[1] Campos was a leader in the Liberal Alliance party, which supported Getúlio Vargas for president of Brazil and which ultimately led to the Brazilian Revolution of 1930.

[3] In the early 1930s, Campos was head of the Ministry of Education and Public Health, as it was known at the time (Brazilian Portuguese: Ministério dos Negócios da Educação e Saúde Pública).

This became known later as the Francisco Campos reform [pt], referring to its author, then head of the newly created Ministry of Education and Public Health.

[pt][6] He continued to lead efforts in education reform years after he became Minister of Justice, creating the Faculty of Philosophy, Science, and Letters (Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciência, e Letras).

But in 1937, another political coup established the Estado Novo, and this new phase of the Vargas Era required a new constitution, which was approved within the year.

These were co-opted by Mussolini in Italy and Vargas in Brazil in attempt to block the introduction of any communist or anarchist ideas that might rival the provisions of the fascist model.

This "Polack" nickname reverberated negatively among the population, mainly because it also alluded to the European prostitutes who circulated in the country's capital at the time, as Vargas' biographer Lira Neto [pt] wrote:[12] There could be no doubt about the authoritarian character of the constitutional text drawn up by Francisco Campos.

For these and other reasons, the new Magna Carta was nicknamed "Polacá", a reference to the Constitution granted and imposed by Marshal Józef Piłsudski on Poland in 1921 (the epithet ended up gaining an even more pejorative connotation, as it alluded to European prostitutes who, despite their true nationality, were treated at the time in Brazil as Poles - or 'Polacas'.

[12] Cláudio Lacerda Paiva described the fascist posture of Getúlio Vargas's chief political actors during the Estado Novo, including Campos, writing: "The one who censored was Lourival Fontes, the one who tortured was Filinto Muller, the one who instituted fascism was Francisco Campos, the one who carried out the coup was Dutra and the one who supported Hitler was Góis Monteiro".