Constitution of 1911

Contents

Constitution of 1911 is the name given to a set of national constitutions promulgated in 1911 across several states during a period of upheaval. The instruments emerged amid revolutions, diplomatic crises, and reform movements involving figures such as Sun Yat-sen, Emperor Puyi, Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Francisco I. Madero. They intersected with events like the Xinhai Revolution, the Mexican Revolution, the Italo-Turkish War, the First Balkan War, and the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, reflecting influences from documents such as the United States Constitution, the French Constitution of 1875, and the Meiji Constitution.

Background and Historical Context

The 1911 constitutions were products of late-19th and early-20th century transformations involving actors including Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai, Emiliano Zapata, Victoriano Huerta, and Manuel Mondragón within settings like Beijing, Mexico City, Tokyo, London, and Paris. Intellectual currents drawn from texts by John Locke, Montesquieu, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Jeremy Bentham influenced debates alongside revolutionary groups such as the Tongmenghui, the Partido Liberal Mexicano, the Young Turks, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Geopolitical pressures involving Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire shaped state responses; vital incidents included the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Spanish–American War, which altered colonial arrangements and inspired constitutional reformers like José Vasconcelos and Francisco I. Madero.

Framers convened in assemblies influenced by predecessors including the First Duma, the London Constitutional Society, and the National Assembly (France). Delegates such as Song Jiaoren, Liang Qichao, Ignacio Bonillas, Venustiano Carranza, and Yamagata Aritomo debated models from the British Parliament, the German Reichstag, the Swiss Federal Assembly, and the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The drafting process referenced legal scholars like Hans Kelsen, Cesar Cantu, and Carlo Rosselli and drew on procedural precedents from the Philippine Declaration of Independence (1898), the Brazilian Constitution of 1891, and the Argentine Constitution of 1853. Ratification events unfolded in venues including the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the Palacio Nacional (Mexico City), and municipal chambers in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Provisions typically established separation of powers among organs modeled on parliamentary systems and presidential systems, with legislative frameworks echoing House of Commons, House of Lords, Senate of the Republic (Mexico), and Duma. Rights language paralleled passages from the Canadian Charter traditions, the Bill of Rights 1689, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, citing protections familiar to proponents like Rosa Luxemburg and John Stuart Mill. Administrative organization incorporated ministries akin to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), Ministry of Finance (United Kingdom), Ministry of the Interior (France), and provincial structures resembling Manchuria's governance. Judicial arrangements referenced models such as the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Cassation (France), and the Bundesgerichtshof with appeals procedures and tenure rules inspired by jurists like Friedrich Carl von Savigny and Salmond.

Implementation intersected with power struggles involving leaders such as Yuan Shikai, Victoriano Huerta, Emilio Portes Gil, Warlords like Zhang Zuolin, and movements including the Anarchist movement in Spain, Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), and Constitutionalist Army (Mexico). International reactions came from institutions such as the International Red Cross, the League of Nations precursors, and diplomatic missions like British Embassy, Peking and United States Legation in Beijing. Conflicts influenced enforcement: examples include uprisings in Canton (Guangzhou), interventions linked to the Twenty-One Demands, and contestation associated with the Revolution of 1911 and the Plan of San Luis Potosí. Economic repercussions involved actors like J.P. Morgan, Rothschild family, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, and Standard Oil, affecting fiscal clauses and foreign concession arrangements.

Amendment episodes invoked legal thinkers and courts such as Roscoe Pound, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the Constitutional Court of Mexico, and ad hoc tribunals like those convened under Beiyang Government authority. Challenges arose from figures including Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen (later activities), Plutarco Elías Calles, and foreign powers invoking treaties like the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Treaty of Portsmouth, and the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez. Doctrinal disputes engaged scholars tied to Harvard Law School, École Libre des Sciences Politiques, and the University of Bologna, while political litigants used amicus briefs from entities such as the American Bar Association and the International Law Association.

The constitutions of 1911 influenced later texts including the Constitution of the Republic of China (1947), the Mexican Constitution of 1917, the Weimar Constitution, and postwar constitutions of states like Iraq and Turkey. Historians such as John King Fairbank, Herbert Feis, Eric Hobsbawm, John Lewis Gaddis, and Orlando Figes have debated their efficacy, noting continuities with political thought from Edmund Burke to Antonio Gramsci. The instruments shaped nationalist narratives promoted by entities such as the Chinese Communist Party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and the Young Turks Committee of Union and Progress, and informed legal reforms in jurisdictions including Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Spain. As a subject of comparative constitutional study, these 1911-era texts remain central to research at institutions like Cambridge University, Harvard University, Peking University, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Category:1911 documents