Read Ebook: The Constitutional Development of Japan 1853-1881 Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science Ninth Series by Iyenaga T Toyokichi

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Thus was the country early divided into two clearly defined parties, the Jo-i party and the Kai-Koku party.

Meanwhile, the autumn and winter of 1853 passed. The spring of 1854 soon came, and with it the intractable "barbarians." Let us hear the author of Genje Yume Monogatari relate the return of Perry and the great discussion that ensued at the court of Yedo:

"Early in 1854 Commodore Perry returned, and the question of acceding to his demands was again hotly debated. The old prince of Mito was opposed to it, and contended that the admission of foreigners into Japan would ruin it. 'At first,' said he, 'they will give us philosophical instruments, machinery and other curiosities; will take ignorant people in, and, trade being their chief object, they will manage bit by bit to impoverish the country, after which they will treat us just as they like--perhaps behave with the greatest rudeness and insult us, and end by swallowing up Japan. If we do not drive them away now we shall never have another opportunity. If we now resort to a dilatory method of proceeding we shall regret it afterwards when it will be of no use.'

"The officials , however, argued otherwise and said: 'If we try to drive them away they will immediately commence hostilities, and then we shall be obliged to fight. If we once get into a dispute we shall have an enemy to fight who will not be easily disposed of. He does not care how long a time he must spend over it, but he will come with myriads of men-of-war and surround our shores completely; he will capture our junks and blockade our ports, and deprive us of all hope of protecting our coasts. However large a number of ships we might destroy, he is so accustomed to that sort of thing that he would not care in the least. Even supposing that our troops were animated by patriotic zeal in the commencement of the war, after they had been fighting for several years their patriotic zeal would naturally become relaxed, the soldiers would become fatigued, and for this we should have to thank ourselves. Soldiers who have distinguished themselves are rewarded by grants of land, or else you attack and seize the enemy's territory and that becomes your own property; so every man is encouraged to fight his best. But in a war with foreign countries a man may undergo hardships for years, may fight as if his life were worth nothing, and, as all the land in this country already has owners, there will be none to be given away as rewards; so we shall have to give rewards in words or money. In time the country would be put to an immense expense and the people be plunged into misery. Rather than allow this, as we are not the equals of foreigners in the mechanical arts, let us have intercourse with foreign countries, learn their drill and tactics, and when we have made the nation as united as one family, we shall be able to go abroad and give lands in foreign countries to those who have distinguished themselves in battle. The soldiers will vie with one another in displaying their intrepidity, and it will not be too late then to declare war. Now we shall have to defend ourselves against these foreign enemies, skilled in the use of mechanical appliances, with our soldiers whose military skill has considerably diminished during a long peace of three hundred years, and we certainly could not feel sure of victory, especially in a naval war.'"

The Kai-Koku party, the party in favor of opening the country, triumphed, and the treaty was finally concluded between the United States and Japan on the 31st of March, 1854. After the return of Commodore Perry to America, Townsend Harris was sent by the United States Government as Consul-General to Japan. He negotiated the commercial treaty between the United States and Japan on July 29, 1858.

At the heels of the Americans followed the English, French, Russians, Dutch, and other nations. Japan's foreign relations became more and more complicated and therefore difficult to manage.

The discussion quoted above is a type of the arguments used by the Jo-i party and the Kai-Koku party. The history of Japanese politics from 1853 to 1868 is the history of the struggle between these two parties, each of which soon changed its name. As the Jo-i party allied itself with the court of Kioto, it became the O-sei or Restoration party. As the Kai-Koku party was associated with the court of Shogun, it became the Bakufu party. The struggle ended in the triumph of the Restoration party. But by that time the Jo-i party, from a cause which I shall soon mention, had been completely transformed and converted to the Western ideas.

Among the leaders of the Jo-i party was Nariaki, the old prince of Mito. He belonged to one of the San Kay , out of which Iyeyasu ordered the Shogun to be chosen. He was connected by marriage with the families of the Emperor and the highest Kuges in Miako, and with the wealthiest Daimios. In power the Mito family thus ranked high among the Daimios. Among the scholars the Prince of Mito was popular. The prestige of his great ancestor, the compiler of Dai-Nihon-Shi, had not yet died out. The Prince of Mito was thus naturally looked up to by the scholars as the man of right principles and of noble ideas. A shrewd, clever, and scheming old man, the Prince of Mito now became the defender of the cause of the Emperor and the mouthpiece of the conservative party.

The Shogun began to make a compromise to unite the Emperor's power and the Shogun's, by taking the sister of the Emperor for his wife.

Meanwhile great events were taking place in the southern corner of Kiushiu and on the promontory of Shikoku, events which were to effect great changes in men's ideas. These were the bombardments of Kagoshima and of Shimonosheki, the first on August 11, 1863, the second on September 5, 1864. I shall not dwell here on the injustice of these barbarous and heathenish acts of the so-called civilized and Christian nations; for I am not writing a political pamphlet. But impartially let us note the great effects of these bombardments.

The Emperor also wrote in a rather pathetic tone to the Shogun touching the relative strength of the Japanese and the foreigners: "I held a council the other day with my military nobility , but unfortunately inured to the habits of peace, which for more than two hundred years has existed in our country, we are unable to exclude and subdue our foreign enemies by the forcible means of war....

"If we compare our Japanese ships of war and cannon to those of the barbarians, we feel certain that they are not sufficient to inflict terror upon the foreign barbarians, and are also insufficient to make the splendor of Japan shine in foreign countries. I should think that we only should make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of the barbarians."

From the time of the bombardment, Satsuma and Choshiu began to introduce European machinery and inventions, to employ skilled Europeans to teach them, and to send their young men to Europe and America.

The Council of Kuges was occasionally convened by the order of the Emperor. It was composed of the princes of the blood, nobles, and courtiers. The Council of Daimios was now and then summoned either by the Emperor or by the Shogun. It was composed mostly of the Daimios. These councils were like the Witenagemot of England, formed of the wise and influential men of the kingdom. As the Daimios had far more weight in the political scale of the realm than the Kuges, so the council of the Daimios was of far more importance than that of the Kuges. But it must not be understood that these councils were regular meetings held in the modern parliamentary way; nor that they had anything like the powers of the British Parliament or of the American Congress. These councils of Japan were called into spasmodic life simply by the necessity of the time. They were held either at the court of Kioto or that of Yedo, or at other places appointed for the purpose. The Kuges or Daimios assembled rather in an informal way, measured by modern parliamentary procedure, but in accordance with the court etiquette of the time, whose most minute regulations and rules have often embarrassed and plagued the modern ministers accredited to the court of the Emperor. Then these councils proceeded to discuss the burning questions of the day, among which the most prominent was, of course, the foreign policy. The earliest instance of the meeting of the Council of Kuges was immediately after the news of Perry's arrival had reached the court of Kioto. "Upon this," says the author of Genje Yume Monogatari, "the Emperor was much disturbed, and called a council, which was attended by a number of princes of the blood and Kuges, and much violent language was uttered."

From this time on we meet often with the record of these councils. A native chronicler records that on the 29th day of the 12th month of 1857 "a meeting of all Daimios was held in the Haku-sho-in, a large hall in the castle of Yedo. The deliberations were not over till two o'clock on the morning of the 30th."

Soon after this the Emperor ordered the Shogun to come to Kioto with all the Daimios and ascertain the opinion of the country. But the Shogun did not come, so the Emperor sent his envoy, Ohara Sammi, and called the meeting of the Daimios at Yedo in 1862, in which the noted Shimadzu Saburo was also present.

In 1864 the council of Daimios was again held, and Minister Pruyn, in his letter to Mr. Seward, bears witness of the proceeding: "It is understood the great council of Daimios is again in session; that the question of the foreign policy of the government is again under consideration, and that the opposite parties are pretty evenly balanced."

From this time the council of Daimios was held every year, sometimes many times in the year, till the Revolution of 1868. These examples will suffice to show the nature and purpose of these councils of Kuges and Daimios. Let us next consider how these councils originated.

The political development of Japan gives another illustration of one of the truths which Mr. Herbert Spencer unfolds in his Principles of Sociology. "Everywhere the wars between societies," says he, "originate governmental structures, and are causes of all such improvements in those structures as increase the efficiency of corporate action against environing societies."

Experience has shown that representative government is the most efficient in securing the corporate action of the various members of the body politic against foreign enemies. When a country is threatened with foreign invasion, when the corporate action of its citizens against their enemy is needed, it becomes an imperative necessity to consult public opinion. In such a time centralization is needed. Hence the first move of Japan after the advent of foreigners was to bring the scattered parts of the country together and unite them under one head.

Japan had hitherto no formidable foreign enemy on her shores. So her governmental system--the regulating system of the social organism--received no impetus for self-development. But as soon as a formidable people, either as allies or foes, appeared on the scene in 1853, we immediately see the remarkable change in the state system of regulation in Japan. It became necessary to consult public opinion. Councils of Kuges and Daimios and meetings of Samurai sprung forth spontaneously.

I believe, with Guizot, that the germ of representative government was not necessarily "in the woods of Germany," as Montesquieu asserts, or in the Witenagemot of England; that the glory of having a free government is not necessarily confined to the Aryan family or to its more favored branch, the Anglo-Saxons. I believe that the seed of representative government is implanted in the very nature of human society and of the human mind. When the human mind and the social organism reach a certain stage of development, when they are placed in such an environment as to call forth a united and harmonious action of the body politic, when education is diffused among the masses and every member of the community attains a certain degree of his individuality and importance, when the military form of society transforms itself into the industrial, then the representative idea of government springs forth naturally and irresistibly. And no tyrant, no despot, can obstruct the triumphal march of liberty.

Whatever may be said about the soundness of the above speculation, it is certain that in the great councils of Kuges and Daimios and in the discussions of the Samurai, which the advent of the foreigners called into being, lay the germ of the future constitutional parliament of Japan.

THE RESTORATION.

In the last chapter we have noticed what a commotion had been caused in Japan by the sudden advent of Commodore Perry, how the councils of Kuges and Daimios were called into spontaneous life by the dread of foreigners and by the sense of national weakness, and how the bombardments of Kagoshima and Shimonosheki tested these fears and taught the necessity of national union. I have remarked that free government is not necessarily the sole heritage of the Aryan race, but that the presence of foreigners, the change of the military form of society into the industrial form, the increase in importance of the individual in the community, are sure to breed a free and representative system of government.

In the following chapter we shall see the downfall of the Shogunate, the restoration of the imperial power to its pristine vigor, and the destruction of feudalism.

"The study of constitutional history is essentially a tracing of causes and consequences," says Bishop Stubbs, "not the collection of a multitude of facts and views, but the piecing of links of a perfect chain."

I shall therefore not dwell upon the details of the events which led to the downfall of the Shogunate, but immediately enter into an inquiry concerning the causes.

Three causes led to the final overthrow of the Shogunate:

But as the ancient histories were studied and the old constitution was brought into light, the real nature of the Shogunate began to reveal itself. To the eyes of the historians it became clear that the Shogunate was nothing but a military usurpation, sustained by fraud and corruption; that the Emperor, who was at that time, in plain words, imprisoned at the court of Kioto, was the real source of power and honor. "If this be the case, what ought we do?" was the natural question of these loyal subjects of the Emperor. The natural conclusion followed: the military usurper must be overthrown and the rightful ruler recognized. This was the sum and substance of the political programme of the Imperialists. The first sound of the trumpet against the Shogunate rose from the learned hall of the Prince of Mito, Komon. He, with the assistance of a host of scholars, finished his great work, the Dai Nihon Shi, or History of Japan, in 1715. It was not printed till 1851, but was copied from hand to hand by eager students, like the Bible by the medieval monks, or the works of Plato and Aristotle by the Humanists. The Dai Nihon Shi soon became a classic, and had such an influence in restoring the power of the Emperor that Mr. Ernest Satow justly calls its composer "the real author of the movement which culminated in the revolution of 1868." The voice of the Prince of Mito was soon caught up by the more celebrated scholar Rai Sanyo . A poet, an historian, and a zealous patriot, Rai Sanyo was the Arndt of Japan. He outlined in his Nihon Guai Shi the rise and fall of the Minister of State and the Shoguns, and with satire, invective, and the enthusiasm of a patriot, urged the unlawfulness of the usurpation of the imperial power by these mayors of the palace. In his Sei-Ki, or political history of Japan, he traced the history of the imperial family, and mourned with characteristic pathos the decadence of the imperial power. The labors of these historians and scholars bore in time abundant fruit. Some of their disciples became men of will and action: Sakuma Shozan, Yoshida Toraziro, Gesho, Yokoi Heishiro, and later Saigo, Okubo, Kido, and hosts of others, who ultimately realized the dreams of their masters. Out of the literary seed which scholars like Rai Sanyo spread broadcast over the country thus grew hands of iron and hearts of steel. This process shows how closely related are history and politics, and affords another illustration of the significance of the epigrammatic expression of Professor Freeman: "History is past politics, and politics present history."

Now, according to Shintoism, Japan is a holy land. It was made by the gods, whose lineal descendant is the Emperor. Hence he must be revered and worshipped as a god. This is the substance of Shintoism. The political bearing of such a doctrine upon the then existing status of the country is apparent. The Emperor, who is a god, the fountain of all virtue, honor, and authority, is now a prisoner at the court of Kioto, under the iron hand of the Tokugawa Shoguns. This state of impiety and irreverence can never be tolerated by the devout Shintoists. The Shogun must be dethroned and the Emperor raised to power. Here the line of arguments of the Shintoists meets with that of the scholars we have noted above. Thus both scholars and Shintoists have converted themselves into politicians who have at heart the restoration of the Emperor.

"A retrospect of the various changes through which the empire has passed shows us that after the decadence of the monarchical authority, power passed into the hands of the Minister of State; that by the wars of 1156 to 1159 the governmental power came into the hands of the military class. My ancestor received greater marks of confidence than any before him, and his descendants have succeeded him for more than two hundred years. Though I perform the same duties, the objects of government and the penal laws have not been attained, and it is with feelings of greatest humiliation that I find myself obliged to ackowledge my own want of virtue as the cause of the present state of things. Moreover, our intercourse with foreign powers becomes daily more extensive, and our foreign policy cannot be pursued unless directed by the whole power of the country.

"If, therefore, the old r?gime be changed and the governmental authority be restored to the imperial court, if the councils of the whole empire be collected and the wise decisions received, and if we unite with all our heart and with all our strength to protect and maintain the empire, it will be able to range itself with the nations of the earth. This comprises our whole duty towards our country.

"However, if you have any particular ideas on the subject, you may state them without reserve."

The resignation of the Shogun was accepted by the Emperor by the following imperial order, issued on the 10th day of the 12th month: "It has pleased the Emperor to dismiss the present Shogun, at his request, from the office of Shogun."

As to the full intent and motive of the Shogun in resigning his power, let him further speak himself. In the interview of the British minister, Sir Harry S. Parkes, and the French minister, M. Leon Koches, with the Shogun, it is stated that he said: "I became convinced last autumn that the country would no longer be successfully governed while the power was divided between the Emperor and myself. The country had two centres, from which orders of an opposite nature proceeded. Thus, in the matter of the opening of Hiogo and Osako, which I quote as an example of this conflict of authority, I was myself convinced that the stipulations of the treaties must be observed, but the assent of the Emperor to my representations on this subject was given reluctantly. I therefore, for the good of my country, informed the Emperor that I resigned the governing power, with the understanding that an assembly of Daimios was convened for the purpose of deciding in what manner, and by whom, the government in future should be carried on. In acting thus, I sunk my own interests and power handed down to me by my ancestors, in the more important interests of the country.....

"My policy, from the commencement, has been to determine this question of the future form of government in a peaceful manner, and it is in pursuance of the same object that, instead of opposing force by force, I have retired from the scene of dispute.....

"As to who is the sovereign of Japan, it is a question on which no one in Japan can entertain a doubt. The Emperor is the sovereign. My object from the first has been to take the will of the nation as to the future government. If the nation should decide that I ought to resign my powers, I am prepared to resign them for the good of my country.....

"I have no other motive but the following: With an honest love for my country and the people, I resigned the governing power which I inherited from my ancestors, and with the mutual understanding that I should assemble all the nobles of the empire to discuss the question disinterestedly, and adopting the opinion of the majority, decide upon the reformation of the national constitution, I left the matter in the hands of the imperial court."

Thus was the Shogunate overthrown and the Restoration effected. The civil war which soon followed need not detain us, for the war itself had no great consequence as regards the constitutional development of the country.

Let us now consider the form of the new government. It is essentially that which prevailed in Japan before the development of feudalism. It is modelled on the form of government of the Osei era.

The new government was composed of:

The government was divided into eight departments:

"It is easy to destroy, but difficult to construct," is an old adage of statesmen. The truth of this utterance was soon realized by the leaders of the new government.

The first thing which the new government had to settle was its attitude toward foreign nations. The leaders of the government who had once opposed with such vehemence, as we have seen, the foreign policy of the Tokugawa Shogun, now that he had been overthrown, urged the necessity of amicable relations with foreign powers in the following memorable memorial to the Dai-jo-Kuan :

"The undersigned, servants of the Crown, respectfully believe that from ancient times decisions upon important questions concerning the welfare of the empire were arrived at after consideration of the actual political condition and its necessities, and that thus results were obtained, not of mere temporary brilliancy, but which bore good fruits in all time....

"Among other pressing duties of the present moment we venture to believe it to be pre-eminently important to set the question of foreign intercourse in a clear light.

"His Majesty's object in creating the office of administrator of foreign affairs, and selecting persons to fill it, and otherwise exerting himself in that direction, has been to show the people of his empire in what light to look on this matter, and we have felt the greatest pleasure in thinking that the imperial glory would now be made to shine forth before all nations. An ancient proverb says that 'Men's minds resemble each other as little as their faces,' nor have the upper and lower classes been able, up to the present, to hold with confidence a uniform opinion. It gives us some anxiety to feel that perhaps we may be following the bad example of the Chinese, who, fancying themselves alone great and worthy of respect, and despising foreigners as little better than beasts, have come to suffer defeats at their hands and to have it lorded over themselves by those foreigners.

"It appears to us, therefore, after mature reflection, that the most important duty we have at present is for high and low to unite harmoniously in understanding the condition of the age, in effecting a national reformation and commencing a great work, and that for this reason it is of the greatest necessity that we determine upon the attitude to be observed towards this question.

"Hitherto the empire has held itself aloof from other countries and is ignorant of the affairs of the world; the only object sought has been to give ourselves the least trouble, and by daily retrogression we are in danger of falling under foreign rule.

"Of late years the question of expelling the barbarians has been constantly agitated, and one or two Daimios have tried to expel them, but it is unnecessary to prove that this was more than the strength of a single clan could accomplish....

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