Japan was the last country to transform into an industrialized nation-state in what might be thought of as the second round of modernization that took place during the late nineteenth century. The Japanese modernization that transpired between 1854 and 1910 was marked by the opening of Japan, the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Meiji Restoration, the development of industrialization and commercialization, and the establishment of a constitutional regime. Although the changes initiated during this period were extensive and can be considered revolutionary, yet, there was a strong strain of continuity evident throughout. The conventional - revolutionary dichotomy made this a period of contradictions. It was a time of change from feudal, hierarchical, decentralized government to centralized, constitutional, bureaucratic, and authoritarian, government. It was a period of opening to the outside world and xenophobic nationalism. It was an era of changes in the socioeconomic arena that increased individual choice juxtaposed with concurrent transformation in the government, which, while apparently (and in fact, in some instances) liberalizing access and participation, imposed an authoritarianism limiting political choice.
It is in the political realm that the extent of the complexity and contradiction was most pronounced. It is also in the political arena that so many of the threads running through the warp and weft of the tapestry of the period come together. The authoritarian nature of the government developed over time and was countered by increasing participation in the political scene by varied and newly visible social groupings. However, the very expansion of participation into the political realm by previously excluded groups seemed to engender a reaction in the ascendant group of political decision makers that increased their movement, and in consequence the government's, toward authoritarianism. Ironically, this group of individuals had initiated, encouraged and guided the effort to institute change, and yet, they were also responsible for couching change in the conservative terms of restoration, renewal and return to traditional values. They overthrew the extant political structure, replaced it with one of their own devising, and then moved to establish the new structure in such a way as to render it impervious to future modification. However, in doing so, as is evident in their choice of terminology even while creating new institutions, they retained numerous elements of the old system, including some of the most fundamental ones, as we shall see. They also unwittingly encouraged the growth of new power centers and institutions over which they had little or no control. Who were these men (I use the gendered term advisedly. They were without exception male)? What were their motivations for the changes they wrought? Why did they choose the models they did? What was the raison d'être behind the political structure they erected? And, finally, what was the outcome of their fashioning and was it what they intended? These questions are, of course, not new, nor does the following in any way definitively answer them. This essay, circumscribed as it is by definition, is an attempt to illuminate a different perspective and perhaps, in some small way, add to the overall understanding of the development of the constitutional structure of Meiji Japan.
Our first question is reasonably easy to answer. The men that took control of the reins of the Japanese government began as middle level samurai bureaucrats from the tozama hans, the outer domains, in particular the domains of Satsuma, Choshu, Hizen and Tosa (hereinafter SatCho, due to the preeminence of individuals from those domains in Japan during the following years). That is, they were men from the areas most removed from the centers of Tokugawa power. Their isolation was fortunate in that it divorced them from the taint of illegitimacy that stained the Tokugawa and their allies after their dishonor by the West. It was these 'new' samurai that wrested power from the impotent Tokugawa Shogunate in the palace coup of January 1868. Prior to their acquisition of power they can be described as a privileged, but xenophobic group raised in the homogeneity, seclusion and rigid social system of exclusionary (sakoku) Tokugawa Japan.
With the military humiliation of the Shogun (the ultimate de-legitimizing event for a military regime like the Shogunate) and their own defeat at the hands of the Western powers, the tozama samurai realized that acceptance and adoption of outside knowledge was the only path to the amelioration of the humbled status in which they found Japan after the Western incursion. The development of these sentiments can be seen in the progression of rallying mottoes raised in response to the West's intrusion into Japan. The cry Sonno (revere the Emperor) Joi (expel barbarian) was raised as the gravity of the threat became apparent. The chant fukoku (prosper the state) kyohei (strengthen its arms) acknowledged Western superiority, but still espoused the belief that internal change was the panacea. And finally, the phrase bummei (civilization) kaika (enlightenment), manifested an acceptance of the need to import the knowledge necessary to reassert sovereignty. These ideas of acceptance and adaptation had precedence in the Japanese past. The Japanese had long been adopters of Chinese knowledge and technology (the Chinese characters of their writing and the philosophy of Confucius are two salient examples) to ensure their ability to oppose Chinese aggression and hegemony. With the Western powers replacing China in this role, it was not a great leap for the Japanese to amend their position to accommodate the changed circumstances. Thus, we see the first of many instances of an adaptation of traditional thinking to a new situation and a new solution being devised through the use of traditional values. This is a leitmotiv that runs throughout the Meiji period and provides part of the basis for the actions and reactions of the men who created the modern Japanese state.
The foregoing notwithstanding, this is not to say that the Western incursion was the only problem facing the Tokugawa. The Shogunate was also under pressure for change through socioeconomic forces. Particularly a rise in commercialization in which the merchants of Osaka, Kyoto and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere, had been accumulating economic and social power, without commensurate acknowledgment of their increasing importance to the society or access to political authority. The simultaneous impoverishment of the samurai was an important ancillary to this situation. In addition, agricultural crises through the middle of the century also contributed to the Tokugawas' problems. However, that is not the focus of this essay. Suffice it to say that the complexity of the economic and social situations mirrored and contributed to that of the political.
The Shogun ruled and derived his legitimacy as the nexus of political power from the Emperor, who reigned but did not rule. This arrangement had several precedents in Japanese history, e.g., the Muromanchi and Ashikaga bakufus. However, when the Shogunate was unable to meet foreign incursions and domestic challenge the political structure underwent modification. The Shogun was forced from power and with his fall, the focus of authority shifted back to the Emperor, from whose office political legitimacy flowed. W. G. Beasley maintains that the Emperor was always perceived as the head of Japan whether he had power or not, and his continuance in that position could be used to legitimate any government.
In Japan the Emperor, as the lineal descendant of the Sun-goddess, Amaterasu, was believed to be semi-divine. This sacredness of the Emperor was a traditional Japanese attitude and had been appended to adaptations that were made to Confucianism by the Japanese. Confucian principles of harmony and unity combined with the relation of the Emperor and the people to define the responsibility and social place of all. Accordingly, Japanese Confucianism reinforced the position of the Emperor as the father due filial piety from all his children, the Japanese people. Additionally, in his capacity as the scion of the unbroken Imperial line of time immemorial, the Emperor was believed to be the embodiment of the Japanese polity and provided a link of continuity to the past. The Chinese had the 'Mandate of Heaven' as legitimization for the Emperor (and for his replacement), but the Japanese needed no mandate as their Emperor was, by their lights, descended from heaven (which precludes replacement). This consideration is a key to the difference in the Japanese adaptation of Confucianism that combines the ancestor worship and respect for superiors of Shintoism with the equation of filial piety and ancestor loyalty to the Emperor, ultimately creating a quasi-religious duty to the Emperor. Hozumi Yatsuka propounded this theory in the early twentieth century to help explicate the position of the Emperor in Japan. The logic applied postulates that as the ancestors were loyal so, too, must you be. The Emperor worship of Shintoism combined with Confucian order and discipline fusing religion and politics in the ruling figure, whether family head or Emperor. As the symbol of continuity and head of the Japanese 'family', the Emperor could survive the Shogun's fall because he was not identified with the political structure of government, only with the commonality, community and continuity of the Japanese people. In addition, the racial and linguistic homogeneity of Japan also served as an aide in accomplishing this, since it enhanced the desirability of identifying with the Emperor as a legitimizing force. Further, this identification with the Emperor fostered an already well-developed nationalism that, when coupled with Shintoism, also took on religious overtones. Thus, the first phase of Meiji constituted a break with the old order and the establishment of a new loyalty to the nation through the symbol of the Emperor. The Imperium was an institution tailor made for dumping the bakufu.
The early situation that developed with the Tokugawa loss of legitimacy appeared to augur a simple change in the power center of the Shogunate or a contest between the hans of Satsuma and Choshu, the strongest of the tozama, for preeminence. However, this eventuality was avoided by the reshuffling of power to the aforementioned mid-level SatCho samurai, who were responsible for the refocusing on the restoration of power to the Emperor in the first place. The SatCho samurai neatly co-opted the symbol of the Emperor as the cornerstone of their legitimization. This was the essence of their rebellion, the 'restoration' to the Emperor of the powers that the Shogun had 'usurped'. That this type of usurpation also had a long tradition in Japan was simply ignored. Ironically, the SatCho samurai also eventually 'usurped' the Emperor's power. Given the situation, it cannot be said that this was a revolution, because it was not an uprising of the general populace, but more a reorganization of the power structure within the elite.
The Emperor Mutsushito (Meiji) thereby became the center of political authority and public power moved from domain centered politics to national and from feudal (personal) to national (imperial) loyalty. The erstwhile decentralization of the Shogunate was regarded as a substantial problem by the SatCho samurai, since the decentralized, individual hans had proven unable to resist the foreign threat individually. Thus, they turned to the Emperor as representing a centralization and unity that held the promise of meeting the peril posed by the West. To combat continuing devolution the restorationists had to use the Emperor. In addition, they used the feudal loyalty of the daimyo to the Emperor to subordinate them to central authority in a modern sense. This was accomplished by maneuvering the daimyo to return all domain lands to the Emperor as overlord. With the transfer came the recognition of the imperial power to control and/or dispose. This provided the Emperor, or his designees, the prerogative to restructure the governing principles should he see fit. To ensure the change in the locus of power the daimyo and samurai swore the Charter Oath in early 1868 affirming their fealty to the Emperor. This was a major step, for it established a new government on centralized lines and made the daimyo officials of that government rather than power centers in their own right. This was a modern government that had structures borrowed from the West and which, it was hoped, would enable it to fukoku kyohei (prosper the state and strengthen its arms). By 1871, the new government had reorganized the territorial divisions from domains into provinces (prefectures) and centralized the dispensation of law. The SatCho samurai, in the Emperor's name, and presumably with his advice and consent, although the evidence on this point is not clear, appointed the former daimyo as governors. In this construction the daimyo now owed their power and lands to the center in a much more concrete manner than in the feudal structure which established their power through heredity and personal ties. It also gave the government the power of review over the administration of the prefectures. The centralization of power at this time was a decisive change from the feudal system of decentralized power of the Shogunate and set the standard for the subsequent pattern of the government. The Constitution of 1868 (a.k.a. the Seitaisho) established the Dajokan (administration), a centralized state modeled on China, the principle of open government, and the supremacy of imperial authority. However, the Dajokan quickly consolidated to rule by an oligarchic clique led by the SatCho samurai.
The change to a centralized state was also a crucial step in the maintenance of Japan's autonomy. It granted the oligarchy the means to successfully prevent a foreign onslaught, such as had happened in the Chinese case. Part of the story is the West's preoccupation with China, but a greater part is the efforts of the oligarchs to reform the government so that, once the West turned its attention to Japan, Japan would be ready. However, the West did not completely ignore Japan. The drive to counter the perceived Western threat was also motivated by the treaties, starting with the Townshend treaty with the US, imposed upon the Japanese by the several Western states. These were called the unequal treaties by the Japanese because they granted the industrial powers special rights in Japan which diminished Japanese sovereignty. Chief among these conditions was the imposition of extraterritoriality. Agreement to these treaties, which was forced upon the Shogun, was a main determinant in the Tokugawa fall.
The coup and the Dajokan were attempts to respond to this threat through revamping the governmental system in order to strengthen the state and military and to win Western recognition as a peer. However, during the 1870s the oligarchs came to realize that the Dajokan was incapable of garnering the approbation of the Western powers, since they did not recognize it as a the basis for a Rechtsstaat, a country under the rule of law, as was desired. It was therefore a transitional phase in the development of the Japanese state. Additionally, through political contretemps within the oligarchy in this period, the leaders understood that change was necessary to increase the appearance of the government as a constitutional one and to preclude the dissent that had developed over and within the government's structure. Moreover, not only were the oligarchs concerned with placating the West and countering their opposition, but, as George Akita contends, they were serious in their intention to modernize the country, including the political structure.
During this time there was a great deal of exploration, examination and deliberation over the different forms of the Western states' governments. In 1872 the government sent a mission led by Iwakura Tomomi to investigate the various Western countries' systems of economics and government. Included in the members of this mission was a samurai who had previously defied the sakoku and visited Europe (according to Hall, as a secret emissary of the Choshu) as a deck hand on an English ship. This was Ito Hirobumi, at the time serving as chief of staff to Iwakura and the man ultimately responsible for the Meiji Constitution, of whom more later. The Iwakura mission evaluated the various forms of government extant in Europe and America and was most impressed by the Austro-Germano-Prussian model. The Japanese were particularly attracted to the theories of government propounded by Paul Laband, Rudolf von Stein and Hermann von Gneist and the organization of Prussian local government designed by Albert Mosse, an erstwhile student of von Gneist. These political theorists saw government as an organic form and rested their philosophy on what they saw as rational and scientific models. They based their governmental theory on the conception that a constitutional monarchy was best. This is not a constitutional monarchy as we envision it and as it exists in England; that is, a parliamentary, democratic constitutional monarchy, but a representative monarchy. This is a form in which the monarch is considered the head of the polity and the single best representative of the people of the country in whose interests he rules and acts. There are many significant parallels to the concept of the Japanese Emperor contained in this theory of government. The monarch is not constrained by the legislature. He is the head of the government and the legislature's responsibility is to provide advice and consent to the Emperor's rule, not to govern the country or to promulgate laws. He is not responsible to them, nor is the government (administration) he establishes. However, they are responsible to him, not only as their monarch, but also as the representative of the people. Moreover, sovereignty rests with the monarch and not, as in a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with the people.
Ito Hirobumi explained the particular resonance this theory of government engendered in the Japanese as it had elements that fit the Japanese polity exceedingly well. The Japanese concept of the Emperor's position embraced these theoretical components plus elements of semi-divinity, deference, and reverence due the Emperor from Japanese tradition. Ito, and his role as the major drafter of the constitution makes him particularly significant to our investigation, held that the incomparable place of the Emperor in Japanese history and government produced a special relationship between the Emperor and the people. He called this the kokutai, the Japanese national polity. At first he argued that all countries had a unique kokutai within which they build their political structure. Later (at about the turn of the century), due to political pressures, he amended his position (without comment on his previous stance) endowing only Japan with a kokutai, deeming the Japanese polity unique in the world. His conception of the kokutai heavily influenced all his future writings and work in the government.
With the inability of the Dajokan to garner the approbation of the Western powers, the oligarchs were divided over how to proceed. They had access to the European models investigated by the Iwakura Mission and each model had its proponents. Okuma Shigenobu, enamored of parliamentary democracy, insisted that the government be based on the principles of the English model. On the whole the oligarchs found this a far more radical solution than they were willing to endorse and Okuma, adamantly maintaining in his position, was purged from the government. However, the pressure to produce a constitution acceptable to the West and guaranteeing the power of the Emperor and centralized state was continuing and substantial; externally through gathering political consciousness and party organization, from within the oligarchy through attempts to mitigate the international threat and restore lost sovereignty, and, subliminally, from the West. In conjunction with Okuma's purge and the ongoing necessity to placate the West, the Emperor announced the government would produce a constitution by 1890. Ito was assigned this task.
Ito's job was to draft a constitution that would conform to the conception of a centralized government that would not only assure the strength and position of itself within Japan, but would also be able to extract recognition and acceptance in the international arena. He and several other oligarchs, particularly Inoue Kowashi, began their efforts with a yet another trip to Europe to study governmental systems. However, it appears that this trip was more to garner technical information on the actual structure of the document, because by this time the general pattern of the government in the Austro-German framework was already set. German advisers, in particular Albert Mosse and, most influential in the drafting of the constitution, Hermann Roesler, already working in Japan, had assisted in creating various of the forms within which the government was already functioning. In particular a new peerage, a modern cabinet, the Privy Council, the army structure, the organization of local administration and the bureaucracy were instituted prior to the promulgation of the constitution. The document itself was more in the vein of a confirmation of the forms that the oligarchs had already constructed.
The constitution expressed the views of Ito as influenced by the positivist, organicist schools of German legal philosophy. Enormous influence was wielded by Roesler, who worked as an adviser to Ito starting in 1878. However, distinctive perspectives on the Japanese polity among the framers gave the constitution a specifically Japanese flavor. In general, Roesler's ideas were incorporated into the document, but there were several modifications by Ito which Roesler opposed and that were unique. The area of greatest contention was Ito's concept of the kokutai and the Emperor's transcendent place in it. As mentioned, Ito saw the semi-divinity of the Emperor as foundational to the kokutai and would not incorporate anything in the constitution that restricted the Emperor. The constitution was to be a gift from the Emperor to the people. In Ito's concept the Emperor embodied and was the font of the law, he was not subject to it. He governed with the consent of the legislature; unlike the German case where the Kaiser ruled in conjunction with the legislature. Additionally, he could not be held responsible to the parliament.
Moreover, the Emperor, through his counselors, appointed the government (administration) and the government was responsible to him alone. That is, the ministers of the government took joint responsibility for the actions of the Emperor in his role as head of the government in order to insulate the Emperor from the responsibilities that would be incumbent on a mere mortal and thus could not be attributed to him, and yet their responsibility was not to the legislature or the people, it was to the Emperor; creating a Catch 22 type of structure. That is, the Emperor, who was semi-divine and by definition transcendent, was expected to hold the best interests of the people as his highest priority, but, the government ministers were also expected to exhibit the same transcendence within their lesser beings. Here is a superb example of the dichotomy in which the oligarchs fashioned a system of constitutional monarchy and yet retained the traditional prerogatives of the government. Roesler considered this to be a flaw within which the government could abrogate its responsibility to the people, an eventuality that came to pass in the 1930s. However, Roesler did accept that Ito's view would prevail and in his commentaries on the constitution supports the final configuration as a uniquely Japanese construction.
This is not to say that the constitution did not involve significant new political innovations for Japan. There was a parliament based on manhood suffrage. Qualifications were based on property and were relaxed over time, enfranchising individuals and groups that had never had political representation or acknowledgment previously. Several groups that had been noticeable by their absence in the political life of the country now gained a voice. Prominent among those were the merchants and commercial interests. Political parties were allowed to form. Press censorship was relaxed and newspapers were founded. Many other rights were granted, with, however, the caveat that recision could take place at the government's discretion. Moreover, with the status of all Japanese modified to that of direct subjects of the Emperor, social mobility, which had been completely absent under the rigid social system of the Shogunate, was liberalized.
In this period local government was also restructured. However, rather than Roesler's schema of individual and autonomous responsibilities for the localities, the oligarchs opted to employ a more centralized organization based on the Prussian model of the teachings of von Gneist and his student Mosse. The prefectures were rationalized, a national police system was instituted and a modified san kin ko tai was inaugurated that brought the governors to Tokyo periodically for review of their administration.
The Emperor and the oligarchy approved Ito's work with minor revisions and the Constitution of the Empire of Japan was promulgated in 1889. Its form, structure and basis for government on the German model as a government of law (Rechtsstaat) was praised by the Western countries, but, ironically, did not result in an immediate renegotiation of the unequal treaties. That had to await aggressive Japanese military moves internationally that more or less forced renegotiation and recognition of Japan's equal status on the international scene.
The shape of the Japanese state was determined by adoption, adaptation and tradition. This is not unlike the process that individuals experience in their amalgamation into society, and, indeed, the oligarchs would agree, given their belief in the corporatist nature of society and government. Unfortunately, in the end, the Japanese process led to a government of xenophobic imperialism that border on the pathological and which, as in other cases and with individuals, led to social action to ameliorate and redirect the energies and outlook of the state. It appears, presented with this and other examples of accelerated modernization during the period, that the maturation process of countries can be rushed no more than that of individuals lest there be maladjustments that are detrimental to the long term health of the society.
In the final analysis the Meiji Restoration was a revolution couched in uniquely Japanese terms of tradition that brought that people on the edge of history into the mainstream of the Asian and modern worlds. The samurai who initiated it were motivated by a desire to strengthen the state in order to avoid external dominance. They used traditional values, concepts and organizations to effect the changes that they perceived to be necessary. However, like most human endeavors, the changes would not be controlled and eventually went beyond the scope that they envisioned for it. At the last, they could only watch impotently while the modernization of the society and politics took Japan beyond their more narrowly defined parameters of political and social participation. They were able to apply a brake to the rate of change, but the momentum that they had imparted to the process was too great for them to impede forever. Of course, they made errors, but they accomplished the main task that they had set for themselves, a strong, independent, and modern Japan under the aegis of the Emperor. Ironically, their conservatism would probably have been lessened had they had the benefit of knowing that what they sought to avoid with such fervor, foreign domination, came to pass with the American victory at the end of World War II due to flaws within the political model they built, but that is another story....