Sakata, Yoshio and John Whitney Hall. "The Motivation of Political Leadership in the Meiji Restoration", The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.16, No.1 (1956): 31-50.

Sakata, Yoshio and John Whitney Hall. "The Motivation of Political Leadership in the Meiji Restoration", The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.16, No.1 (1956): 31-50.

• There are a number of schools of thought explaining the events of the Meiji Restoration and its causes. One of the most popular was the school of narrative history, which explained the lead-up to the restoration and the need for a strong state to resist Western power, but did not explain why this situation existed. Economic and Marxist historians have also provided their own, limited, perspectives (31-32).
• The actors that brought down the Tokugawa shogunate were diverse and contained a variety of interests and motivations for their action. For this reason, they have often been termed broadly anti-shogunate forces to conceal the heterogeneity of their composition (33).
• The system of governance in Tokugawa Japan was supposedly based on an equilibrium between the Emperor, the Shogungate, and the local lordships of the daimyo. The shogunate dominated the two other branches, using controls on marriage and the movement of the imperial family to restrict their access to non-shogunate officials, and restriction of economic and military activity among the daimyo (36).
• In reality these bodies were also extremely diverse. The shogunate itself contained two factions: the lords living in Edo as collateral, and the hereditary Tokugawa leaders who dominated the councils which directly governed many parts of the Empire (37).
• The shogun exercised little real power, neither did the daimyo, with most direct authority vested in senior bureaucrats at both levels of government. Throughout the 19th Century, the increased ceremony and formality of the shogunate prevent it from being an effective means of governance, leaving lower level officials to run the country (37).
• The late Tokugawa period was characterized by economic stagnation as both many daimyo and the shogunate itself began approaching bankruptcy. Much of this privation was caused by Tokugawa policies, leading to popular resentment against the shogun. The government passed these burdens onto the peasants and samurai, impoverishing these classes (37).
• The threat of conflict with the West further exposed weakness of the Tokugawa state, as the shogunate was too impoverished to pay for the necessary defenses. Furthermore, doing so would strengthen certain regions, something which directly contradicted Tokugawa policy. When it did allow domains to strengthen themselves independently, it led to the insurrection which the Tokugawa feared (37).
• The first calls for reform of the shogunate came in 1830 with Tokugawa Nariaki, who advocated a return to imperial authority. He was motivated by the impoverishment of peasants and samurai in his domain, which he believed was caused by moral decay resulting from the shogun straying from his responsibility as the servant of the Emperor by focusing on his own power more than national wellbeing (38).
• A number of daimyo agreed with the issues raised by Tokugawa Nariaki, attempting to built up their own financial power to cope with the many threats to Japan that he identified. Almost all of these reforms failed, mostly due to a refusal by the shogunate to compromise on its many restrictions of movement and commerce (39).
• In 1836, Japan was struck with a famine followed by a number of associated riots and revolts. This disorder, combined with news of the Qing Empire's loss in the Opium War, made it difficult to ignore the weakness pointed out by Tokugawa Nariaki. However, both he and a conservative reformer, Mizuno Tadakun, were removed from office in 1843, angering the growing numbers of daimyo and samurai who supported reform and decentralization (39-40).
• In 1844 Abe Masahiro was appointed the head of the council of state and policy changed again. He agreed with many of Tokugawa Nariaki's points and began pursuing a policy of national growth at the expense of the Shogunate's power. He removed many economic restricts and allowed the regions to begin developing independent military and economic bases. He was also revolutionary in creating a council based on merit, rather than hereditary privilege (40).
• The appearance of Admiral Matthew Perry in 1853 forced immediate action. Abe Masahiro openly petitioned the daimyo for ideas, hoping to win their support. Instead he was perceived as weak, and did not receive a clear answers. He went forward, but was no undermined by more active daimyo, and was sacked in 1856 (41).
• Follow Abe Masahiro's retirement and death, the council was run by Hotta Masayoshi, and his faction who strongly opposed reformist policies. His government excluded those reformist groups previously in good standing. The Imperial court increasingly benefited from this division in the shogunate, and the sickness of the Shogun, and opposed important legislation, like the opening of the country, as a power play against the Shogunate (41-42).
• In 1858, Ii Naosuke was given the power by the Shogun to take action against its enemies and initiated a purge, called the Ansei purge, to removed those who challenged the primacy of the Shogunate in policy. While he mainly targeted anti-foreign obstructionists, all anti-shogun forces were eliminated until his assassination in 1860 (43).
• The assassination of Counciler Ii resulted in a complete reversal of shogunate policy towards other factions. Scared of driving the Empire apart, the Shogunate tried to placate opposing factions and ended the purge. It lifted some requirements for daimyo residence in Edo, arrange a marriage with the imperial family, and included more meritorious daimyo in the affairs of government. This policy gained the Shogun many supporters, but also weakened its power (43).
• The general consensus of pro-foreign trade, however, infuriated a growing group of samurai, especially in the south. Increasing numbers of samurai defected from their daimyo and established an insurgency in Kyoto. From this base they assassinated daimyo and pro-foreign collaborators, while the local daimyo was unable to stop them (44).
• The Shogunate reacted to the anti-foreign terrorists in Kyoto by both conducting an active military campaign against them and accepting some of their conservative and anti-foreign demands. The anti-foreign extremists were bolstered by the Choshu domain, which secretly supported their activities (45),
• Anti-foreign and anti-shogun radical were by far the strongest in Choshu, which continually called for a restoration of imperial rule. They were condemned by the Emperor and expelled from Kyoto by force. They established an insurrection against the entire Tokugawa system in 1864, but surrendered that same year (45).
• By 1866 there was agreement across the government that some reformed need to take place so that Japan could effectively deal with its many threats. However, there were still disputes over what system would exist, with many senior Shogunate officials offering only greater participation in a government still dominated by the Shogunate. The more powerful daimyo on the other hand, like Satsuma, Tosa, and Echizen, argued for imperial abitration over an extremely decentralized system. Ultimately no compromise was reached (45-46).
• These clashing perspectives found concrete plans and advocates with two diplomats recently returned from the USA. One advocated a absolute state under a centralized Shogunate based on the French model, whereas another argued for the restoration of the Empire with a legislature composed of daimyo (46).
• The two sides were also divided on the issue of Choshu, which had rose in revolt again. The shogunate faction wanted to abolish the domain as part of a centralization program, a threat which propelled both Choshu and Satsuma into war against the Shogunate and compelled them to use Western armaments. Most daimyo refused to join the shogunate in battle, and its forces were badly defeated in 1867 (46-47).
• The death of the pro-shogunate Emperor Komei in February 1867 removed another obstacle to the restoration of the Empire, although action was not taken until a courier in the imperial court convinced Choshu and Satsuma to destroy the Tokugawa and restore imperial rule (48).
• Facing almost certain military defeat, and the possibility of subsequent Western intervention, the Tokugawa accepted an offer in January 1868 from the daimyo of Tosa to surrender their power directly to the Emperor in return for daimyo status and representation in the new legislation (48).
• The forces of Satsuma and Choshu, however, were not satisfied with the Tosa-negotiated surrender and demanded instead that the Tokugawa cede all of their lands to the imperial state. Many Tokugawa and associated factions were unwilling to do this and began to rebel, but the last shogun ordered them to surrender anyway following an imperial edict as he wished to avoid civil war (48-49).
• A new government under Emperor Meiji was established in Kyoto, but still derived almost of all its support from the armies of Choshu and Satsuma. This led to a general weakness of support, as most domains, even moderates like Tosa or Hizen, waited for the government to collapse so that they could seize power. The government remained weak outside of Satsuma or Choshu territories until the early 1870s (49).
• "The Restoration was motivated primarily by the desire to eliminate the despotic Tokugawa rule. Other than the establishment of a new hegemony, the Restoration leadership had no clear-cut aims. Social and economic reorganization was not part of their objective. It was only after the Restoration had brought into being a new central authority and as the responsibility of national planning devolved upon the Restoration leaders that plans for govern- mental reform were considered" (50).
• The men who would come to dominate the policy of the Meiji government were not the same people who had engineered the restoration, and in fact the Western and centralizing policies proposed by this group were strongly opposed by many people who had brought the Meiji to power (50).