君道再还:钱穆宪制思维中的元首论

A Revisit to the Monarchy Tradition:Theory of the Head of State in Qian Mu’s Constitutional Thinking

钱穆在抗战末期的《政学私言》中专文论述元首问题,直指民国初年来数次制宪时刻民主心智的一大迷思,呼吁正视元首的独立价值与复杂性。在政体革命之后,如何确保国家政治体的稳定团结与持续发展,这是钱穆论元首制度所触及的根本秩序问题。思考现代中国的政制构造需要将其内置于以立国之道为中心的文化与政治大传统。钱穆强调立国规模中文化积业的惯性力量,这一方面表现在“政民一体”下的宪制平衡之中,涵括国民一体和“君相一体”,另一方面展示在以政治家风度为驱动的宪制演进中,二者揭示出元首制度以尊严和活力为职分的双重蕴涵。在时贤以欧美政制为法的窠臼外,钱穆的元首论开辟出一个传统本位的保守化进路,同时又显示出吸收民主共和精神的新君道气质,潜涵了辩证开放的历史线索。

In his Personal Words on Politics written at the end of China's War of Resistance against Japanese Agression, Qian Mu discussed the issue of the head of state, pointing directly to the great myth of the democratic minds at the several constitutional moments since the early years of the Republic of China and calling for a correct evaluation of the independent value and complexity of the head of state. After political revolution, how the stability, unity and sustainable development of the country' s new polity is ensured is an issue concerning fundamental order that Qian Mu touched on in his discussion of the system of the head of state. Any thought about the political construction of modern China needs to place such a construction in the cultural and political megatradition centering around the way of state founding. Qian Mu emphasized the inertia of the cultural forces in state founding, as is manifested in the constitutional balance reached by the "integration of the polity and the people",including state-people integration and monarch-premier integration. It is also manifested in the constitutional evolution driven by statesmanship. These two manifestations reveal the dual implication of dignity and vitality of the system of the head of state. As an antidote to his contemporaries' blind pursu让 of European and American political systems, Qian Mu' s theory of the head of state opened up a conservative approach rooted in tradition while at the same time showing the quality of a new kind of kingship receptive to the spirit of democracy and republic. His legacy is one of dialectical openness.