From the late period of Meiji to the Taishō era, a democratic trend spread as a background of bourgeois political consciousness. Its current led to political movements for safeguarding the Constitution and for the popular election. Yoshino Sakuzō argued for party cabinet politics and popular election. He did not deeply pursue who was the sovereign but he insisted the political goal aim for people's happiness and political decisions aim for people's intentions. Minobe Tatsukichi interpreted a sovereign as not an emperor but the state. According to him, an emperor only excises his power as the highest organ under the Meiji Constitution. Although his theory was widely acknowledged at first, he was politically suppressed by the military and the rightists afterwards.