Cai E, Constitutional Theory

It is well known that Cai-E(1882—1916) was a famous militaristand statesman in the modern history of China. He had madeimperishable achievements for democratic republic country by risingand leading the Yunnan Revolution of 1911 and anti-Yuan Shikai War.Moreover, Cai-E was one of the modern Chinese outstandingintellectuals inflexibly pursuing the constitutional government of China.During the process of saving and rejuvenating the nation, he absorbedand adopted the distillate of traditional ancient Chinese politicalthoughts and the civilization of modern western political results,combining with the practice of neoteric Chinese constitutionalgovernment, forming his characteristic feature of his constitutionalismthoughts. This paper selects Cai-E's constitutionalism thoughts as itsresearch object, in order to help the people deeply and completelyunderstand Cai-E's constitutionalism thoughts, and to provokesomebody to ponder some important questions about the route ofChinese constitutional government. This paper can be divided into thefollowing parts.The foreword briefly discusses the status of the present research,the purpose that the author intends to achieve and the methodologyemployed in this paper.PartⅠintroduces the basic course of the development of Cai-E'sconstitutionalism thoughts. During his short lifetime of only 34 years,Cai-E gradually formed his own constitutionalism thoughts. Therefore,the author thinks that the basic course of the development of Cai-E'sconstitutionalism thoughts could be divided into three stages: rudimentalstage, formative stage and mature stage, according to the degrees ofmature of Cai-E's constitutionalism thoughts.PartⅡtreats the main content of Cai-E's constitutionalism thoughtsthoroughly. The author believes that the main content of Cai-E'sconstitutionalism thoughts includes three aspects: outlook on state, outlook on citizen, and outlook on party.Cai-E placed stress on the necessity of promoting the state powerand maintaining the state sovereignty. Cai-E realized clearly that thestate sovereignty was the basic condition of the survival of a country. Sohe claimed firmly that sovereignty belonged to the state and statesovereignty laid higher above civil rights, so as to maintain theunification of the country and fasten the country's political andeconomic construction.Cai-E thought that the quality of citizens was of vital importance tothe rise and fall of the nation. And he advocated military nationality, inorder to promote the quality of citizens and to foster the constitutionalgovernment of China.Cai-E fully affirmed that party and party politics played animportant role in the construction of the constitutional government. Healso thought that a party should have a definitive political program andpursue the national interests and the people's welfare. He held on firmlythat the party politics should obey strictly constitutional law, partydebates should not interrupt the state politics, and army men should benon-party members, lest the army disorder the party politics andpolitical situation.PartⅢanalyses the chief tendency of Cai-E's constitutionalismthoughts, and points out the inspiration we draw from hisconstitutionalism thoughts. On account of the modern history of Chinaand the analysis of Cai-E's behavior, the author considers that theNationalism is the chief tendency of Cai-E's constitutionalism thoughts.Concluding the speech and summarizing Cai-E's constitutionalismthoughts, the author points out that the establishment of nation-state isthe most important condition of the realization of constitutionalgovernment.