ABSTRACT

The leadership of the Meiji government was extremely disunited. It usually requires a capable ruler or a great leader to accomplish great feats while leading a disunited government and state. Rather, the government largely took the lead in the creation of Japan's constitution. The path to constitutional enactment had many parallels to the expansion of participation in the government and the efforts the government made to prepare rules for such. Inoue Tankei, a native of Kumamoto who had studied in France in his youth, had long studied the Prussian constitution and had produced a translation of it in 1875. Ito Hirobumi headed to Europe shortly after the 1881 Political Crisis, where he studied constitutions from March 1882 to August 1883. The problem with Tenno-shinseiron was that, if a decision made by the Emperor was a failure, political responsibility would extend to the throne. Japan signed a treaty with Mexico in November, its first equal treaty with a non-Asian nation.