On The Revival Of The Classical Legalism

Chinese society has experienced two big changes in the history. The change in Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period prompted the rise of classical Legalism. In seeking the path of the rule of law and order, Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, Han Fei had done valuable exploration to classical legalism. But the classical legalism theory of "respecting the king" and "the laws are made by the king" made laws be the tool to maintain authoritarian rule, and thus fell into the plight that "there is no way to make the law must be use" which put forward by Shang Yang. In modern,"the greatest changes in three thousands years" began with the impact of western civilization. In order to respond to the challenge of the Warring States Period, Zhang Taiyan, Liang Qichao, Chen Qitian on behalf of the new legalism trenched the Original law resources of China and adopt the Western thoughts of natural law and legal positivism to promote the absolute monarchy to a modern democratic constitutional state pattern. Modern new legalism inherited the classical legalism’s spirit of "the rule of law", from Zhang’s theory of "the rule of law is better than the rule of man"., Liang’s theory of" The rule of law is the only way to save country" to Chan Qitian’s theory of " the modern states are all under the rule of law" were all reinterpreting the classical legalism and combining with the crystallization of modern Western’s theory of the rule of law.New legalism also focused on the "broken" of classical legalism, regarded the western theories of "natural rights","Sovereignty of the people" and "separation of powers" as spiritual weapons, criticizing the classical legalism to used law as the tool to strengthen state and weak people. Let monarchical power be above the law to realize the purpose of building a strong nation and the law has the supreme authority of the democratic constitutional system so as to crack Shang Yang’s plight. This article attempts to study the ancient and modern changes of the rule of law and extract the thinking and understanding of the old and new legalism to power in the role of the rule of law’s construction. Undoubtedly, these will be instructive to handle the relationship between power and right.