in a condenatory sentence after all possible appeals); approve or suspend resolutions (laws) of provincial councils and name Senators according to a list of the three candidates who had gained the majority of popular vote. The power to approve or suspend resolutions of provincial councils was extraordinary, it was the competence of the General Assembly and could only occur if that body, for some reason, was unable to meet (This prerogative was annulled by the 1834 Additional Act and the subsequent creation of the Provincial Assemblies). As to the power of nominating Senators, that was not a characteristic peculiar to the Brazilian legal order, but to something common in all countries of that era. In the United Kingdom, the House of Lords was composed of life members and hereditary members and reserved solely to the nobility; similarly, in France, Senators, also with life terms, were named rather than elected; in the United States, a presidential republic, Senators were chosen by the state legislatures (until this was modified by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913). None of these three countries, considered at that time to be democracies alongside Brazil, there was any popular participation in the selection of Senators. In contrast, in Brazil Senators were supposed to be named from a list of three candidates who had received the most votes from the Brazilian people. Paulo Bonavides wrote that the Moderating Power "can only be appreciated for its role on the consolidation of national unity and the stability of the political system of the Empire" on “a continent politically flagellated by civil hatreds and pulverized into weak and rival republics.” For Galvão Sousa, the Moderating Power under Pedro II, “created the space for the famous 'dictatorship of honesty.' It soon became the personal power of the monarch, always exercised with a high public spirit”. The term "dictatorship" () used by the author does not have a pejorative connotation and merely exemplifies what he perceives as the force of morality and justice that Pedro II imposed in his role as constitutional monarch. Executive branch According article 102 of the Constitution of 1824, "the Emperor is the Head of Executive Power, and exercises it by his Ministers of State". However, in 1847 the Emperor Pedro II created the office of the President of the Council of Ministers to hold executive power, although the Emperor still possesses executive powers currently common to the Prime Minister