The present study aims to analyze different representations of the political community in Brazil in the second half of the 19th century, based on a philosophical reflection on the formation of political identities, especially the people. The hypothesis to be tested is that the constitution of political subjects requires the handling of a special type of political representation, which we propose to call original. That gives the demographic aggregates meanings and values that do not derive from their mere natural existence. In the absence of an invariant foundation that serves as an immutable essence to such identities, the political constitution of the people starts to name a permanent, contingent and precarious process of political becoming, in which different representations of the social dispute hegemony, in a permanent tension between community as identification and collective agency as subjectivation. Based on this theoretical framework, a historical investigation begins about three different representations originating from a Brazilian people, developed between the apogee of the Empire and the crisis of slavery: the Saquarema, represented by José de Alencar; the Liberal Abolitionist, by Joaquim Nabuco; and the Black Republicanism, by Luiz Gama. In common among them, the central role of jurists in the reflection on the existence or refoundation of a Brazilian political community, and a permanent dialogue between law, politics, philosophy and literature, which can contribute to a broader vision of what we understand for the constitutional history of Brazil.