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How Can Universal Suffrage Build Authoritarian Rule? - Plebiscitary Dictatorship Under Napoleon III | Sleepy Facts About History
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In December 1851, the French Second Republic reached a constitutional dead end. Its president, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, faced a legislature that had restricted universal male suffrage and refused to allow him to run for re-election. The resolution was a military coup, paired immediately with a national plebiscite asking voters to ratify the president's actions and delegate him unspecified powers. This episode examines how an illegal seizure of power was transformed into a legally…
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