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The Japanese Emperor*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
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Ever since 1889, when the Emperor Meiji granted his people a constitution, Japan may be called a constitutional monarchy. But these simple words do not tell the whole story. The designation used by the Almanach de Gotha in referring to Czarist Russia—a “constitutional autocracy”—may be as appropriately applied to modern Japan. Japan has a constitution and a monarch, but in the eyes of both the people and the statesmen of the Restoration Period, the monarch comes before the constitution.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1932
References
1 Compare Murdoch, James, History of Japan (Yokohama, 1903–1910), Vol. I, pp. 429-448, 536-563, 585-588, 633–634Google Scholar, and Vol. II, p. 17; Brinkley, Frank, History of the Japanese People (London, 1912), pp. 344, 378-400, 440-441, 460–461Google Scholar.
2 The combination of emperor-worship and the theory of national superiority advanced by Moto-ori is illustrated by the following passage from his celebrated Nohibi no Mitama: “Japan is the country which gave birth to the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu-o-mikami, which fact proves its superiority over all other countries which enjoy her favors. The goddess, having endowed her grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto with the three sacred treasures, proclaimed him sovereign of Japan for ever and ever. His descendants shall continue to rule it as long as the heavens and earth endure. Being invested with this complete authority, all the gods under heaven and all mankind submitted to him, with the exception of a few wretches who were quickly subdued.” Professor B. H. Chamberlain is the principal advocate of the theory that statesmen of the Restoration deliberately fostered emperor-worship as a means of uniting the country. See his “The Invention of a New Religion,” Japan Weekly Chronicle (Kobe), January 1, 1912, pp. 24–26Google Scholar.
3 Compare Chamberlain's, B. H. translation of the Kojiki in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan (Tokyo, 1920), Vol. XGoogle Scholar, supplement, and Ashton's, W. G. translation of the Nihongi; Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697 (London, 1924)Google Scholar.
4 Count Ito, Hirobumi, Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan (translated by Ito, Miyoji, Tokyo, 1889), p. 6Google Scholar. See also p. 2. The third edition of the original Commentaries, including also translations of amendments to the Law of the Houses and to the Imperial House Law, was published in 1931 by the Chu-o Daigaku, or Central University, in Tokyo.
5 Compare McGovern, William M., Modern Japan (London, 1920), pp. 122–141Google Scholar. Dr. McGovern gives quotations from the official textbooks of the primary schools issued by the Department of Education which instill into the mind of the Japanese youth the idea of the divine origin of the Emperor. For quotations from other school texts, see Japan Weekly Chronicle, January 4, 1912, pp. 5–6Google Scholar. Attention may be called also to the oft-quoted address of Baron Oura, minister of agriculture and commerce in the second Katsura ministry, made in February, 1911, in which he said: “That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high above everything to be found in the world, and that it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well known to need dwelling on here. … If it is considered that our country needs a religious faith, then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of Imperialism—in other words, to Emperor-worship.” Quoted by Chamberlain, B. H. in Japan Weekly Chronicle (Kobe), January 4, 1912, p. 25Google Scholar.
6 Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law (3rd ed., Tokyo, 1913), pp. 47, 93Google Scholar.
7 Rikken Kinno, or Constitutional Loyalty (Tokyo, 1917)Google Scholar. The English translation by de Becker, J. E. is entitled The Voice of Japanese Democracy; Being an Essay on Constitutional Loyalty (Yokohama, 1918)Google Scholar.
8 Constitutional Loyalty, pp. 1-4. Ozaki also says on p. 72: “The royal house invariably guiding or acting upon public opinion, the wishes of the sovereign and the sentiments of the people are always united, with the result that there is not merely no fear of the ruler and ruled being alienated, but no opportunity is afforded for the designs of unscrupulous ministers. In this country the union of sovereign and subjects has been sought by moral and mental means.” Compare also the following statement on p. 36: “When the Taira, the Minamoto, the Hojo, the Ashikaga, and the Tokugawa families were in the ascendancy, the condition of the Imperial House was far from satisfactory. … Always it is by flattery that the monarch and the state are overwhelmed.”
9 Uyesugi, Shinkichi, “Emperor Worship in Japan.” English translation in Japan Weekly Chronicle, June 26, 1913, p. 1172Google Scholar.
10 English translation in Japan Weekly Chronicle, July, 1913, p. 63Google Scholar.
11 Dai Shijurokkai Teikokugikai Shugiin Yosan Iinkai Giji Sokkiroku, or Fifty-Sixth Diet: House of Peers Budget Committee Proceedings, pt. 1, no. iv, p. 21. Cf. Japan Weekly Chronicle (Kobe), February 28, 1929, p. 244Google Scholar.
12 Compare, in particular, the speech of Yukio Ozaki. Kwampo gogai, or Official Gazette extra, March 26, 1929, pp. 1026-1039.
13 Compare speech of Nakamura during the debate on the Kellogg Peace Paet, Kwampo gogai, March 26, 1929, House of Representatives, p. 1039.
14 Count Ito, Hirobumi, Commentaries, pp. 7–8Google Scholar.
15 Kempo Teiyo, or Principles of the Constitution (Tokyo, 1910), Vol. I, p. 3Google Scholar.
16 von Schulze-Gävernitz, Hermann, Das preussische Staatsrecht (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1888–1890), Vol. I, p. 158Google Scholar. Von Schulze also says on page 205: “The monarch is not the servant of the state. Nor is he the chief official, as is the president of a republic … but he is the possessor of the power of the state in his own independent right. The king does not stand outside the state, nor above the state, but he is a member and indeed the supreme member of that political organism.”
17 von Rönne, Ludwig Moritz, Das Staatsrecht der preussischen Monarchie (5th ed., Leipzig, 1899–1906), Vol. I, p. 204Google Scholar. Von Rönne also says on page 203: “The monarch is the bearer of the will of the state, and derives his powers from no other organ of the state. In a kingdom, the whole power of the state is fundamentally united. The popular representative body (der Landtag), which limits the monarch in the exercise of his functions, possesses only those rights which the constitution expressly grants it. The powers of this body are derived from the constitution. This document is the gift of the king, who up until the promulgation of the constitution was the sole law-giver in Prussia. In the powers of the king are to be found the source of the powers of the representatives of the people. This does not, however, mean that the king is at any time empowered to take away the constitution. Rather, this is the reason that those powers are constitutionally safeguarded.”
18 Laband, Paul, Das Staatsrecht des deutschen Reiches (5th ed., Tübingen, 1901), Vol. II, pp. 34–35Google Scholar.
19 Hozumi, Yatsuka, “Different Theories Concerning the Fundamental Character of the State,” in Uyesugi, and Minobe, , Saikin Kempo Ron (7th ed., 1927), p. 83Google Scholar.
20 In 1912, Professor Uyesugi published his Teikoku Kempo Kogi, or Lectures on the Imperial Constitution, which reflected the traditional view upon the location of sovereignty as expressed in the quotations from Hozumi which we have given. Minobe, in a review of Uyesugi's book, contradicted this view. Uyesugi replied; Minobe made a counter-reply; and several exchanges followed. These various papers, together with articles by Yatsuka Hozumi, Kokei Ichimura, Wamin Ukida, Mitsu Inouye, and Yorozu Oda, have been republished under the title Saikin Kempo Ron, or Recent Developments in Constitutional Law (Tokyo, 1927)Google Scholar.
21 Saikin Kempo Ron (1927), pp. 60–61Google Scholar.
22 See his “A Different Theory Concerning the Fundamental Character of the State” and his “Fundamental Character of the State and the Operation of the Constitution,” in the Saikin Kempo Ron (1927), pp. 13-39, 244–294Google Scholar; and his Kempo Jutsugi, or Commentaries on the Constitution (Tokyo, 1927), pp. 97–98Google Scholar.
23 Compare Judge Shimizu, Cho, Kempo Hen, or Principles of Constitutional Law (21st ed., Tokyo, 1923), pt. iv. pp. 557–570Google Scholar.
24 “Some Constitutional Problems in Recent Politics,” in Uyesugi, and Minobe, , Saikin Kempo Ron (Tokyo, 1927), pp. 208–209Google Scholar.
25 Commentaries, p. 9.
26 Kempo Teiyo (1910), Vol. II, p. 417Google Scholar. Again, on p. 436, Hozumi says: “The giving of advice and consent on the part of the Diet does not mean that the legislature makes law. It has the right to discuss the project of law, but not to enact it. The enactment of law belongs solely to the Emperor.” Says Uyesugi: “The Emperor alone legislates. All the Diet does is to recommend its opinion for his convenience. The Diet has no share with the Emperor in the legislative power.” Kempo Jutsugi (Tokyo, 1927), pp. 464-465, 514Google Scholar.
27 Commentaries, p. 73.
28 Ibid., p. 70.
29 Commentaries, pp. 10-12.
30 Minobe, Tatsukichi, Kempo Teiyo, or Principles of Constitutional Law (Tokyo, 1927), p. 402Google Scholar; Uyesugi, Shinkichi, Kempo Jutsugi (1927), p. 514Google Scholar.
31 Commentaries, pp. 15-17.
32 Hozumi, Yatsuka, Kempo Teiyo (1910), Vol. II, p. 860Google Scholar; Uyesugi, Shinkichi, Kempo Jutsugi (1927), p. 502Google Scholar. Compare Nakano, Tomio, The Ordinance Power of the Japanese Emperor (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1923), ch. iiiGoogle Scholar.
33 Kempo Oyobi Kempo-shi Kenkyu, or Studies on the Constitution and Constitutional History (Tokyo, 1908), pp. 20-65, 67–128Google Scholar, and his Kempo Seigi (Tokyo, 1928), pp. 421–424Google Scholar.
34 Kempo Oyobi Kempo-shi Kenkyu, p. 138.
35 Kwampo gogai, February 3 and March 3, 1929, pp. 176-177, 536–544Google Scholar.
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