Meiji Constitution (1889): Japan's First Modern Constitution

The Meiji Constitution, formally the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, was promulgated by Emperor Meiji on 11 February 1889. Drafted under Ito Hirobumi and modelled largely on Prussian and German practice, it made Japan the first East Asian state with a written constitution and an elected national parliament, the Imperial Diet. It also left wide powers with the emperor, his ministers and the armed forces, a balance that shaped Japanese politics until 1947.

Background

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868 Japan was governed by a small group of oligarchs from the former domains of Satsuma and Choshu. The Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, led by figures such as Itagaki Taisuke, demanded an elected assembly. In 1881, after a political crisis, the government issued an imperial edict promising a national assembly by 1890.

Ito Hirobumi was put in charge of the project. In 1882-1883 he spent over a year in Europe studying constitutions, consulting the scholars Rudolf von Gneist in Berlin and Lorenz von Stein in Vienna. Both advised a strong monarchy with a limited parliament. Back in Japan, Ito created a peerage in 1884 to staff a future upper house and a cabinet system in 1885, becoming the first prime minister.

Drafting

The constitution was drafted in secret from 1886 by Ito, Inoue Kowashi, Ito Miyoji and Kaneko Kentaro, with advice from the German jurist Hermann Roesler. In 1888 a new Privy Council, chaired by Ito, reviewed the draft in sessions attended by the emperor.

The document was presented as a gift from the emperor to his subjects rather than a product of popular sovereignty. It was promulgated in a ceremony at the newly completed Imperial Palace in Tokyo on 11 February 1889, the anniversary of the legendary founding of Japan. On the same morning the education minister, Mori Arinori, was stabbed by a nationalist and died the next day.

What the constitution said

The constitution had 76 articles in seven chapters. Its main features were:

• The emperor: “sacred and inviolable”, he combined the rights of sovereignty, had supreme command of the army and navy, declared war, made treaties and could issue emergency ordinances.
• The Imperial Diet: a bicameral parliament with an appointed and hereditary House of Peers and an elected House of Representatives. Laws and the budget required the Diet’s consent.
• Ministers: each minister was responsible to the emperor, not to the Diet, so the constitution did not require parliamentary government.
• Rights: subjects had freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and property, but generally “within the limits of law”, which allowed later restrictions.
• The budget safeguard: if the Diet rejected a budget, the government could carry out the previous year’s budget.

The first general election, on 1 July 1890, was limited to men aged 25 or over who paid at least 15 yen a year in direct taxes, roughly 450,000 voters, or about 1 percent of the population. The Diet opened on 29 November 1890, when the constitution took effect.

Consequences

The Diet proved more troublesome to the oligarchs than they had expected. The elected house used its power over budgets to fight governments in the 1890s, and party politicians gradually gained influence. Universal male suffrage followed in 1925, and in the 1920s party cabinets became normal.

The constitution’s weaknesses, however, lay in the independent “right of supreme command”. Because the army and navy answered directly to the emperor, military leaders could act outside civilian control. In the 1930s this allowed the armed forces to dominate policy and lead Japan into war. Ito himself, later Resident-General of Korea, was killed in 1909, as told in the assassination of Ito Hirobumi.

Key people

• Emperor Meiji (1852-1912): Reigning emperor in whose name the constitution was granted.
• Ito Hirobumi (1841-1909): Leading oligarch, first prime minister and chief architect of the constitution.
• Inoue Kowashi (1844-1895): Official and legal scholar who did much of the drafting.
• Hermann Roesler (1834-1894): German jurist and adviser to the Japanese government whose ideas influenced the text.
• Itagaki Taisuke (1837-1919): Leader of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement and founder of the Liberal Party, whose campaign pressed the government to grant a parliament.

Timeline

• 1881, October: Imperial edict promises a national assembly by 1890.
• 1882-1883: Ito studies constitutions in Europe.
• 1885, December: Cabinet system created; Ito becomes prime minister.
• 1888: The Privy Council reviews the draft constitution.
• 1889, 11 February: The constitution is promulgated.
• 1890, 1 July: First general election to the House of Representatives.
• 1890, 29 November: The first Imperial Diet opens and the constitution takes effect.
• 1947, 3 May: The post-war Constitution of Japan replaces it.

Why it matters

The Meiji Constitution showed that a non-Western state could adopt modern constitutional government, and it helped Japan win revision of its unequal treaties with the Western powers. Its mixture of parliamentary institutions and unchecked imperial and military authority also helps explain both the growth of party politics in the 1920s and the rise of militarism that followed.