From the Sened-i Alliance to the Abolition of the Sultanate, Our Journey to the Republic

Monarchy, in its most concise expression, means the rule of one person. It is the order in which power belongs to one person; throughout history, it has been expressed by various nomenclatures such as kingdom, sultanate, sultanate. The French word for ‘royal' is a quoted word that has entered dec the concepts of political science.
It is a management system ruled by a single individual. In a general sense, the monarchy is, in essence, the institution in which the post of head of state is filled by inheritance or heraldry. A dynasty can be obtained by force by a powerful person or a community of relatives, the right to rule a society can be seized by the owners of power. 
Constitutional monarchies, which are still ongoing in some countries today, have evolved into a structure that is mostly compatible with the concepts of republic and democracy to a certain extent over time. The role of such constitutional monarchies has become symbolic, and they are not allowed to have the authority of ‘sovereignty’. With this jihad, constitutional monarchies have no direct political significance left. Only, traditionally, they continue to keep their place. In this sense, it is expected that kings or queens will only perform their ceremonial roles. Today we would like to dwell on the concept of absolute monarchy, rather than such monarchies.
Absolute monarchies are monarchies that monopolize political power, and therefore, in the full sense, sovereignty is gathered in one person. The classical basis of monarchical absolutism, or the philosophy of its legitimacy, is based on God. In other words, according to the argument that the monarch or king is the ‘chosen one’ by God, and therefore, as God's authority on earth, he rules his nation or people in the name of God, the monarch rules his country with a ‘double sword’. 
In the absolutist management system derived from the Arabic word ‘absolute’, the king or sultan is a person who is ‘released (in the sense of inviolable), independent of registration and condition’. In fact, when the final meaning is considered together with the word talik, the assumption that the king, as the supreme ruler who has been ‘freed’ from all kinds of rules, accountability and even responsibility, is endowed with almost ‘divine’ authority forms the essence of absolute monarchical systems. Management is ‘absolute' in the sense of having unlimited power. Currently, only the rules of the absolute monarchical system are operated under the rule of a handful of states, such as Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican.
Unbridled, unlimited power can be in the hands of an absolute monarch, the king, as well as in the sense of the collective use of a parliament in the form of a superior legislature. Or a head of state who makes permanent the power of power that has been temporarily handed over to him by election can also become an ‘absolute monarch’, gather all the powers in his monopoly. 
In the modern sense, absolute monarchy differs from dictatorship and, in particular, totalitarianism. In absolutist systems, the masses are usually pushed out of politics. It is not desirable that the masses should have a say in the determination of political power. In totalitarianism, on the other hand, a ‘holistic power’ is built through the politicization of all aspects of social and personal existence. 
Absolutist management governs with the assumption that sovereignty is indisputable and indivisible, and from a rational and theological point of view, power should be in one person. Based on the understanding that “sovereignty unconditionally belongs to the absolute monarch” of the phrase “sovereignty unconditionally belongs to the nation”, which has found itself in the modern structure of thought today, absolutist systems create their own political philosophies. 
Bodin and Hobbes‘ fears of ’divided power', in the name of the continuation of order and social stability, pushed these rationalist thinkers to support absolutist theories. In their eyes, divided sovereignty or debatable power, therefore, meant an invitation to chaos and disorder. Meanwhile, Locke, who took the theory of the ‘social contract’ brought up by Hobbes further, decried the view that kings have divine rights, arguing that the powers of those who rule can only be obtained with the consent of those who rule. Like Locke, Rousseau saw the right to property as the ‘holiest of citizen's rights’ and played an original role in the destruction of the classical view that recognized the right to property only to the royal institution.
The United States is the first country in the historical flow to embody the sovereignty of the people as a result of their rebellion against the British monarchy and to switch to the republican system in the modern sense. Americans have based their management system on the fact that the person who will be the head of the state is elected by the people and for a certain period of time, their powers are again shared with the parliament elected by the people, and they are supervised by judicial institutions. 
The French, on the other hand, adopted Montesquieu's principle of separation of powers with the revolution of 1789, and even initially considered a system of legitimacy similar to the United Kingdom. However, the king's attempts to revive the old system brought with it the republican regime in 1792. However, France went back and forth in the absolutist-republican spiral until 1871, after which the real republican regime was able to come to life in the country. In fact, it was at the height of the struggle for democracy and human rights in the 19th century. It is impossible not to mention any republican regime in Europe of the XVIII century, with the exception of Switzerland, which was transformed into a ‘neutral republic’ at the 1815 Vienna Congress. 
The first incident in this direction in the Ottoman Empire was written on October 7, 1808, during the reign of Mahmut II, a text called “Sened-i Ittifak” was written in our history, which was unprecedented in the Ottoman Empire. The first article of this promissory note states that “the person and reign of the sultan are the essence of the state and are under the commitment and assurance of the signatories of this promissory note”. For the first time in the Ottoman Empire, sovereignty was not subject to inheritance, but to the will of the ayans (a partial, albeit very small, will of the nation), which led to the signing of this deed. This text has been an important break in Turkish history in terms of granting the sultan the right to reign. In one aspect, this document can be compared to the Magna Carta in English history (1215).
In the following years, two edicts announced by external coercion parallel to the formation of internal conditions were decisive in the constitutional and legitimate monarchy journey of the Ottoman Empire. While the important problems in the field of law were addressed with the 1839 Tanzimat Edict, the basic human rights were recognized to the Ottoman society with the 1856 Reform Edict. After that, for the Ottoman intellectuals, the continuation of a ‘democratic monarchy’ system was considered, similar to the understanding adopted by the French when they made the revolution of 1789. The desired thing was to give political rights to citizens, to ensure the transition to a representative legitimate monarchy. The basic idea was that “in a state based on Islamic principles, only people with certain political rights” should have the administrative authority of the sultan through their representatives. 
Even the thoughts of the Ottoman intellectuals in this direction were not accepted in the first place. Abdulaziz (1861-1876) and II. Abdulhamit (1876-1909) reacted strongly to such approaches and refrained from trying to share their power with the people. With the “Legal Basis” of the first and last constitution of the Ottoman Empire, which was prepared and entered into force during the reign of Abdulhamit, the transition to a constitutional monarchy system was made instead of an absolute monarchy. The foundations of legitimacy were also laid during this period. Although the parliament, which was opened on March 19, 1877, was closed by the sultan in 1878, it is an important touchstone for our democratic history in terms of meeting the legitimacy of Turkish society and opening the way to the republic. after a 30-year reign, under the influence of developing conditions and the pressure of young intellectuals, II. In 1908, Abdulhamit was forced to declare legitimacy for the second time. II, who was deposed by a parliamentary decision after the March 31 uprising. After Abdulhamit, the constitutional amendment was made in 1909 and the transfer of political parties began. Taking advantage of the corrupt atmosphere caused by the Balkan War, the Union fighters seized power by carrying out a coup d'état with the Babiali raid on January 23, 1913. In summary, it would not be wrong to say that from the end of 1908 until its collapse, the sultanate system did not have much power, the main power passed to the Unionists and the interest groups surrounding the sultan after the Great War.
After the Armistice of Mondros signed on October 30, 1918 after the First World War, the Ottoman Sultanate could not exist in any way in the face of the Entente states that shared the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, it has fueled the emergence of a ‘duality’ in the liberation struggle of the Turkish Nation. In the struggle for the independence of the Turkish Nation initiated under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, especially with the closure of the Parliament on March 16, 1920, the office of Sultan has also lost its meaning to some extent completely.
With the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which was opened in Ankara on April 23, 1920, a new system based on the actual sovereignty of the people, the parliamentary management system, was de facto implemented. The constitution of 1921, made by this constituent assembly, did not knowingly provide for the office of the head of state. The new state had no head, since the sovereignty of the ‘sultan’ and the ‘assembly’ was considered to be shared. The Assembly directly elected the ministers. At that time, Atatürk, as the speaker of the Grand National Assembly, was serving using all the powers and responsibilities expected of a head of state. 
After the final Greek withdrawal from Izmir on September 9, 1922, following the Armistice of Mudanya signed on October 11, the need for an end to this state of “double sovereignty” had become clear. As a result, by the decision of the First Parliament of Turkey, the ‘Sultanate’ was abolished on November 1, 1922, paving the way for the transition of Turkey to the Republican regime. 

Ataturk describes this historical event in his speech as follows: "We were invited to the Peace Conference that will be convened in Lausanne on October 28, 1922. The Entente States still wanted to recognize the government in Istanbul and invited him to the conference with us. This state of being invited together has definitively concluded the work of abolishing personal rule...”
The first sentence of the telegram delivered to Atatürk on November 17 is as follows: “Vahdeddin Efendi has left the palace tonight”. “... Zat-ı Şahane has taken refuge in the protection of England and left Istanbul on a British warship," General Harrington wrote in the signed article.” With the departure of the last sultan Vahdeddin from the country, thus the era of the legitimate ‘absolutism’ in Turkey has closed in an absolute way.
On October 29, 1923, the Republic was proclaimed. The essence of the republican regime is the culture of democracy. The ruling is limited. Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation. There can be nothing that limits the Nation, which is the main owner of power. At the heart of this understanding is the acceptance that people are born and should live with free and equal rights. This means that no person, including the head of state, within the borders of the state has the privileges to place himself above the citizens, and such privileged rights are not granted to anyone. It is a muasır management concept that provides that power is entrusted to the head of state for a temporary period of time by the people within the framework of constitutional rules on the basis of free elections. Elections and pluralism lead to the limitation of power, which prevents the system from turning into an autocratic regime, totalitarianism or dictatorship. 
Those who temporarily take the trust of power from the people may suffer from the disease of seeing themselves able to do everything on behalf of the people, as the French Jacobins did. The disease of power should not develop into an authoritarian-dictatorial regime that sends anyone in opposition to the guillotine or to the electric chair. A handful of ruling elites should not attempt to replace the parliament with representatives of the people. History is full of numerous examples that did not forgive the Jacobins. In the modern understanding, the dominance of the powers that do not dominate their people and empty the inside of democracy sooner or later becomes null and void. Because the true sovereignty belongs to the nation unconditionally and unconditionally. 
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