The Meiji Restoration

The structure of the Meiji government:

• According to the Charter Oath and Seitaisho (provisional constitution) of 1868, establishment of the Dajokan (Grand Council of State), controlled by the revolutionaries from Satsuma and Choshu. (Q: where was the role of the emperor in this new state?)

• It allowed a small group to make decisions and implement the decisions through their own ministries. (Q: how did it compare with our representative government?)

• Established centralized authority by abolishing the domains (1871). (McClain, 158). (Q: how was the abolition of feudalism achieved? Why?)

Meiji society:

• Reclassified social hierarchy: nobles(kazoku), former samurai (shizoku and sotsu), farmers, merchants and artisans (heimin), and eventually the outcasts as ordinary citizens.

• Downfall of the samurai as a class.

Learning from the West:

• Governmental structure.

• Universal conscription (Yamagata, on McClain, p.161).

• Study missions: the Iwakura Mission, 1871-1873, led by Iwakura Tomomi (McClain, 171). (Q: what was the purpose of the missions?)

• The spread of Western culture in Japan. (McClain, 175).

• Fukuzawa Yukichi: the need to grasp the spiritual, intangible essence of Western civilization if one was to learn about Western strength. (Note Fukuzawa's departure from the previous statement that Japanese culture was the essence.) (McClain, pp.176-8).

Discontent of the ex-samurai: (Q: Did all members of the new government agree on the degree of reform?)

• Request to invade Korea because of Korean refusal to recognize the Meiji government (1869-73).  The state's rebuttal led to the resignation of Saigo Takamori and others of the prowar faction.

• Saga rebellion led by Eto Shinpei, former justice minister of the Dajokan (1874).

• Saigo Takamori's rebellion (1877, McClain, 169).

• 1878 assassination of Okubo Toshimichi.

The imperial palace walls in Tokyo.    The Meiji Shrine.                        The modern day Tokyo waterfront.

The change in people's lives after the Meiji Restoration: Story of the Ishizaka family (Walthall, 61-76):

In the conclusion (p,75), the author mentions that the father of the family, Ishizaka Shoko, embraced Western ideas of rights, and his children added to them civil liberties. Explain from their respective lives how this was so.  Note the tremendous changes in people's lives after the Meiji Restoration, including:

• Political activities and running for political offices.
• Free love versus arranged marriages.
• Political criticism of the state.

Note that this does not characterize all in Japanese society but already represented important departures from the past.