A Study Of Kat? Hiroyuki's Explain Of Constitutionalism

With the Age of Discovery,the western culture and skills spread outward continuously.In the late period of Japanese Warring States,it was be spread to Japan.Initially,Japan was in a passive attitude to acquire those knowledge.After knowing more about Western culture and facing the pressure of external aggression,the Japanese began to seek salvation from the western world in an active attitude.During this period,Western political thought was spreading,and the opinion on polity reform appeared.This dissertation selects the four works of Kat? Hiroyuki from 1861 to 1875 as the research subjects,and will introduce the generation,development,completion,characteristics and problems of Kat? Hiroyuki's constitutional theory.As the earliest works of Kato Hiroyuki,Tonarigusa distinguished the states of the world,advocated imitating the European political system reform and establishing the parliamentary system.It was in order to achieve the spirit of "solidarity" to develop military and strengthen national strength to resist the invasion of western powers.Constitutionalism basically inherited the division of states in the Tonarigusa.In addition,it mentioned the civil rights issue that did not involve in the Tonarigusa.Real politics explained the problems of rights and obligations in detail and described how to govern in the constitutional country,put forward the core of the "stability of the people".The new theory of states criticized the old state system and regarded it as a rough system.In addition,it explained what is the impartial state system,distinguished the constitution and the state system,and considered that political reform does not affect the state system.At the time of constitutional interpretation,Kat? Hiroyuki used Confucianism to make people easier to understand the western political theory which is different from Japan.With the development of his theory,Confucianism as a commentary on the side of negative examples gradually expanded.After writing The new theory of states,Kat? appeared the change from "civil rights" to "national rights".However,the author thinks that the phantom of nationalism has been partly hidden and partly visible when it dated back to the time of creating works based on natural rights theory.On the one hand,in the interpretation of constitutionalism and intention to introduce it to the political reality and reform regime,Kat? was called as the pioneer in Meiji constitutional movement.But on the other hand,in the theory transformed into actual deeds,he was standing by the opposite side of parliament opening party in a conservative attitude.Kat? is not only of his personality,but also reflects the general characteristics of the spread of constitutional thought in Meiji.Through research on his individual,it is of great significance to the understanding of the spread of constitution theory in Japan during the Meiji period,as well as the conservative problem of Meiji Constitution.