Power Or Freedom

In the first half of the twentieth century, various trends of thoughts have been strirred in China. Many intellectuals were intertwined by ideas of liberty and nationalism. As a complex historical figure, Zhang Junmai's life was claimed by himeself as "wandering between the academic and political". As "The Father of the Constitution"of China, he had strongly identified with the western liberty and democracy; also as a Neo-Confucianian, the chinese traditonal culture had affected his life. His whole life had been entangled by thougts of liberalism and nationalism. The relationship between"state"and"individual"has always been the core of his political thought. Based on subtlety understanding of the western democratic system and anxiety of the fate of his motherland,Zhang Junmai had tried to achieve"a balance between power and freedom"and to explore the rules to found a new China with the perspective of national standard. Thus,the relationship between the "power and freedom" is the clue of this paper and the text interpretation is the method. Full-text is divided into five parts.In the first part, it considers several important issues of Zhang Junmai's constitutional politics in the macro perspective, including Zhang's times, his national view and why he had chosen the constitutionism as the rule to found a new China .In the second part, it's mainly about the foundation and source of Zhang Junmai's politics. As a Chinese intellectual affected by the western influence, his thougts not only are based on Chinese cultrue-- the mind-matter dualism in Chineses philosophy., but aslo from the western democratic politics which are the political thoughts from England and philosophy from Germany.The third part focuses on Zhang Junmai's reunderstanding of westen democracy and how to design and achieve "the balance between freedom and power", which is "corrective democracy".The fourth part concerns the main contents of Zhang Junmai's democratic constitutional: "Rational politics" is the political philosophic base of Zhang Junmai's liberalism; the basic human rights, including freedom of person, assembly and speech, are the foundation of the constitutionalism; "people's awareness of their rights" and the improvement of the citizens'consciousness is the premise of the constitutionalism.The fifth part shows the inner logic of Zhang Junmai's Constitutional thought. This paper argues that powerful country and constitutionalism is not contradictory with each other. Otherwise, the both have internal consistency. The coordationa between"power and freedom" designed by Zhang does not lead to a totalitarian state, but rather an ingenious arrangement of the existing political system. To some extent, the idea of freedom and national sentiment can be merged. The political community designed by Zhang is not only a law community, but also a moral community.Although Zhang Junmai's political ideals was not realized in modern China, it is beneficial for a patriotic intellectual to pay attention to the fate of the nation and to explore the way to realize freedom. Beginning with the relationship between power and freedom, Zhang Junmai's thought not only graspes the reality of China's political situation, but also shows the essence of constitutional government, which can not be abondoned for the people who plan to found a modern China.