Drawing hype house logo1/25/2024 ![]() Ōkuma showed sympathy to the movement for popular rights, and insisted on the rapid opening of a national assembly. Ōkubo was assassinated by discontented samurai in 1878, and in his place Ōkuma Shigenobu originally of Bizen province (Saga Prefecture), and Itō Hirobumi of Chōshū rose to influence. The difficulty of overcoming the government by force gave fresh impetus to efforts to bring it down through words and inaugurate a national assembly via the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 headed by Saigō Takamori was a more serious threat, but this was also put down. Repeated samurai uprisings flared up in 1876, which were suppressed by the government. As a body for legislative deliberation, the Genrōin began work on Japan’s first government-written constitutional draft in 1876.Īt the first meeting of prefectural leaders, with Kido acting as chairman, there was a heated debate over whether local assemblies should be elected or appointed by the government in the end, it was decided that they should be appointed. In April 1875, an imperial edict was issued for establishing a constitutional government, and new bodies were formed: the Genrōin, which was a kind of nominated senate the Daishin’in, which acted as a supreme court and an assembly of prefectural leaders. Rattled by the rise of the popular rights movement, he arranged a meeting in Osaka with Itagaki and Kido Takayoshi, a major political figure from the former Chōshū province (by now Yamaguchi Prefecture) who had resigned in protest against a punitive expedition to Taiwan.Īt this meeting, Ōkubo agreed to gradually introduce parliamentary politics based on a constitution. Home Minister Ōkubo Toshimichi was effectively the leader of Japan under the Dajōkan system. After other local associations sprang up, in 1875 Itagaki concentrated their power in a new group called Aikokusha (Society of Patriots) in Osaka. Continuing to advocate the need for a national assembly, he promoted a movement for popular rights. Itagaki returned to his native Tosa (by then Kōchi Prefecture), where he founded the political association Risshisha (Self-Help Society). These men, including Itagaki Taisuke, formed a society named Aikoku Kōtō (Public Party of Patriots) and presented a petition to the government, calling for the establishment of a national assembly. In 1874, eight councillors supporting a failed proposal to launch a military expedition to Korea left the government. The heads and vice-heads of the ministries and offices met in the Council of the Right to discuss political affairs. The Council of the Left was an advisory body on forming legislation made up of government-selected members that the Central Council consulted for expert advice when preparing important laws. It consisted of the dajō daijin, or grand minister, ministers of the left and right, and a number of councillors. Of these, the Central Council had supreme power, and was equivalent to today’s cabinet. It then divided the Dajōkan into three councils with subordinate ministries and offices. The government secured absolute power in 1871 by abolishing the feudal domains and establishing prefectures in their place. ![]() This consisted of seven departments overseeing different areas, and took a form based on the separation of judicial, executive, and legislative powers seen in the US Constitution. The new Meiji government was still fighting the Boshin Civil War against shogunate forces in June 1868 when it published the Seitaisho, a document that vested power in the Dajōkan, or Grand Council of State. Sakamoto Ryōma’s handwritten version of his eight-point proposal for a new government. Sakamoto Ryōma’s influential eight-point plan, in which he outlined his vision of a new post-shogunate government, called for the establishment of upper and lower houses of parliament, as well as a new constitution. ![]() In the 1860s, shortly before the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, research overseas by people like Nishi Amane and the influence of foreign books set off discussion of Western constitutions and constitutional governments in Japan.
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