State of Vietnam Constitution
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2023 4:01 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
The Associated States of the French Union have their own Constitution defined by the French. You can see here the discussions at Dalat and Fontainebleau on the status of the future Vietnam as an Associate State.
"The meeting of Đà Lạt came to nothing. For the Vietnamese, the countries of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union had to be independent countries with real power with their own army, finances and foreign policy. Viet Nam, by its membership in both organizations, would grant France economic privileges, trade priorities and a special position from the point of view of foreign affairs. They refused to allow the administration of these two bodies to be a super-government. The Indochinese Federation was to be only an organization whose main purpose was the coordination of the economic activities of the member countries, and the power of the High Commissioner of the Republic who oversaw the whole thing should be limited to diplomatic activities. For the French, the French Union, which included the French Republic (metropolitan France, overseas departments and territories) and associated territories and states, was governed by the French government itself. The Associated States had internal autonomy, but there were restrictions. Thus, concerning defense, Article 62 of its 1946 Constitution is worded as follows
: « The members of the French Union shall pool all their means to guarantee the defence of the Union as a whole. The Government of the Republic shall assume the coordination of these means and the direction of the policy appropriate to ensure this defense ». In short, the only one who held power remained France, alone."
https://www.academia.edu/86170731/The_game_between_H%E1%BB%93_Ch%C3%AD_Minh_and_France_in_1946
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
Mes articles (plus de 20.300 vues)
https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 7:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear all,
There were two reasons why the State of Vietnam had not a Constitution:
1) Bao Dai refused when Nguyễn Văn Tâm (1952-53)proposed to do it because he saw it as a diminution of his power
2) Bao Dai and the Quoc gia organizations considered that the State of Vietnam they accepted was not the one they wanted.
This acceptance was temporary, and they continued to fight to get complete independence or at least a solution similar to the British dominion
applied to India.
I wrote it in an article on academia.edu https://www.academia.edu/105264766/L_%C3%89tat_du_Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_de_l_Ind%C3%A9pendance_limit%C3%A9e_%C3%A0_l_Ind%C3%A9pendance_totale_1945_1954_. It can be also downloaded from my website: https://www.nguyenngocchau.fr/mes-livresarticles/mes-articles/mes-articles-en-fran%C3%A7ais-3
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu
Mes articles (plus de 20.000 vues)
https://independent.academia.edu/ChauNGUYENNGOC2
From: Keith, Charles <ckeith@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 5:12 PM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution (Charles Keith)
Hi again everybody,
I went back to the document - its insights are, as I remembered, quite limited. To wit: the nascent constitution is described as being grounded “less in the abstract notions of the old Western democracies than in the psychological and historical foundations of ancient Annam, chronically prey to the damaging inheritance of chronic rebellion, in all phases of its history” (by 1949, you would think the author of the memo - unnamed - would have gotten the memo). The document does mention the collaboration in the project of one Jean Tillard (nom de résistance: Rochoir), a close ally of Bao Dai’s. Goscha’s dictionary of the First Indochina War has the following entry for him:
Happy to send the document to anybody who is interested.
Best,
Charles
From: Keith, Charles <ckeith@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 4:32 PM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution (Charles Keith)
Dear Hue-Tam and list,
Unfortunately, there was nothing substantive about the draft in the dossier I consulted. But there could be something somewhere!
Best,
Charles
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 3:48 PM
To: ckeith@msu.edu; vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution (Charles Keith)
Hi, Charles,
Did you have a chance to read the draft? Was there any indication of what it would cover and when it would be implemented? It seems to have been wishful thinking on the part of the drafters, but what was the role of the French in that project?
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: Keith, Charles <ckeith@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 2:55 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution (Charles Keith)
Dear all,
In Paris, immediately after the March 8, 1949 Élysée Agreement, Bửu Lộc (Bảo Đại’s uncle) and the lawyers Nguyễn Đắc Khê and Nguyễn Quốc Định (the latter a professor in Toulouse and later Bảo Đại’s Minister of Foreign Affairs) began a project to draft a constitution, though obviously nothing ever came of it. [Source: “Note relatif au retour de BAO-DAI,” March 20, 1949, Dossier Bảo Đại, SLOTFOM XV.75, ANOM].
Best,
Charles Keith
Michigan State University
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 8:46 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Fwd: State/Republic of Vietnam Constitutions
My apologies for my skipping over the word "nobody" in Shawn's post. Shawn is absolutely right. The French Union was being devised on the flight and never took off. After 1954, France withdrew from Indochina but remained involved in Africa to this day.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 6:51 PM
To: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Cc: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Fwd: State/Republic of Vietnam Constitutions
I did not single out the Vietnamese as not understanding “independence” in the context of the French Union. The French didn't either. To be precise, the juridical status of the state of Vietnam was unclear. How could it be? No state in Vietnam had ever existed that was nested not simply in the Associated States of Indochina but within the French Union. Were France and Vietnam both theoretically subordinate to the French Union? It didn't seem so, but it wasn't clear. France was improvising on the fly. But one thing it did not want to see in 1949 was a full-fledged State of Vietnam, run completely by Vietnamese citizens, in charge of all state functions and with a Constitution.
Most scholars over the past sixty years have rejected the State of Vietnam as having any significance. I have argued in The First Vietnam War that almost all of them are wrong, for one simple reason: from 1949, bit by bit, France lost sovereignty over Vietnam, as more and more state functions were taken over by the rising state of Vietnam. This loss of civilian sovereign control was masked by the fact that the French military had arrogated to itself many practices of sovereign rule. (My argument is contrarian, and I am happy to see debate over it. ) It was only in 1954, after France gave independence AGAIN (!!) to the State of Vietnam, before the resolution of Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, that the State of Vietnam would come up with its own Constitution.
Shawn McHale
From: Hue-Tam Tai <huetamtai@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 4:56 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu; passelin@sdsu.edu
Subject: [Vsg] Fwd: State/Republic of Vietnam Constitutions
I sent this to Mark Sidel last week and forgot to copy it to Pierre and VSG.
For the Associated of Vietnam, the limiting factor was lack of sovereignty since France retained control of the army and foreign relations.
It is true, as Shawn argues, that the majority of Vietnamese did not quite understand the meaning of independence, though among those who would have been in charge of drafting a constitution therenwould have been quite a few French-trained individuals. The issue must have been more salient in the DRV whose motto (preserved by the SRV) included 'Independence and freedom."
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Harvard University emerita
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 4:04 PM
To: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear all,
As Jerry Silverman and others have mentioned, Vietnam became, in 1949, part of the "Associated States of Indochina." We can't skip past this little point. For what, exactly, did it mean to be part of the Associated States, and in fact, to be part of something, the French Union, that France imagined, it seems, to be akin to the developing British Commonwealth? In fact, as the French legal scholar Helene-Thérèse Blanchet noted, in an excellent study, nobody really knew what “independence” to Vietnam meant, not did they know what the “Associated States” really meant, not did they know what the “French Union” really was. These were all new legal species, so to speak, works in progress. Given the above, it is not surprising that before 1954, the State of Vietnam had no Constitution. How could it, when even the nature of its "independence" was not even well-understood?
I discuss all of this fascinating material in Chapter 6 of my recent book The First Vietnam War.
From: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2023 2:43 PM
To: Edward G. Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear List,
A member of the VSG asked me about my unfinished sentence in my last email. My apologies that I hit the enter key too soon before I deleted the sentence, and it was too late to retract the email. Besides, I thought the subject was a little obscure and speculative on my part.
What I meant to write was that “Incidentally, there were 17 kings of the Xia dynasty (c. 2070-c. 1600 BCE) and 17 kings of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1045 BCE). As a matter of interest, An Abridged History of Viet (Việt Sử Lược, VSL) mentions the first Hùng king kings as appeared during the reign of King Zhuang of Zhou (696-682 BCE) rather than 2879 BCE as in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Great Viet (Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư, SKTT). There were 23 kings of Zhou, from King Zhang to the last king, King Nan, who also coincidentally ended in 256 BCE, the same time as the last Hùng king.
Perhaps the writers of these historical texts may have been influenced by these numbers and created the 18 Hùng kings.”
Kind regards,
Tan Pham (NZ)
Author of a book series on Vietnamese history: A Traveller’s Story of Vietnam’s Past.
Volume One: The Bronze Drums and The Earrings. ISBN: 978-0-473-59804-4.
Volume Two: One Thousand Years - The Stories of Giao Châu, the Kingdoms of Linyi, Funan and Zhenla. ISBN 978-0-473-63527-5.
From: Guillemot Francois <francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 9:57 AM
To: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Tr: Re: State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear list, sorry, the National Congress in Saigon in 1953 was in October, not in September.
Best
F
From: Guillemot Francois <francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2023 9:52 AM
To: Edward G. Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>; passelin@sdsu.edu
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Thank you Ed for completing my answer.
There is a lot of information in the Viet Nam official magazine of the Bao Dai Cabinet about the 1953 elections with photographies and propaganda.
In the same order, the National Congress held in Saigon in September 1953 foreshadowed a possible move towards a national assembly, but this question was aborted.
The book I was referring to is the following one:
État du Viêt-Nam, Code administratif (Tome 1), Saigon, Impr. des J.O. 1953, bilingue.
It brings together the organic texts of the State of VN. If my memory serves me correctly, some of these constitutive texts of the State of VN can be read as the outline of a constitution (for example the name of the State, the Flag, the organisation...).
But as you recall, it was an "abortive process", because of the war, the devaluation of the Indochinese Piastre in 1953 and the inability of the French to grant full independence to Viet Nam.
Best
F
---
15 parvis René Descartes
BP 7000, 69342 Lyon cedex 07
www.ens-lyon.fr
Guillemot François
Historien, ingénieur de recherche CNRS
Institut d'Asie Orientale - UMR 5062
Tél. 04 37 37 62 41
francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr
Responsable des collections vietnamiennes
Référent ingénierie de projets
Membre du Bureau éditorial d'ENS éditions
----------------------------
Carnets de recherche & ressources
https://guerillera.hypotheses.org/
https://indomemoires.hypotheses.org/
https://indosources.hypotheses.org/
https://virtual-saigon.net/
From: Tan Pham <nxb315kio@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 2:37 PM
To: Edward G. Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear List,
This email is not directly relevant to the State of Vietnam's constitution, but it may be of interest to some of you. Most Vietnamese are familiar with the expression "4,000 nghìn năm văn hiến" or four thousand years of civilisation, as a reference to the history of Vietnam. I am sure most members of this forum have heard of it. This phrase appeared in the opening paragraph of the DRV's 1980 constitution, but in the 1992 version, it was replaced by mấy nghìn năm, a few thousand years. The most recent edition, 2013, still has mấy nghìn năm.
Perhaps the Vietnamese historians or the archaeologists may have decided that the 4,000 years may not be appropriate. It appears to be based on the story of 18 Hùng kings over 2,622 years (or 145 years reign on average), with the first king dated at 2,879 BCE. Coincidentally, the 18 kings and the
Be that the case, the 4,000 nghìn năm văn hiến phrase has been so deeply embedded in the Vietnamese psyche and is not likely to go any time soon, irrespective of what is written down in the country's constitution.
https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Bo-may-hanh-chinh/Hien-phap-nam-2013-215627.aspx
Kind regards,
Tan Pham (NZ)
Author of a book series on Vietnamese history: A Traveller’s Story of Vietnam’s Past.
Volume One: The Bronze Drums and The Earrings. ISBN: 978-0-473-59804-4.
Volume Two: One Thousand Years - The Stories of Giao Châu, the Kingdoms of Linyi, Funan and Zhenla. ISBN 978-0-473-63527-5.
From: Edward G. Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 1:39 PM
To: Guillemot Francois <francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr>
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear list,
François is of course correct that the State of Vietnam never adopted a constitution or elected a national assembly. It is worth pointing out, however, that there was a great deal of talk and no small amount of agitation about these matters among SVN leaders and constituents. The SVN also managed to hold elections, first for municipal councils and then for provisional councils during 1953. The plan, according to Bao Dai and other SVN leaders, was for these bodies to then select some of their own members to serve in a national assembly. A thoughtful recap and critical assessment of this abortive process was published in 1954 by Bernard Fall:
Fall, Bernard B. “Representative Government in the State of Vietnam.” Far Eastern Survey 23, no. 8 (1954): 122–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/3024266.
Interestingly, the Associated States of Cambodia and Lao were less reluctant than the SVN in embracing constitutional rule. They both promulgated constitutions in 1947.
Cheers,
Ed
Edward Miller (he, his, him)
Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies
Chair of the Department of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages
Director of the Dartmouth Digital History Initiative
Dartmouth College
6107 Carson Hall, Hanover, NH 03755
Edward.Miller@Dartmouth.edu
http://history.dartmouth.edu/people/edward-miller
From: Guillemot Francois <francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr>
Sent: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 12:39 PM
To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>
Cc: vsg@uw.edu; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Dear Pierre, there is no State of Vietnam formal constitution (and no National Assembly).
As far as I know, there is no constitution for the Associated State of Vietnam, only projects.
All the country's constitutions were listed on the Ngo Bao Chau website during the 2013 constitutional revision (see : Cung Viet Hien Phap) :
https://hienphap.wordpress.com/category/hien-phap-viet-nam/cac-hien-phap-da-co/
However, informations on the foundation of the State of Vietnam can be found in a bilingual book (French / Vietnamese) published by Etat du Viêt-Nam / Quôc Gia Viêt Nam in 1953. I am currently on holidays, but this work is included in the bibliography of my book on Dai Viet Party (Indes savantes 2012).
There's also information in the official journal of the Associated State, published in Paris by the Cabinet of Bao Dai :
[Revue] Viêt-Nam, bulletin bimensuel d’information publié par le Cabinet de SM. Bao Dai puis par le service de presse et d’information du Haut-Commissariat du Viêt-Nam en France (1951-1954).
See also books of Goscha on this period.
Best
F
---
15 parvis René Descartes
BP 7000, 69342 Lyon cedex 07
www.ens-lyon.fr
Guillemot François
Historien, ingénieur de recherche CNRS
Institut d'Asie Orientale - UMR 5062
Tél. 04 37 37 62 41
francois.guillemot@ens-lyon.fr
Responsable des collections vietnamiennes
Référent ingénierie de projets
Membre du Bureau éditorial d'ENS éditions
----------------------------
Carnets de recherche & ressources
https://guerillera.hypotheses.org/
https://indomemoires.hypotheses.org/
https://indosources.hypotheses.org/
https://virtual-saigon.net/
From: Jerry Mark Silverman <jmsilverman5@comcast.net>
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 1:24 PM
To: Maxner, Steve <Steve.Maxner@ttu.edu>; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>; vsg@uw.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Hi All, For a translated summary of the legal framework for the Associated States of Indochina (1949), see a JSTOR translated article at https://www.jstor.org/stable/41377499 , p. 111-112. The remainder of the article appears (at least to me) to be a bit on the more favorable than realistic side, but provides a path to the primary legal instruments.
Hope this helps.
Jerry Mark Silverman, Ph.D.
Independent Researcher
World Bank (ret.)
From: Maxner, Steve <Steve.Maxner@ttu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 12:46 PM
To: Maxner, Steve <Steve.Maxner@ttu.edu>; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>; vsg@uw.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Apologies – I misread Pierre’s original. From what I can find – there was no Constitution for the State of Vietnam – only an agreement that gave Vietnam status as a “free state” under Bao Dai.
Sorry for any confusion my previous might have caused.
Steve
From: Maxner, Steve <Steve.Maxner@ttu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 12:35 PM
To: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>; vsg@uw.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Colleagues,
While I have not been able to locate a scanned copy of an original, the following attests to the creation of a Constitution for the DRV written in 1946. The first link is Vietnam Law and Legal Forum – published by Vietnam News Agency. The second - Bloomsbury Professional - is a legal publisher in the UK.
Steve Maxner
Vietnam Center and Archive
Texas Tech University
The 1946 Constitution of Vietnam (vietnamlawmagazine.vn)
vietnam-constitution-1946x.pdf (bloomsburyprofessional.com)
From: Mark Sidel <mark.sidel@wisc.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 12:19 PM
To: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>; VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] State/Republic of Vietnam Constitutions
Dear Pierre —
I have only really worked on DRV/SRV constitutional matters, but I’m generally aware of these from 1956 and 1967 in the south.
Hue-Tam as well as some in the growing group of people working on the south may well know more.
https://www.worldstatesmen.org/South-Vietnam-Constitution1956.pdf
http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/fullrecord.php?kid=6-20-101
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrdppub/2019668641/2019668641.pdf
Best wishes…. Mark
Mark Sidel | UW-Madison | sidel@wisc.edu
From: Pierre Asselin <passelin@sdsu.edu>
Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 12:04 PM
To: VSG <vsg@u.washington.edu>; vsg@uw.edu
Subject: [Vsg] State of Vietnam Constitution
Beloved Comrades:
Did the State of Vietnam (1949-55) ever have a constitution, either as an associated state of the French Union (before mid-1954) or as an independent state? I can't seem to find any evidence to that effect.
Merci beaucoup!
Pierre
Pierre Asselin
Professor of History - Dwight E. Stanford Chair in US Foreign Relations
San Diego State University
History Department
5500 Campanile Dr.
San Diego, CA 92182-6050