In July 1853 four American warships, two of them steam-powered and belching smoke, anchored near Edo. Their commander, Commodore Matthew Perry, carried a letter from President Millard Fillmore demanding that Japan open its ports. Within fifteen years the shogunate was gone, and within fifty Japan had become a modern industrial and military power.

Unequal treaties

Perry returned in 1854 with a larger fleet, and the shogunate signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening two ports to American ships and allowing a consul. In 1858 the American envoy Townsend Harris secured a fuller commercial treaty, and European powers quickly signed similar ones. These treaties were unequal: Japan could not set its own tariffs, and Americans and Europeans gained the right to trial in their own consular courts rather than Japanese ones. The chief minister who signed the 1858 treaty without the emperor's approval, Ii Naosuke, was assassinated outside Edo Castle in 1860.

Revere the emperor

Anger at the treaties gathered under the slogan sonno joi, "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians." Young samurai attacked foreigners and officials. Two powerful domains in the southwest, Satsuma and Choshu, both clashed with Western navies in 1863 and 1864 and learned that expulsion was impossible. Rather than give up, they decided that Japan needed Western weapons and methods to resist the West, and that the shogunate stood in the way. Long rivals, they formed a secret alliance in 1866. In late 1867 the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, offered to return his powers to the emperor, hoping to keep a leading role. Led by Satsuma and Choshu, the rebels instead proclaimed the restoration of imperial rule in January 1868 and defeated the shogun's supporters in the Boshin War of 1868 to 1869. The teenage Emperor Meiji moved to Edo, renamed Tokyo, "eastern capital."

A revolution from above

In April 1868 the young emperor swore the Charter Oath, five short articles drafted by his advisers. They promised that public matters would be decided by discussion, that the people would be free to pursue their callings, and, in W. W. McLaren's 1914 translation, that "Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world" to strengthen the empire. The new leaders, mostly young samurai from the southwestern domains, moved fast. In 1871 they abolished the domains and replaced them with prefectures run from Tokyo. They introduced compulsory schooling in 1872, a conscript army in 1873, a land tax paid in money and a ban on samurai wearing swords in 1876. The samurai lost their stipends and privileges, and some fought back. In the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, a conscript army defeated rebel samurai led by Saigo Takamori, a hero of the restoration, who died at its end.

Debating rights and a constitution

Opening to the world brought new ideas as well as machines. Fukuzawa Yukichi opened a famous 1872 essay, An Encouragement of Learning, by saying that heaven makes no person above another, nor below; differences come from learning. A Freedom and People's Rights Movement, launched in 1874 by Itagaki Taisuke and others, petitioned for an elected assembly, and private groups drafted constitutions, some with strong protections of liberty. The government answered with a constitution of its own design. Ito Hirobumi studied European systems and found the most useful model in Prussia and the German states, whose constitutions kept a strong monarch above an elected parliament. The Meiji Constitution of 1889 declared the emperor sacred and inviolable and placed sovereignty in him. It created a two-chamber Diet, but the vote for the lower house went only to men paying a substantial tax, about 1 percent of the population in the first election of 1890. Rights to speech and assembly were granted "within the limits of law," meaning the government could restrict them.

Modernization had victims. Hokkaido was colonized and the Ainu lost lands, fishing rights and customs. The Ryukyu kingdom was annexed in 1879 as Okinawa prefecture. Still, by 1911 Japan had won back full control of its tariffs, ending the unequal treaties.

Worked example: from the Charter Oath to the constitution

Did the Meiji leaders keep the Charter Oath's promise of government by discussion? Defenders point out that within twenty-one years Japan had built Asia's first lasting constitutional government, with a written constitution, an elected assembly, courts and a national school system, all while foreign powers circled. They argue that a cautious, monarch-centered design was the price of stability. Critics reply that the oligarchs kept real power in a small circle, that the constitution made the army answer to the emperor rather than to the cabinet, and that the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890 taught loyalty to the throne above individual conscience. Both sides can cite the same document. The constitution did open a door: parties grew in the Diet and steadily pushed for more influence. But it also left a weakness that later generals would exploit. The lesson for any citizen is that the words of a founding promise matter, and so do the institutions that decide who holds the power to interpret them.