. They have the sole right also to impose duties on exports and taxes upon real estate, industries and professions, and transfers of property. Among other things they are charged with the supervision and support of primary education, with the maintenance of order, and with the organization and support of a system of state courts. Both the national and state governments exercise the right to impose stamp and consumption taxes, and the municipalities likewise are permitted to impose licence and consumption taxes. The national government reserves for itself the exclusive right to direct the foreign affairs of the republic, to maintain an army and navy, to impose duties on imports, to regulate foreign commerce, to collect port dues, to issue money and create banks of issue, and to maintain a postal and national telegraph service. It also supervises secondary and superior education, issues patents, and provides federal courts for the trial of cases amenable to federal laws. The national government is forbidden to interfere in the peculiar 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.