Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)

The Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Turkish: ايکنجى مشروطيت دورى‎; Turkish: İkinci Meşrûtiyyet Devri) of the Ottoman Empire established shortly after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution which forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitutional monarchy by the revival of the Ottoman parliament, the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire and the restoration of the constitution of 1876. The parliament and the constitution of First Constitutional Era (1876–1878) had been suspended by Abdul Hamid in 1878 after only two years of functioning. Whereas the First Constitutional Era had not allowed for political parties, the Young Turks amended the constitution to strengthen the popularly elected Chamber of Deputies at the expense of the unelected Senate and the Sultan's personal powers, and formed and joined many political parties and groups for the first time in the Empire's history.

A series of elections during this period resulted in the gradual ascendance of the Committee of Union and Progress's (CUP) domination in politics. The second largest party, with which the CUP was involved in a 2-year power struggle, was the Freedom and Accord Party (also known as the Liberal Union or Liberal Entente) founded in 1911 by those that had split off from the CUP. The period survived an attempt by reactionaries to re-institute absolutism. After World War I and the Occupation of Istanbul on 13 November 1918 by the Allies, the parliament's decision to work with the Turkish revolutionaries in Ankara by signing the and agreeing in 1920 to the Misak-ı Millî (National Pact) angered the Allies, who forced the sultan to abolish the parliament. The last meeting on 18 March 1920 produced a letter of protest to the Allies, and a black cloth covered the pulpit of the Parliament as reminder of its absent members.

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