In 1774, the Englishman Thomas. Paine traveled across the ocean to Philadelphia, North America, and was deeply influenced by the French Enlightenment, and he published a book in Pennsylvania called Common Sense (at this time, more than 40 years after the Enlightenment, the works of people like Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau who influenced the fate of France had been published). Not only combined with the knowledge of these philosophers who shone in the Enlightenment, but also an in-depth analysis of the situation in the colonies at that time, the book was put on the market like a nuclear bomb thrown into the North American colonial circle, and the whole of North America was completely ignited!Washington, the founding of the United States, later recalled: "Although we hated Britain, none of us thought that we had the power to fight against **, until we saw "Common Sense" and he changed all of our opinions!What follows is the familiar story: in 1775, the inhabitants of the thirteen British colonies in North America thought that they had no representatives of the people in the British Parliament in Europe, which was illegal, and therefore, the inhabitants of the colonies considered all the official tax laws to be illegal (because there were no elected people to represent their interests, but they had to pay taxes to **)!In 1776, the colonists drafted the Declaration of Independence, officially declaring war on the British(It's 2023, how many people know that if the people's representatives have nothing to do with you (they have not experienced public (such as publicly announcing their candidacy, and then publicly announcing the reform plan they will promote if elected, openly accepting inquiries and questions from citizens in the constituency, etc.), all policies do not have legitimacy??)）
After the victory of the Revolutionary War, Paine rushed to France, starting from Voltaire's "Philosophical Correspondence" in 1733, which criticized the French feudal system, the Enlightenment has been vigorously carried out in France for 55 years, and in 1789, the fruit of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, finally broke out!The Place de Versailles was filled with the words "Freedom or Death!".The crowd was enthusiastic, and Paine took the stage to give a speech: "The Glorious Revolution that took place in England in 1689 was not actually glorious, but only an agreement between the king and the magnates, and the people had only ** power in politics, and the elected basis of the English parliamentarians (people's representatives) was insignificant." And the reason for the revolution here is the rejection of the people's claims, at which point the people have the right to start a revolution: "We have this power to make the world start again!".Amid the frenzied screams and cheers of the populace, Paine and a group of Enlightenment leaders began to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a contract that changed the course of modern human civilization———
The advent of the Declaration of Human Rights opened up the last link in the country's political system——— constitutionalismYou can see the shadow of the Declaration of Human Rights in all the constitutions of the world, because it is the mother text of all constitutions!It was after the advent of the Declaration of Human Rights that the concept of constitutionalism was bornPreviously, the only ways for large-scale human beings to form organizations were tribal (generally dozens to hundreds), serfdom, feudalism, taking feudalism as an example, under feudalism, the king was the conqueror, and the power of the people under the dynastic territory was given by the king, and the behavior expressly forbidden by the king would be forbidden because the people would be forbidden, and the behavior that the king did not consent to, the people would be forbidden because they were not authorized
After the promulgation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the constitution of France began later that year, and in 1792, France was officially established. After the founding of France, the feudal dynasties of all Europe declared an alliance to form an anti-French alliance and declared war on the newly formed France because they were afraid that this new form of government (the free people themselves would enter into a contract (constitution) that they needed to abide by together and thus form an equal alliance (state)) that would affect the political environment in their own territory, and declared war on the newly formed France, and after 7 defeats in the group beating France (it just couldn't be defeated, and it was also beaten back by France and almost unified the whole of Europe)!This lesson made all the feudal dynasties remember this emerging form of government: it is called the state, it is composed of a group of free people, after the war, this wind of freedom began to spread to the European continent like a virus, ordinary soldiers, ordinary civilians like a second awakening of artificial intelligence began to demand democracy and freedom!Under strong internal pressure, feudal dynasties successively announced reforms of the political system and constitutional statehood.
In Asia, Japan, which has ended its isolation as a country, has also observed changes in the worldIn 1889, Japan announced the end of feudalism and constitutional statehood, and in the same year, Japan promulgated the first constitution "Constitution of the Empire of Japan". In order to win the hearts and minds of the people, they had no choice but to gradually separate the political power. Today, however, there is a lack of such people in Japan. ”
Yukichi Fukuzawa was extremely worried about the lack of a constitution but a lack of spiritual independence (as evidenced by Japan's later militarism, and the establishment of modern civilization led to a literacy rate of 97% in 1907 Even knowledge alone is not enough, it also requires the free exchange of ideas (the free exchange of publications is also counted (because reading is actually the communication between readers and authors), but it is clear that Japan could not do this last point at that time (Japan was very strict in terms of publications at that time!).You just look at Japan at that time as the current North Korea, scrolling every day against Western culture (that's right, since the Meiji Restoration, Japanese newspapers and periodicals published articles hoping to establish elected parliamentarians (people's representatives), Japan **began to fully control the distribution of domestic newspapers and periodicals, etc., and the main voice appeared, scrolling every day** The mistakes of Western universal values, resolutely resisting the invasion of Western ideas into Eastern culture, and the constitutional rule affecting the absolute leadership of the emperor, this is not right, if you were in Japan at that time, you would also be baptized into militarism, because all other voices were banned, and the whole country only effectively loyal to the emperor one throttle, and sang in your ear 360 degrees every day: loyalty, loyalty!(Under this single information channel, the people's three-dimensional thinking has all been reduced to a plane (whether you call it militarism or extreme nationalism, they are all special products born in a specific environment anyway)!)）
In 1905, Japan had a war, Japan won the war, the Qing Dynasty decided to learn from Japan, reform the political system, establish a constitution, in 1908, the Qing Dynasty promulgated the first constitution "Outline of the King James Constitution"!In addition to copying the 1889 Constitution of Japan, the Constitution also deleted all the provisions of the Japanese Constitution that restricted the power of the monarchy
In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, and in 1912, the founding of the People's Republic of China, the first constitution after the founding of the People's Republic of China originally had restrictions on Yuan Shikai's power, and Yuan Shikai directly changed the constitution the following year!(Back to the ** of the feudal time) was followed by the warlord scuffle, and then Japan in the east had been stepping on the gas pedal against the emperor: loyalty!Loyal!(If the emperor doesn't rush again, it is estimated that he will blow up (this is also a unique tendency under the totalitarian system, territorial expansion (so if the world does not have the United States, North Korea should immediately use force against South Korea, and the use of force against South Korea will not be the end of North Korea, it should also want to eat some other small Asian countries, of course, if he can win)!In addition, countries like Iran and Cuba also have a strong tendency towards territorial expansion (unique to totalitarian regimes)!Great Russia may want to restore the territorial area of the Soviet period!In short, you can't look at the different countries of the world in a flat way (because many countries that didn't experience the Enlightenment at all are still in the colonial expansion mindset of 100 years ago!).(that is, we often call the historical circle), for individuals, the change can be very large, but for large organizations of scale, the variables are actually very small, out of the feudal system only to take the road of national government (democracy, freedom), if you have no way to stabilize at this stage you will return to feudalism!(At this time, that's what we're talking about, with the name of the country, it's actually a feudal dynasty)!This is also the status quo in the world today (many places are still in the feudal dynasty stage, but the name first transitioned to the state!).）
In the first edition of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789, there was one of the most important preconditions for the establishment of a state of government: there was no constitution without separation of powersThis condition basically disappeared after leaving Europe!It began to disappear from Japan (Japan was forced to separate the regime after the defeat of World War II under the intervention of the United States (this time it is really to educate the Japanese people about the right to vote from the basics, and how to implement the separation system from the system, after the separation of the regime, people began to have the soil of free exchange, and after there was the soil of free exchange, the soil left by the previous ** system (and was the former ** The alienation wrapped up in the soil of the system also disappeared (because people were no longer willing to mythologize an ordinary person who received a taxpayer's salary, or even run to sacrifice their own future, or even the future of the country, for the ambition of that ordinary person), and the concept of the state began to return to its roots (a group of free people who entered into a contract that they all had to abide by to form an equal alliance), and by the Qing Dynasty it was completely gone!