Freedom and People's Rights Movement

Early development (1874–1880)

Formation of political societies

Five days before submitting the memorial, Itagaki's group formed Japan's first political society, the Aikokukōtō (Public Patriotic Party), in Tokyo. However, its main leaders soon decided that a national party was not yet practicable and returned to their home domains to build local organizations. In Tosa, Itagaki founded the Risshisha (Self-Help Society) in April 1874. The society's name was inspired by the 1870 translation of Samuel Smiles's Self-Help, a book that became immensely popular in Meiji Japan as a guide to personal and national success through struggle and determination. Although it initially focused on providing economic relief and employment for the local disaffected samurai, the Risshisha quickly evolved into a political organization dedicated to promoting popular rights and agitating for a national assembly. The Risshisha served as a model for similar societies that sprang up across the country, such as the Jijosha (Self-Aid Society) in neighboring Tokushima.

In 1875, Itagaki took a leading role in federating these local groups into a national organization called the Aikokusha (Patriotic Society), with the aim of coordinating the petition movement on a nationwide scale. This first attempt at a national organization was short-lived, collapsing due to financial difficulties and Itagaki's own temporary return to the government following the Osaka Conference of 1875. However, the Aikokusha was successfully revived in September 1878, after the failure of the Satsuma Rebellion had demonstrated the futility of armed opposition to the government. Some of Itagaki's Tosa followers had even plotted to support Saigō's rebellion, but police uncovered the plan before it could be carried out. The movement's base had also broadened significantly, with numerous societies of wealthy peasants and rural samurai forming, particularly in eastern Japan. By its second convention in November 1880, commoners made up 53% of the delegates, having become the largest element in the movement. At its fourth national convention in March 1880, the Aikokusha renamed itself the League for the Establishment of a National Assembly (国会期成同盟, Kokkai Kisei Dōmei). Over the next year, the League and its affiliated societies coordinated a massive petition drive, gathering over 250,000 signatures from thirty-nine prefectures calling for a national assembly.

Government response

The Meiji government's response to the growing movement was twofold: a combination of concessions and repression. On the one hand, the oligarchs attempted to co-opt the movement's leaders. The Osaka Conference of 1875 resulted in Itagaki's brief return to the government and the establishment of new institutions intended to give the appearance of a move toward constitutional government, such as the Genrōin (Chamber of Elders) and the Assembly of Prefectural Governors. In 1878, the government also established elected prefectural assemblies (Fu-Ken Kai), which, although their powers were limited to advising the prefectural governors, provided an important training ground for future parliamentarians and served as a means to integrate wealthy peasants into the governmental system.

On the other hand, the government also moved to suppress the movement through repressive legislation. Press and libel laws were enacted in 1875 to curb criticism of the government. The Regulations for Public Meetings and Associations of April 1880 imposed strict controls on political gatherings, subjecting them to police sanction, denying membership to teachers and students, and prohibiting associations from combining or communicating with each other.

Formation of political parties and decline

Political Crisis of 1881 and the Imperial Rescript

The movement reached a turning point in 1881. A political crisis erupted over two major issues: constitutional reform and the sale of government assets in Hokkaido. On the constitutional question, Ōkuma Shigenobu, a leading figure in the government, submitted a memorial advocating for the immediate establishment of a British-style parliamentary system with a cabinet responsible to the legislature. His proposal was seen as too radical by his colleagues, particularly Itō Hirobumi, who suspected Ōkuma was making a bid for popular support to gain a pre-eminent position in the future government. At the same time, a public scandal erupted over the government's plan to sell the assets of the Hokkaido Colonisation Commission to a group of politically connected merchants at a fraction of their value. The ensuing public outcry, orchestrated in part by Ōkuma's allies, was seized upon by Itō and other oligarchs as a pretext to purge Ōkuma from the government.

The crisis, however, coupled with the continued pressure from the democratic movement, compelled the government to make a major concession. On 12 October 1881, the government issued an Imperial Rescript promising the establishment of a national assembly in 1890 and simultaneously cancelled the controversial sale of Hokkaido assets. This was a significant victory for the movement, as it committed the government to a clear timeline for the creation of a constitutional government.

Formation of the Jiyūtō and Kaishintō

The promise of a national assembly spurred the movement's leaders to form political parties to contest the upcoming elections. In October 1881, Itagaki and his followers transformed the Kokkai Kisei Dōmei into the Jiyūtō. The Jiyūtō drew its ideological inspiration from French political thought, particularly the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose The Social Contract was translated by the party's leading intellectual, Nakae Chōmin. The party drew its main support from rural landowners.

In March 1882, Ōkuma Shigenobu founded a rival party, the Rikken Kaishintō (Constitutional Progressive Party). The Kaishintō was more moderate, advocating for a British-style constitutional monarchy, and drew its support from the urban intellectual and business elite, including Fukuzawa Yukichi's Keiō academy and the Mitsubishi zaibatsu. The rivalry between these two parties, exacerbated by personal and ideological differences, was often intense. Party affiliation was often determined less by ideology than by local rivalries, with prominent figures from competing districts (gun) aligning with opposing national parties. At a joint dinner meeting, a drunken argument between Numa Morikazu of the Kaishintō and Hoshi Tōru of the Jiyūtō escalated into a brawl in which Hoshi's entourage beat Numa with brass candlesticks, an incident that was stopped only by the arrival of the police. This antagonism often prevented a united front against the government.

Matsukata Deflation and radicalization

The early 1880s were marked by a severe economic depression caused by the deflationary policies of Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi. The "Matsukata Deflation" led to a sharp drop in rice and silk prices and widespread rural distress, bankrupting many of the small landowners and tenant farmers who formed the backbone of the Jiyūtō's support and increasing the rate of tenancy to over 40% in some areas.

Economic hardship led to the radicalization of the movement. A series of peasant uprisings, known as the gekka jiken (intensification incidents), erupted across the country, most notably the Chichibu Incident of 1884. These revolts, which often involved demands for debt relief and violent attacks on landlords and government offices, alienated the landowning leadership of the Jiyūtō and provided the government with a pretext for intensified repression. In what historian Marius Jansen calls a "Tokugawa-style uprising that was dealt with in non-Tokugawa ways," thousands of rebels in Chichibu were suppressed by the army; the ringleaders were executed, and over 4,000 others were convicted of crimes.

Decline and dissolution

Faced with growing government suppression, internal divisions between its moderate leadership and radicalized base, and the loss of financial support due to the depression, the Jiyūtō leadership decided to dissolve the party on 29 October 1884. This decision was hastened by a government bribery scandal: Itagaki's trip to Europe in 1882 was revealed to have been funded by the government through the Mitsui zaibatsu, a revelation that led many to question his commitment to the cause. The Kaishintō also suffered from internal strife and the resignation of Ōkuma, effectively losing its national influence. The dissolution of the major parties marked the decline of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement as a cohesive and organized national force, though political debate and local activism continued.

Legacy

The Freedom and People's Rights Movement is a pivotal chapter in the history of modern Japan. Although it failed to achieve its immediate goal of establishing a government responsible to an elected legislature, its impact was profound and enduring.

The movement's most significant achievement was to force the Meiji oligarchy to enact a written constitution and establish a national assembly. The promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889 and the convening of the first Imperial Diet in 1890 were direct consequences of the political pressure exerted by the movement. While the constitution was a conservative document that preserved the emperor's sovereignty and the oligarchy's power, it also established a legal framework for political participation and enshrined certain civil rights, providing what Itagaki and his followers saw as an "entering wedge" into the domain of public power.

The movement also laid the foundations for Japan's modern party system. The Jiyūtō and Kaishintō were the country's first modern political parties, and despite their short-lived existence in the 1880s, they established a tradition of political opposition and parliamentary politics that would continue throughout the pre-war period. The experience gained in organizing political societies, drafting petitions, and contesting elections created a generation of politicians who were skilled in the arts of parliamentary maneuvering.

Furthermore, the movement was instrumental in introducing and popularizing Western political concepts such as liberty, equality, popular sovereignty, and natural rights in Japan. Through the translation of works by thinkers like John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Herbert Spencer, and through the tireless agitation of its leaders and intellectuals, the movement sparked widespread public debate on the principles of government. The discovery of a draft constitution written in 1881 in a storehouse in the remote village of Itsukaichi demonstrated that this "search for new governmental forms" had spread far beyond the disaffected samurai elite and involved a broad spectrum of "commoners" with deep ties to rural communities. The movement embedded these ideas into the Japanese political discourse, where they would continue to influence political thought and action for decades to come.

Related people

• Chiba Takusaburō, author of the "Itsukaichi constitution" (五日市憲法), a draft constitution for the Empire of Japan
• Etō Shinpei
• Fukuda Hideko
• Gotō Shōjirō
• Ido Reizan
• Inoue Kaoru
• Itagaki Taisuke, founder of the first Jiyūtō, and former leader of the Jinshotai assault force
• Kōno Hironaka
• Nakae Chōmin
• Saionji Kinmochi, one of the last Meiji period democrats, who later tried to prevent the Tripartite Pact
• Shimizu Shikin
• Soeda Azenbō, prolific enka lyricist and street performer
• Soejima Taneomi
• Tokutomi Sohō
• Toshiko Kishida
• Ueki Emori
• Yamaji Motoharu, former Jinshotai commander
• Yamamoto Yae
• Ōkuma Shigenobu