Mandate of Heaven

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven 

The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese: 天命; pinyin: Tiānmìng; Wade–Giles: T'ien-ming, literally "Heaven's will") is a Chinese political and religious teaching used since ancient times to justify the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this belief, Heaven (天, Tian) — which embodies the natural order and will of the universe — bestows the mandate on a just ruler of China, the "Son of Heaven" of the "Celestial Empire". If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy, and had lost the mandate. It was also a common belief that natural disasters such as famine and flood were divine retributions bearing signs of Heaven's displeasure with the ruler, so there would often be revolts following major disasters as the people saw these calamities as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn.

A brief flow chart depicting the flow of auctoritas in the transfer of the Mandate of Heaven at the transition of dynastic cycles.

 

The Mandate of Heaven does not require a legitimate ruler to be of noble birth, depending instead on the just and able performance of the rulers and their heirs. Dynasties such as the Han and Ming dynasties were founded by men of common origins, but they were seen as having succeeded because they had gained the Mandate of Heaven. The concept is in some ways similar to the European concept of the divine right of kings; however, unlike the European concept, it does not confer an unconditional right to rule. Intrinsic to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler. The Mandate of Heaven was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that had few other checks. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that Heaven had withdrawn its mandate from the ruler. Throughout Chinese history, times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement.

The concept of the Mandate of Heaven was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), and legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty (1600–1069 BCE). It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new emperors, including by non-Han Chinese monarchs such as the Qing (1636–1912).

History

Transition between the Shang and the Zhou

The prosperous Shang dynasty saw its rule filled with many outstanding accomplishments. Notably, the dynasty lasted for a considerable time during which 31 kings ruled over an extended period of 17 generations. During this period, the dynasty enjoyed a period of peace and tranquility in which citizens could make a good living. The government was originally able to control most of its internal affairs due to the firm support provided by the people. As time went on, however, the rulers' abuse of the other social classes led to social unrest and instability. The corruption in this dynasty created the conditions necessary for a new ruling house to rise —the Zhou dynasty. Rebellion against the Shang was led by Zhou Wu. They created the Mandate of Heaven to explain their right to assume rule and presumed that the only way to hold the mandate was to rule well in the eyes of Heaven. They believed that the Shang ruling house had become morally corrupt, and that the Shang leaders' loss of virtue entitled their own house to take over. The overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, they said, was in accordance with the mandate given by Heaven.

After the Zhou became the ruling dynasty, they mostly appointed their own officials. The Zhou Dynasty had their own way of assigning their officials. However, in order to appease some of the citizens, they allowed some Shang beneficiaries to continue governing their small kingdoms in compliance with Zhou rules and regulations. As the empire continued to expand, intermarriage increased because the rulers believed that it was a method of forming strong alliances that enabled them to absorb more countries into the dynasty. In case of a war, the Zhou dynasty boasted an excellent military and technology mostly because of influence from annexed countries. They also excelled in shipbuilding, which, coupled with their discovery of celestial navigation, made them excellent mariners. Intellectually, the Zhou excelled in fields of literature and philosophy while many governmental positions were filled according to the intellectual ability of a candidate. A large amount of literature survives from the Zhou period, including the Book of Changes, Book of History, Book of Etiquette, Book of Song, Book of Odes, and the Book of Rites. Most of these works are commentaries on the progress and political movement of the dynasty. In philosophical terms, Confucius and his followers played an important role in shaping the mentality of the government as defined by the Five Confucian Relationships. These critical thinkers served as a foundation for the government. Their works primarily stressed the importance of the ruling class, respect and their relationship with the lower class. Due to the growing size of the dynasty, it became apparent that a centralized government would lead to a lot of confusion and corruption because the government would not be able to exert its influence or accede to the needs of everyone. To address this political barrier, the dynasty formed a decentralized government in which the empire was broken down into sections. Within these districts were administrators who were appointed by the government, in return, they had to maintain their allegiance to the main internal government. In effect, the Zhou dynasty became a collection of districts. Consequently, this marked the fall of the dynasty as it became difficult for the central government to exert influence on all other regions of the empire.

Finally, when the Zhou dynasty's power decreased, it was wiped out by the State of Qin, which believed that the Zhou had become weak and their rule unjust. This transition emphasizes the customary trend of the Mandate of Heaven, which provided leeway for the rise of a new power. The Qin initially attempted to capitalize on the errors made by the Zhou, either by eliminating the source of error or reforming it. During this reformation, administrative changes were made and a system of legalism was developed which stated that the law is supreme over every individual, including the rulers. Although significant progress was made during the Qin dynasty, the persecution of scholars and ordinary citizens led to an unstable state.

After the death of Qin Shihuang, first emperor of the Qin dynasty, a widespread revolt by prisoners, peasants, and unhappy soldiers inevitably led to the fall of the Qin dynasty due to its tyrannical practices. The establishment of the Han dynasty marked a great period in China’s history marked by significant changes in the political structure of the country. Under the Han emperors, significant changes were made in which the government introduced entrance examinations known as civil service or imperial examinations for governmental positions. Additionally, the Han dynasty prospered economically through the Silk Road and other trading means.

Five Dynasties period

During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, there was no dominant Chinese dynasty that ruled all of China. This created a problem for the Song dynasty that followed, as they wanted to legitimize their rule by claiming that the Mandate of Heaven had passed on them. The scholar-official Xue Juzheng compiled the Old History of the Five Dynasties (五代史) during the 960s and 970s, after the Song dynasty had taken northern China from the last of the Five Dynasties, the Later Zhou. A major purpose was to establish justification for the transference of the Mandate of Heaven through these five dynasties, and thus to the Song dynasty. He argued that these dynasties met certain vital criteria to be considered as having attained the Mandate of Heaven despite never having ruled all of China. One is that they all ruled the traditional Chinese heartland. They also held considerably more territory than any of the other Chinese states that had existed conterminously in the south. When the Mandate of Heaven gave Zhou the ruling authority they had to figure out how to govern.

However, there were certain other areas where these dynasties all clearly fell short. The brutal behavior of Zhu Wen and the Later Liang was a source of considerable embarrassment, and thus there was pressure to exclude them from the Mandate. The following three dynasties, the Later Tang, Later Jin, and Later Han were all non-Han Chinese dynasties, all having been ruled by the Shatuo ethnic minority. There is also the concern that though each of them was the most powerful Chinese kingdom of its respective era, none of them ever really had the ability to unify the entire Chinese realm as there were several powerful states to the south. However, it was the conclusion of Xue Juzheng that the Mandate had indeed passed through each of the Five Dynasties, and thus onto the Song Dynasty when it conquered the last of those dynasties.

Qing invasion

In previous dynasties; the Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties reigned for much of the beginning three centuries where the mandate of heaven was questioned heavily between dynastic councils among each emperor. Some emperors were not entirely sure of their validity when it came to claiming the mandate, for it was ambiguous. Especially for the case of the Jurchen Jin, where much of the council was not sure how to discern the validity of their rulers. From the Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty to Kangxi Emperor much of the chosen emperors contemplated much of this when they became a contender for the mandate. The reason for this was because of the ambiguity of the Mandate and overwhelmingly unofficial formality when declaring the Mandate of Heaven. However, Kublai Khan was the only indifferent ruler when he claimed the Mandate of Heaven over the Yuan Dynasty since he had a sizable military and was part of the Khitan people, as with many others from the same background since they did not have the same traditions and culture as their Chinese adversaries.

It was said that the peasant group of the Ming dynasty were the real selectors which allowed for the Mandate of Heaven to be claimed by the ruler. As a prospective candidate to the Mandate, they could please the peasantry group in order to win favor amongst the dynasty. It was solely politics from beginning to end and an attempt from the emperor to maintain a favorable act towards Heaven. Many emperors within the Qing dynasty looked immensely within themselves trying to come to terms with their ruling if natural disasters occurred within their time. This was interpreted as a warning of Heaven's displeased wrath towards an emperors ruling, such that the Mandate under their rule was unstable. Furthermore, Qing emperors would take their advisors feedback very seriously when pertaining to ruling and take it upon themselves to reflect on their current decisions of the dynastic overview in hopes that it favors Heaven.

The right to rule and the right of rebellion

Mencius stated that:

The people are of supreme importance; the altars of the gods of earth and grain come next; last comes the ruler. That is why he who gains the confidence of the multitudinous people will be Emperor... When a feudal lord endangers the altars of the gods of earth and grain, he should be replaced. When the sacrificial animals are sleek, the offerings are clean and the sacrifices are observed at due times, and yet floods and droughts come [by the agency of heaven], then the altars should be replaced.

— Mencius

Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that the Mandate of Heaven had passed. In China, the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler has been a part of political philosophy ever since the Zhou dynasty, and the successful rebellion was interpreted by Chinese historians as evidence that divine approval had passed on to the successive dynasty. The Right of Rebellion is not coded into any official law. Rather, rebellion is always outlawed and severely punished; but is still a positive right grounded in the Chinese moral system. Often, it is used as a justification for actions to overthrow a previous dynasty after a rebellion has been successful and a new dynastic rule has been established. Since the winner is the one who determines who has obtained the Mandate of Heaven and who has lost it, some Chinese scholars consider it to be a sort of Victor's justice, best characterized in the popular Chinese saying "The winner becomes king, the loser becomes outlaw" (Chinese: “成者爲王，敗者爲寇”). Due to this, it is considered that Chinese historical accounts of the fall of a dynasty and the rise of a new one must be handled with caution. Chinese traditional historical compilation methods produce accounts that tend to fit their account to the theory, emphasizing aspects tending to prove that the old dynasty lost the Mandate of Heaven and the new one gained it, and de-emphasizing other aspects.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, Confucianist elements of student rebellions often claimed the Mandate of Heaven has been forfeited, as demonstrated by their large-scale activism. Important instances include the Taiwan's Sunflower Student Movement in 2014 and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement in 2019.

Influence

Because of China's influence in medieval times, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven spread to other East Asian countries as a justification for rule by divine political legitimacy. In Korea, it was first adopted by the Joseon dynasty and became an enduring state ideology.

The ideology was also adopted in Vietnam, first recorded as the oldest Nanyue kingdom when Zhao Tuo claimed himself Emperor Wu of Zhao, known in Vietnamese as Thiên mệnh (Chữ Hán: 天命). A divine mandate gave the Vietnamese emperor the right to rule, based not on his lineage but on his competence to govern. The more later centralized dynasties adopted Confucianism as state ideology, led to the creation of a Vietnamese tributary system in Southeast Asia, modeled after the Chinese Sinocentric system in East Asia.

In Japan, the Japanese government found the concept ideologically problematic, preferring not to have divine political legitimacy that was conditional and that could be withdrawn. The Japanese Taihō Code, formulated in 703, was largely an adaptation of the governmental system of China's then Tang dynasty, but the Mandate of Heaven was specifically omitted. In later times, this need was obviated because the Imperial House of Japan claimed to be descended in an unbroken line from the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu. Nevertheless, while maintaining this role, the Japanese emperor became politically marginalized in the Nara and Heian periods by powerful regents of the Fujiwara clan who seized executive control of state. Even though the Japanese imperial line itself remained unbroken after the eighth century, actual political authority passed through successive dynasties of regents and shōguns which cycled in a manner similar to that of Chinese dynasties. Even after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when the emperor was placed back in the center of the political bureaucracy, the throne itself had very little power vis-à-vis the Meiji oligarchy. Actual political power has passed through at least four systems since the Meiji restoration: the Taishō democracy, the militarists, the Occupation of Japan, and postwar democracy. The emperor today is a political figurehead and not a ruling sovereign. It could be said the imperial line of Japan survived for so long precisely because it did not have control over the state, and that the turmoil of succession was projected onto a series of proxy rulers.

Legitimacy (political)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(political) 

John Locke: consent of the governed confers political legitimacy.

In political science, legitimacy is the right and acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a régime. Whereas "authority" denotes a specific position in an established government, the term "legitimacy" denotes a system of government—wherein "government" denotes "sphere of influence". An authority viewed as legitimate often has the right and justification to exercise power. Political legitimacy is considered a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlock(s) and collapse. In political systems where this is not the case, unpopular régimes survive because they are considered legitimate by a small, influential élite. In Chinese political philosophy, since the historical period of the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC), the political legitimacy of a ruler and government was derived from the Mandate of Heaven, and unjust rulers who lost said mandate therefore lost the right to rule the people.

In moral philosophy, the term "legitimacy" is often positively interpreted as the normative status conferred by a governed people upon their governors' institutions, offices, and actions, based upon the belief that their government's actions are appropriate uses of power by a legally constituted government.

The Enlightenment-era British social philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) said that political legitimacy derives from popular explicit and implicit consent of the governed: "The argument of the [Second] Treatise is that the government is not legitimate unless it is carried on with the consent of the governed." The German political philosopher Dolf Sternberger said that "[l]egitimacy is the foundation of such governmental power as is exercised, both with a consciousness on the government's part that it has a right to govern, and with some recognition by the governed of that right". The American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset said that legitimacy also "involves the capacity of a political system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate and proper ones for the society". The American political scientist Robert A. Dahl explained legitimacy as a reservoir: so long as the water is at a given level, political stability is maintained, if it falls below the required level, political legitimacy is endangered.

Types

Legitimacy is "a value whereby something or someone is recognized and accepted as right and proper". In political science, legitimacy usually is understood as the popular acceptance and recognition by the public of the authority of a governing régime, whereby authority has political power through consent and mutual understandings, not coercion. The three types of political legitimacy described by German sociologist Max Weber are traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal:

• Traditional legitimacy derives from societal custom and habit that emphasize the history of the authority of tradition. Traditionalists understand this form of rule as historically accepted, hence its continuity, because it is the way society has always been. Therefore, the institutions of traditional government usually are historically continuous, as in monarchy and tribalism.
• Charismatic legitimacy derives from the ideas and personal charisma of the leader, a person whose authoritative persona charms and psychologically dominates the people of the society to agreement with the government's régime and rule. A charismatic government usually features weak political and administrative institutions, because they derive authority from the persona of the leader, and usually disappear without the leader in power. However, if the charismatic leader has a successor, a government derived from charismatic legitimacy might continue.
• Rational-legal legitimacy derives from a system of institutional procedure, wherein government institutions establish and enforce law and order in the public interest. Therefore, it is through public trust that the government will abide the law that confers rational-legal legitimacy.

Forms

Theocracy: Egyptian divine authority, Horus as a falcon.

Numinous legitimacy

Further information: Divine right of kings, Mandate of Heaven, and Imperial cult (ancient Rome)

In a theocracy, government legitimacy derives from the spiritual authority of a god or a goddess.

• In ancient Egypt (c. 3150 BC), the legitimacy of the dominion of a Pharaoh (god–king) was theologically established by doctrine that posited the pharaoh as the Egyptian patron god Horus, son of Osiris.

Theocracy: The coat of arms of the Holy See, the seat of Papal government.

• In the Roman Catholic Church, the priesthood derives its legitimacy from a divine source; the Roman Magisterium dogmatically teaches that Jesus Christ designated St. Peter the supreme and infallible head of the entire Christian Church, and thus each bishop of Rome is sanctified, legitimate, and possesses these charisms as well.

Civil legitimacy

One measurement of civil legitimacy is who has access to the vote, including women are able to vote.

 

The political legitimacy of a civil government derives from agreement among the autonomous constituent institutions—legislative, judicial, executive—combined for the national common good. One way civil society grants legitimacy to governments is through public elections. There are also those who refute the legitimacy offered by public elections, pointing out that the amount of legitimacy public elections can grant depends significantly on the electoral system conducting the elections. In the United States this issue has surfaced around how voting is impacted by gerrymandering and the repeal of part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Another challenge to the political legitimacy offered by elections is whether or not marginalized groups such as women or those who are incarcerated are allowed to vote.

Civil legitimacy can be granted through different measures for accountability than voting, such as financial transparency and stake-holder accountability. In the international system another method for measuring civil legitimacy is through accountability to international human rights norms.

In an effort determine what makes a government legitimate the Center for Public Impact launched a project to hold a global conversation about legitimacy stating, inviting citizens, academics and governments to participate. The organization also publishes case studies that consider the theme of legitimacy as it applies to projects in a number of different countries including Bristol, Lebanon and Canada.

"Good" governance vs. "bad" governance

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission (OHCHR) established standards of what is considered "good governance" that include the key attributes transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation and responsiveness (to the needs of the people).

Input, output and throughput legitimacy

Assessing the political legitimacy of a government can be done by looking at three different aspects of which a government can derive legitimacy. Fritz Scharpf introduced two normative criteria, which are output legitimacy, i.e. the effectiveness of policy outcomes for people and input legitimacy, the responsiveness to citizen concerns as a result of participation by the people. A third normative criterion was added by Vivien Schmidt, who analyzes legitimacy also in terms of what she calls throughput, i.e. the governance processes that happen in between input and output.

Negative and positive legitimacy

Abulof distinguishes between negative political legitimacy (NPL), which is about the object of legitimation (answering what is legitimate), and positive political legitimacy (PPL), which is about the source of legitimation (answering who is the 'legitimator'). NPL is concerned with establishing where to draw the line between good and bad, PPL with who should be drawing it in the first place. From the NPL perspective, political legitimacy emanates from appropriate actions; from a PPL perspective, it emanates from appropriate actors. In the social contract tradition, Hobbes and Locke focused on NPL (stressing security and liberty, respectively), while Rousseau focused more on PPL ("the people" as the legitimator). Arguably, political stability depends on both forms of legitimacy.

Instrumental and substantive legitimacy

Weber's understanding of legitimacy rests on shared values, such as tradition and rational-legality. But policies that aim at (re-)constructing legitimacy by improving the service delivery or 'output' of a state often only respond to shared needs. Therefore, substantive sources of legitimacy need to be distinguished from more instrumental ones. Instrumental legitimacy rests on "the rational assessment of the usefulness of an authority ..., describing to what extent an authority responds to shared needs. Instrumental legitimacy is very much based on the perceived effectiveness of service delivery. Conversely, substantive legitimacy is a more abstract normative judgment, which is underpinned by shared values. If a person believes that an entity has the right to exercise social control, he or she may also accept personal disadvantages."

Sources

Max Weber: societies are politically cyclical.

 

Max Weber proposed that societies behave cyclically in governing themselves with different types of governmental legitimacy. That democracy was unnecessary for establishing legitimacy, a condition that can be established with codified laws, customs, and cultural principles, not by means of popular suffrage. That a society might decide to revert from the legitimate government of a rational–legal authority to the charismatic government of a leader; e.g., the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler, Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, and Francoist Spain under General Francisco Franco.

Mattei Dogan

The French political scientist Mattei Dogan's contemporary interpretation of Weber's types of political legitimacy (traditional, charismatic, legal-rational) proposes that they are conceptually insufficient to comprehend the complex relationships that constitute a legitimate political system in the twenty-first century. Moreover, Dogan proposed that traditional authority and charismatic authority are obsolete as forms of contemporary government (e.g., the Islamic Republic of Iran (est. 1979) rule by means of the priestly Koranic interpretations by the Ayatollah Khomeini). That traditional authority has disappeared in the Middle East; that the rule-proving exceptions are Islamic Iran and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the third Weber type of political legitimacy, rational-legal authority, exists in so many permutations no longer allow it to be limited as a type of legitimate authority.

Forms of legitimate government

In determining the political legitimacy of a system of rule and government, the term proper—political legitimacy—is philosophically an essentially contested concept that facilitates understanding the different applications and interpretations of abstract, qualitative, and evaluative concepts such as "art", "social justice", et cetera, as applied in aesthetics, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of religion. Therefore, in defining the political legitimacy of a system of government and rule, the term "essentially contested concept" indicates that a key term (communism, democracy, constitutionalism, etc.) has different meanings within a given political argument. Hence, the intellectually restrictive politics of dogmatism ("My answer is right, and all others are wrong"), scepticism ("All answers are equally true or [false]; everyone has a right to his own truth"), and eclecticism ("Each meaning gives a partial view, so the more meanings the better") are inappropriate philosophic stances for managing a political term that has more than one meaning.

Establishing what qualifies as a legitimate form of government continues to be a topic of great philosophical controversy. Forms of legitimate government are posited to include:

• Communism: The legitimacy of a Communist state derives from having won a civil war, a revolution, or from having won an election, such as the Presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–73) in Chile; thus, the actions of the Communist government are legitimate, authorised by the people. In the early twentieth century, Communist parties based the arguments supporting the legitimacy of their rule and government upon the scientific nature of Marxism.
• Constitutionalism: The modern political concept of constitutionalism establishes the law as supreme over the private will, by integrating nationalism, democracy, and limited government. The political legitimacy of constitutionalism derives from popular belief and acceptance that the actions of the government are legitimate because they abide by the law codified in the political constitution. The political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich (1901–84) said that, in dividing political power among the organs of government, constitutional law effectively restrains the actions of the government.
• Democracy: In a democracy, government legitimacy derives from the popular perception that the elected government abides by democratic principles in governing, and thus is legally accountable to its people.
• Fascism: In the 1920s and the 1930s, fascism based its political legitimacy upon the arguments of traditional authority; respectively, the German National Socialists and the Italian Fascists claimed that the political legitimacy of their right to rule derived from philosophically denying the (popular) political legitimacy of elected liberal democratic governments. During the Weimar Republic (1918–33), the political philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888–1985)—whose legal work as the "Crown Jurist of the Third Reich" promoted fascism and deconstructed liberal democracy—addressed the matter in Legalität und Legitimität (Legality and Legitimacy, 1932), an anti-democratic polemic treatise that asked: How can parliamentary government make for law and legality, when a 49 per cent minority accepts as politically legitimate the political will of a 51 per cent majority?
• Monarchy: In a monarchy, the divine right of kings establishes the political legitimacy of the rule of the monarch (king or queen); legitimacy also derives from the popular perception (tradition and custom) and acceptance of the monarch as the rightful ruler of nation and country. Contemporarily, such divine-right legitimacy is manifest in the absolute monarchy of the House of Saud (est. 1744), a royal family who have ruled and governed Saudi Arabia since the 18th century. Moreover, constitutional monarchy is a variant form of monarchic political legitimacy which combines traditional authority and legal–rational authority, by which means the monarch maintains nationalist unity (one people) and democratic administration (a political constitution).

Popular sovereignty

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_sovereignty

 

Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power. It is closely associated with social contract philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Popular sovereignty expresses a concept and does not necessarily reflect or describe a political reality. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns".

Earlier development of popular sovereignty arose from philosopher Francisco Suárez and became the basis for Latin American independence.

Origins

Popular sovereignty in its modern sense, is an idea that dates to the social contracts school (mid-17th to mid-18th centuries), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), author of The Social Contract, a prominent political work that clearly highlighted the ideals of "general will" and further matured the idea of popular sovereignty. The central tenet is that the legitimacy of rule or of law is based on the consent of the governed. Popular sovereignty is thus a basic tenet of most Republics, and in some monarchies. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were the most influential thinkers of this school, all postulating that individuals choose to enter into a social contract with one another, thus voluntarily giving up some of their natural freedom in return for protection from dangers derived from the freedom of others. Whether men were seen as naturally more prone to violence and rapine (Hobbes) or cooperation and kindness (Rousseau), the idea that a legitimate social order emerges only when the liberties and duties are equal among citizens binds the social contract thinkers to the concept of popular sovereignty.

A parallel development of a theory of popular sovereignty can be found among the School of Salamanca (see e.g. Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) or Francisco Suarez (1548–1617)), who (like the theorists of the divine right of kings and Locke) saw sovereignty as emanating originally from God, but (unlike divine right theorists and in agreement with Locke) passing from God to all people equally, not only to monarchs.

Republics and popular monarchies is theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning democracy: a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas. That would be congruent with Hobbes's view on the subject, but not with most modern definitions that see democracy as a necessary condition of popular sovereignty.

United States

The application of the doctrine of popular sovereignty receives particular emphasis in American history, notes historian Christian G. Fritz's American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War, a study of the early history of American constitutionalism. In describing how Americans attempted to apply this doctrine prior to the territorial struggle over slavery that led to the Civil War, political scientist Donald S. Lutz noted the variety of American applications:

To speak of popular sovereignty is to place ultimate authority in the people. There are a variety of ways in which sovereignty may be expressed. It may be immediate in the sense that the people make the law themselves, or mediated through representatives who are subject to election and recall; it may be ultimate in the sense that the people have a negative or veto over legislation, or it may be something much less dramatic. In short, popular sovereignty covers a multitude of institutional possibilities. In each case, however, popular sovereignty assumes the existence of some form of popular consent, and it is for this reason that every definition of republican government implies a theory of consent.

— Donald S. Lutz

The American Revolution marked a departure in the concept of popular sovereignty as it had been discussed and employed in the European historical context. With their Revolution, Americans substituted the sovereignty in the person of King George III, with a collective sovereign—composed of the people. Thenceforth, American revolutionaries generally agreed and were committed to the principle that governments were legitimate only if they rested on popular sovereignty – that is, the sovereignty of the people. This idea—often linked with the notion of the consent of the governed—was not invented by the American revolutionaries. Rather, the consent of the governed and the idea of the people as a sovereign had clear 17th and 18th-century intellectual roots in English history.

1850s

In the 1850s, in the run-up to the Civil War, Northern Democrats led by Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois promoted popular sovereignty as a middle position on the slavery issue. It said that actual residents of territories should be able to decide by voting whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territory. The federal government did not have to make the decision, and by appealing to democracy Cass and Douglas hoped they could finesse the question of support for or opposition to slavery. Douglas applied popular sovereignty to Kansas in the Kansas Nebraska Act which passed Congress in 1854. The Act had two unexpected results. By dropping the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (which said slavery would never be allowed in Kansas), it was a major boost for the expansion of slavery. Overnight outrage united anti-slavery forces across the North into an "anti-Nebraska" movement that soon was institutionalized as the Republican Party, with its firm commitment to stop the expansion of slavery. Second, pro- and anti-slavery elements moved into Kansas with the intention of voting slavery up or down, leading to a raging civil war, known as "Bleeding Kansas". Abraham Lincoln targeted popular sovereignty in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, leaving Douglas in a position that alienated Southern pro-slavery Democrats who thought he was too weak in his support of slavery. The Southern Democrats broke off and ran their own candidate against Lincoln and Douglas in 1860.

Assassination threats against Barack Obama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_threats_against_Barack_Obama 

 

Barack Obama, who was the 44th President of the United States, was the target of several assassination threats and alleged plots starting from when he became a presidential candidate in 2007. Secret Service protection for Obama began after he received a death threat in 2007, while serving as the junior United States senator from Illinois and running for president. This marked the earliest time a candidate received such protection before being nominated. Security was increased early for Obama due to fears of possible assassination attempts by white supremacist or other racist groups or individuals against the first African American major party presidential nominee.

Some of the threats were extended to members of Obama's family, including former First Lady Michelle Obama. Obama and his officials generally declined to discuss death threats against him during the presidential race. Some commentators suggested the unusually high number of death threats targeting Obama are at least partially tied to the use of racist imagery and words by some of Obama's critics to describe him. In 2009 journalist Ronald Kessler reported that Obama received 400 percent more death threats than his predecessor. However, later that year the Secret Service stated that the volume of threats against Obama was "comparable to that under George W. Bush and Bill Clinton."

2008

North Carolina Waffle House threats

Jerry Blanchard, an accountant from Charlotte, North Carolina, was indicted for threatening to kill Obama during a July 15, 2008, breakfast at a Charlotte Waffle House. Two customers said Blanchard told them, "Obama and his wife are never going to make it to the White House. He needs to be taken out and I can do it in a heartbeat." The customers contacted the Secret Service, who questioned Blanchard. He denied making the threats, but allegedly told the Secret Service agents he believed Obama was the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible. The Secret Service later got a second call from an employee of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Charlotte, where Blanchard was overheard in the lobby restroom saying into his cell phone, "I'll get a sniper rifle and take care of it myself. Somebody's got to do it ... We both know Obama is the anti-Christ." Blanchard had claimed he would buy a sniper rifle and pistol from the Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte. The gun shop owner said Blanchard has visited the store but did not buy any weapons. Blanchard was placed into custody on felony charges of making threats against a major candidate for president, and a psychiatric evaluation was ordered. It was questioned how much evidence existed that he planned to go through with an assassination attempt later, according to a federal affidavit, there was no proof of any furtherance of his crime. In June 2009, Blanchard was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for making the threats. He was also fined $3,000 and ordered to be under supervised release for three years following his prison term.

Miami bail-bondsman training threats

Raymond H. Geisel was charged with making threatening statements against Obama during a bail-bonds training class on July 31, 2008, in Miami, Florida. During the course, Geisel referred to Obama with a racial epithet and said, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself." Geisel also threatened to put a bullet in the head of then-President Bush, although Geisel later claimed he was joking. In his hotel room, authorities found ammunition, body armor, a combat-style hatchet, tear gas, a loaded 9 mm handgun and four loaded magazines. Geisel said he collected firearms, and was only using the gun for his bail-bonds course. Geisel remained in custody for a month. He pleaded "not guilty" on August 20, 2008. With trial date set for January 2009, in December 2008 there was discussion of a plea agreement for Geisel, who faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted on all four counts brought against him. In December 2009 Geisel was convicted on weapons charges and served three years' supervised probation stemming from that conviction. The threat charges were dropped as part of his plea agreement.

Assassination plot in Denver

Three men allegedly discussed shooting Barack Obama, then the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nominee, during his acceptance speech on the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Cousins Tharin Gartrell and Shawn Adolf, and their friend Nathan Johnson, allegedly came to Denver specifically to kill Obama, and discussed in their hotel room how they could assassinate him. On August 24, 2008, Gartrell was arrested when police found his truck filled with weapons and narcotics. Johnson and Adolf were arrested shortly thereafter and, during a televised interview, Johnson later indicated Adolf was the one who planned the alleged threat. Authorities later downplayed the threats and indicated the trio had little chance of successfully killing Obama. The three men were charged with drug and weapons charges and sentenced, but did not face federal charges of threatening a presidential candidate.

Assassination plot in Tennessee

Wikinews has related news: Two men arrested in Tennessee for plot to kill Obama and school children

Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart, two men with strong white supremacist beliefs, allegedly planned a murder spree of 88 African-Americans (14 of whom they were planning to behead) in Tennessee, many of whom were to be young students at an unidentified, predominantly African-American school. They allegedly planned to end the spree by driving their vehicle toward Barack Obama as fast as they could and shooting at him from the windows. The two men were arrested on October 22, 2008, after they bragged to their friends about firing shots at a church in Brownsville, Tennessee. Schlesselman and Cowart were in possession of several guns during their arrest, and they allegedly told police they intended to rob a firearms dealer and other stores to secure more weapons for the attack. Both plotters pleaded guilty to various federal charges; Judge J. Daniel Breen of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee sentenced Schlesselman to 10 years imprisonment on April 15, 2010, and Cowart to 14 years in prison on October 22, 2010.

Scranton "Kill him" threat

In October 2008 it was widely reported that someone yelled "Kill him!" at a Scranton, Pennsylvania, Sarah Palin rally when Obama's name was mentioned. The Secret Service denied this claim, but a Scranton Times-Tribune editor said, "We stand by the story. The facts reported are true and that’s really all there is." Also, MSNBC clips of McCain rallies, while unclear, appear to show two similar incidents.

Maine "dirty bomb" threat

On December 9, 2008, 29-year-old James G. Cummings, a wealthy white supremacist, was shot dead by his wife, 31-year-old Amber Cummings, in their Belfast, Maine, home. When police arrived at the scene they discovered components and instructions for making a dirty bomb and notified the FBI, who sealed off the scene. The FBI discovered four one-gallon containers of 35% hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon as well as literature on how to build “dirty bombs” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. Child pornography was also found on his computer. Cummings had connections to various white-supremacist groups, including the US National Socialist Party. According to tradesmen who worked at the home, Cummings idolized Adolf Hitler and openly kept Nazi memorabilia, including flags, displayed around the home. According to his wife, James Cummings was not happy that Obama was elected president, and planned to set the bomb off at his inauguration. She also claimed that her husband was frequently physically, mentally and sexually abusive towards her and their daughter, citing this as her reason for the murder. Amber Cummings plead guilty to his murder but was given a suspended sentence by Justice Jeffrey Hjelm, who ruled she would not face prison time due to "extenuating circumstances".

2009

Kristy Lee Roshia, 35, called the Boston office of the Secret Service on November 10, 2009, and told them she planned to "blow away" First Lady Michelle Obama while the family visited Honolulu, Hawaii, for a Christmas vacation. She also indicated she planned to shoot members of the United States Marine Corps. Roshia told authorities she knew "the exact location" the Obama family would be staying. Information that Roshia provided to the Boston office was consistent with the itinerary of the Obama family at the Secret Service office in Hawaii, and authorities believe Roshia had observed Secret Service agents in the area of the Kailua Beach home where the Obamas had previously stayed.^[7] Roshia had a history of calling the Boston office and making threats, and told the agency in 2004 that she intended to assassinate then-President George W. Bush, although she contradictorily added that she had no desire to hurt him. Following her threatening call, Roshia was arrested two miles from the Honolulu house the Obama family had booked for their vacation. She allegedly struck an officer in the face and arms while he tried to detain her. Roshia was charged with threatening a family member of the president and assaulting a federal agent while being arrested. A federal judge ordered Roshia to undergo a mental competency examination. She was held in custody until a subsequent hearing in February 2010. Roshia was transported to a facility in Texas and her competency continued to be evaluated through April 2010. In January 2012, Roshia was sentenced for her crime.

2011

Khalid Kelly

In May 2011 Irish Islamist militant Khalid Kelly was arrested for threatening to assassinate Barack Obama. In an interview with the Sunday Mirror he said that al-Qaeda was likely to kill Obama on his upcoming trip to Ireland. He reportedly said he would like to do it himself, but was too well known. He stated, "Personally I would feel happy if Obama was killed. How could I not feel happy when a big enemy of Islam is gone?"

Shots fired at White House

On the night of November 11, 2011, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez fired a Romanian Cugir semiautomatic rifle from his car parked on Constitution Avenue. At least seven rounds struck the White House, though no one was injured. He was arrested five days later in a hotel in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Obama was not at the White House at the time of the shooting. Federal prosecutors launched an investigation to determine if Hernandez acted out of hatred for Obama. Writings by Hernandez and testimony from those who knew him showed that he believed President Obama was the Antichrist and the Devil. In September 2013, Hernandez pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of property and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, thereby avoiding the charge of attempting to assassinate the President. Originally scheduled to be sentenced in January 2014, Hernandez's lawyers objected to the "terrorism enhancement" as unconstitutional, though he accepted it as part of his guilty plea. On March 31, 2014, Hernandez was sentenced by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer to a term of 25 years of imprisonment.

2012

Plot by terrorist group within US Army

In 2012 a case was brought against four U.S. Army soldiers in the state of Georgia, claiming that they formed a paramilitary group called the FEAR militia within the U.S. military with plans to overthrow the U.S. government: Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, Pfc. Michael Burnett, Sgt. Anthony Peden and Pvt. Christopher Salmon. The group purchased $87,000 worth of guns and bomb-making materials, conspired to take over Fort Stewart, bomb targets in Savannah and Washington state and assassinate the president. Burnett pleaded guilty to lesser manslaughter and gang charges in the December 2011 slayings of former soldier Michael Roark and his girlfriend Tiffany York, who were killed because they knew of the group’s plans. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but in May 2014 Peden was given a life sentence that included the possibility of parole after serving at least 30 years. Aguigui and Salmon also struck plea deals to avoid a possible death sentence and both were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Threats made by Denver man

In October 2012 Mitchell Kusick was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service at his parents' suburban Denver home after his mental health therapist told police that Kusick wanted to kill the president and had been trying to keep track of his visits to the Denver area. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Hosley stated that the Secret Service arrested him because "they were concerned for the community's safety". "It's clear to the court that the defendant has a severe mental illness," U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Kristin Mix said in denying a request from Kusick's attorney to allow him to be released on bond. Kusick had been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and Judge Mix said he posed a "risk to the community." In August 2013 Kusick pleaded guilty and was sentenced for the threats. After nine months in federal prison he was released, his release agreement including three years of supervision and comprehensive mental health treatment. He must also live with his parents, both of whom are psychotherapists.

2013

Death ray plot

In 2013 two men from upstate New York were arrested after building a "death ray" x-ray device and plotting to use it against Muslims and other perceived enemies of the US and Israel, including Obama. The men, Glenn Scott Crawford and Eric J. Feight, were arrested by the FBI after a 15-month operation involving FBI agents posing as co-conspirators. A court affidavit described the device as "a mobile, remotely operated, radiation-emitting device capable of killing human targets silently and from a distance with lethal doses of radiation."

Crawford, affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, had allegedly contacted an Albany synagogue and a Jewish organization and asked for their assistance with technology that could be used against Israel's enemies. Crawford also plotted to kill President Obama with the device. The undercover agents rendered the weapon inoperable to eliminate potential danger to the public. Crawford and Feight were charged with "conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists". In 2015 Crawford was convicted and on December 19, 2016 he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

Ricin plots

One attempt was made in April 2013 when a letter laced with ricin, a deadly poison, was sent to President Obama along with other government officials. Another attempt was made in June 2013, when another ricin-laced letter was sent to President Obama by actress Shannon Richardson. The letter contained a threat to kill anyone attempting to take away the sender's guns or impair their "constitutional God given" right to bear arms. It was later revealed the letter's message was fake as the sender's sole intent was to incriminate her estranged husband. In November 2013, Richardson reached a plea agreement and faced up to five years' imprisonment on each of three counts. The following month she pleaded guilty. In July 2014, she was sentenced to eighteen years in prison.

2014

Omar J. Gonzalez

The 2014 White House intrusion occurred on September 19, 2014, when Omar J. Gonzalez, an Iraq War veteran, jumped over the White House's fence and entered the building's front door before being stopped by security officers. He was then arrested and taken to George Washington University Hospital after complaining of chest pains.

Later that month, Gonzalez was indicted for entering a restricted building while armed with a knife. He was also charged with two violations of local laws: carrying a weapon outside a home or business, and ammunition possession.

2015

Plot by three New York City men

In February 2015, three men from New York City were arrested and charged in a terrorist plot that included joining ISIL, killing President Obama, hijacking an airplane, and bombing Coney Island. One of the three men, Abdulrasul Hasanovich Juraboev, an Uzbekistan native, posted a comment on August 8, 2014 on the ISIL-related website Hilofatnews.com saying that he wanted to pledge allegiance to ISIL and become a martyr by killing the president. During an August 18 interview with law enforcement agents, Juraboev also allegedly said he would plant a bomb on Coney Island if he were so ordered by the ISIL. He had bought a plane ticket to Turkey for March 29. He was arrested at his home in Brooklyn.

Another accused, Kazakh national Akhror Saidakhmetov, plotted to travel to Turkey with an informant and proposed finding an excuse to gain access to the pilot’s cabin and diverting the plane to the Islamic State, so that the Islamic State would gain a plane. During a secretly recorded conversation on November 14, Saidakhmetov allegedly told Juraboev that he wanted to enlist so he could serve as an ISIL spy and when Juraboev expressed skepticism, Saidakhmetov responded that he could always open fire on American soldiers and kill as many of them as possible. On January 11, 2015, Saidakhmetov allegedly told the informant that if he could not get travel documents to go to Syria, then he would buy a gun and use it to kill police officers and FBI agents. He was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport while attempting to board a 12:30 a.m. flight to Ukraine en route to Turkey, where he allegedly planned to sneak across the border into Syria and join ISIL.

The third man, Arbor Habibov, an illegal immigrant from Uzbekistan, was arrested in Florida, one of several states where he ran shopping-mall kiosks that sold kitchenware and repaired cell phones.

Plot by a South Korean man

On November 11, 2016, a Korean man, surnamed Lee, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for attempted intimidation, after he posted two letters on the White House website in July 2015, in which he threatened to kill the US ambassador to South Korea and rape the second daughter of President Obama; however, Prosecutor Chung Woo-jun appealed, asking for a four-and-a-half year sentence, the highest sentence in court, for derogating national prestige in the U.S.–ROK 'blood alliance.' In his letters, titled "Declaration Terror to Mr. President Obama" and "Dear Mr. President Obama and Mrs. First lady Michelle", Lee threatened to assassinate Mark Lippert, who had been injured in a stabbing earlier that year. Lee also threatened to rape Sasha Obama, President Obama's second daughter, in another letter. On July 15, 2015, Natasha M. Poeschl, U.S. Embassy Seoul (Embassy of the United States of America) Security Attaché, found those threat messages and first reported to Mr. KIM, Seong Geun, Director General of KNPA (Korean National Police Agency) Foreign Affairs Bureau. 

Following a request from the US Embassy, the South Korean authorities arrested Lee on July 16, 2015. On July 14, 2016, approximately a year later, Poeschl presented evidence of the IP addresses of the threat messages provided by the United States Secret Service to Judge PARK, Sarang (박사랑 판사님), Seoul Central District Court (서울중앙지방법원, 형사 17 단독).

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  Threat Message: Dear Mr. President Obama and Mrs. First lady Michelle.
  
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  Threat Message: Declaration Terror to Mr. President Obama.
  
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  July 15, 2015, From: Natasha M. Poeschl, U.S. Embassy Seoul (Embassy of the United States of America) Security Attaché To: Mr. KIM, Seong Geun, Director General of KNPA Foreign Affairs Bureau
  
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  July 14, 2016, From: Natasha Poeschl, Special Agent, U.S. Embassy Seoul, ARSO-I Office To: Judge PARK, Sarang (박사랑 판사님), Seoul Central District Court (서울중앙지방법원, 형사 17 단독)
  

On March 12, 2020, Supreme Court of South Korea overturned the previous ruling and acquitted Mr. Lee of insufficient evidence. In an e-mail to foreign journalists, Mr. Lee raised the conspiracy theory that "the Assassination threats against Barack Obama is a Park Geun-hye and Obama administration's Undercover operation of North Korean Cyberwarfare" and claimed that revealing the facts would affect Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign in the 2020 United States presidential election. In fact, Mr. Lee worked part-time at the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) (Korean: 한국방송공사; Hanja: 韓國放送公社; RR: Han-guk Bangsong Gongsa; MR: Han'guk Pangsong Kongsa) before the 2013 South Korea cyberattack on 20 March, 2013; moreover.

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  Confirmation of Work Experience on Mr. Lee's Receiving AP and Reaters Tape Part-time job (Published by Kim Myung-sub, head of the international team at the Korean Broadcasting System)
  

2018

Mail bombing attempt

In late October 2018, officials intercepted a series of pipe bombs that had been mailed to multiple Democratic Party leaders, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, and several other high-profile individuals, such as Robert De Niro. No one was injured, and the FBI launched an investigation. A single individual, Cesar Sayoc, was subsequently charged with several felony charges related to the incident.

2019

On April 20, 2019, the FBI arrested Larry Mitchell Hopkins. According to the FBI, Hopkins stated that he and his militia band, the United Constitutional Patriots, were training to assassinate Obama.