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Kido Takayoshi (1833-1877): Meiji Japan's Cautious Revolutionary Author(S): Sidney D Kido Takayoshi (1833-1877): Meiji Japan's Cautious Revolutionary Author(s): Sidney D. Brown Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1956), pp. 151-162 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3635293 . Accessed: 27/10/2013 13:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Pacific Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.93.16.3 on Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:04:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Kido Takayoshi(1833-i877): MeijiJapan's CautiousRevolutionary SIDNEY D. BROWN [SidneyD. Brownis assistantprofessor of history in OklahomaAgricultural and Me- chanicalCollege. This paper is drawnfrom his Universityof Washingtondisser- tation.] KIDOTAKAYOSHI is well knownas one of the principalpromoters of the Meiji Revolutionof 1868. He has also receivedample recognition for his subsequentwork as an antifeudalreformer. Between 1868 and 1871 he guided the movementwhich swept away an obsolete administrative structureinherited from the Tokugawa era. These glitteringsuccesses may have obscuredPrivy Councilor Kido's later,and significant,role as balance wheel withinthe new oligarchyof Meiji leaders.'A moderateamong extremistsof varioussorts, Kido en- deavouredfrom 1873 untilhis prematuredeath in 1877 to restrainthose whosereckless programs threatened to precipitatecounter-revolution or to involveJapan in disastrousforeign war. In consequence,he broke withthe othertwo heroesof the Meiji revolutionarytriumvirate, Saig6 Takamori (1827-1877) and Okubo Toshimichi (1830-1878), and checkedtheir rasher schemes. In 1873 commander-in-chiefSaig6, howl- ing championof aggressivewar againstKorea, bowed to thepeace coali- tionwhich Kido weldedtogether within the oligarchy. Thereafter, Home MinisterOkubo, that autocratand single-mindedindustrializer, came to dominatethe oligarchy; but he, too,frequently felt obliged to temper his moreextreme policies to meet the objectionsof Kido. In particular, Okubo bent beforethe demandsof Kido when the Ch6shfiCouncilor championedconstitutional government. Okubo again inched backward when Kido became spokesmanfor the agrarianand feudalclasses whose welfareOkubo would sacrificeto financethe state-patronized industriali- zation program.Inside and outside the oligarchy,Kido foughtextrem- 1 Kido,who was bornon August11, 1833, in Hagi,died May26, 1877,in Kyoto.He served the Meiji governmentas Adviserto the ChiefMinister, or SdsaikyokuKomon (February- June, 1868); JuniorCouncilor, or Sanyo (June,1868-March, 1879); PrivyCouncilor, or Sangi (June,1869-April, 1874; March, 1875-March, 1876); Associate Ambassador to America and Europe (December,1871-June, 1873); Ministerof Education (January-May,1874); ActingHome Minister(February-May, 1874); Adviser to the Cabinet,or NaikakuKomon and (March,1876-May, 1877); FirstController of the ImperialHousehold, or Kunai IttO Shusshi(August, 1876-May, 1877). [151] This content downloaded from 129.93.16.3 on Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:04:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 152 PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW ism,whether by the reactionarysamurai or by the utopian westernizer. In the end Kido's moderatepolicy carried him to a positionroughly analogous to that of the occidentalliberal, thoughhe was never con- sciouslya doctrinaldisciple of liberalism.Violently opposed to aggres- sive war on the Asiatic continent,Kido also promotedrepresentative government,social justicefor the classesdisinherited by the end of feu- dalism,and civil liberties.He became in manyrespects the Jeffersonof Japan. There are thosewho have consideredthis phase of Kido's careerof slightimportance. They have assumedthat his latertenure in officewas but a disappointinganticlimax appended to the careerof a competent revolutionary.Others have misunderstoodhis role, lumpinghim with membersof the oligarchywho were altogetherunresponsive to popular pressure."In 1878, for example, the assassinsof Okubo, settingout to eliminatethe leaders who barredthe path to representativegovernment, headed theirlist of "master-criminals"with the name of Kido. They sug- gestedthat Heaven had alreadyexpressed its displeasure by sendinghim to an earlygrave the year before." Misinterpretationbecomes understandable in the lightof Kido's pre- 1873 career.In youngerdays he was somethingof an extremisthimself. Environmenthelped shapehis revolutionarybent. Born in 1833,the son ofa physicianand after1840 adopted heir of a substantialsamurai official of Ch6shfihan, Kido lived in one of the outsidehan whereties of fealty to the ruling Shogunatewere weakest,resentment against Shogunate "usurpation"strongest.' Part of therevolutionary rationale, he absorbed at the Meirinkan,official han school,enough to guide him to Yoshida Sh6in in 1849.Near Hagi thisfanatical little propagandist conducted his own privateschool, "the cradleof the Revolutionof 1868.""There Kido 2 Even when opposition to currentpolicy moved him to seek temporaryretirement, Kido remained loyal to the oligarchy.Unlike Itagaki, Kido never sought to rally public opinion to his cause by forminga political party.Such influenceas he did command was feltin Tokyo through a Kido-clique of younger bureaucrats. At firstIt6 Okuma, and Yamagate were his principal proteges.Later, when personal and political conflictsdispersed the original group, Aoki Shfiz6,Yamada Akiyoshi and others formed a new Kido faction. 3 Translation from the Choya Shimbun, May 15, 1878, in "Notes on Modern Statesmen," David Murray papers, Library of Congress; also translated in Kisaburo Kawabe, The Press andS politics in Japan (Chicago, 1921), 55-58. Kido's natural father was a court physician with an annual stipend of twentykoku of rice. His adoptive fatherreceived 150 koku annually, but the han governmentreduced that figureto ninetykoku as a penalty for deathbed adoption. Kido's name at birth was Wada Kogor6. Upon adoption he became Katsura Kogor6; and at the time of the Restoration he assumed the name of Kido Junichir6,shortly afterwards changed to Kido Takayoshi. Since his death the two characters which form Kido's given name have generallybeen pronounced K6in rather than Takayoshi. 5It6 Hirobumi quoted by William Elliot Griffis,"The Statesmanship of Ito," North American Review, CXCI (1910), 117. This content downloaded from 129.93.16.3 on Sun, 27 Oct 2013 13:04:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KIDO TAKAYOSHI 153 and otherstatesmen of the futurelistened approvingly to reiterationof the themethat the Shogunaterepresented usurpation and the shadowy imperialgovernment in Kyoto was the one legitimategovernment of Japan.A wrongso grievousmight justifiably be rectifiedby virtually any tactics,including indiscriminate terrorism.0 Assumingleadership of the radical pro-Emperorfaction of Ch6shfi youthsupon Yoshida's martyrdomin 1859, Kido condoned,and may have practiced,the Machiavellian violence which Yoshida preached. The blood oath whichMito and Ch6shfiextremists signed in 1862 was a case in point.Kido and theleader of his Mito allies pledgedthemselves jointly "to overawe the Bakufu by settingfree the death-defyingpatriots [in plain language,the suspectsimprisoned after the unsuccessfulassassina- tion attempton Senior CouncilorAnd6] by stabbinghigh officials,and by cuttingdown foreigners."'Resulting terror on the streetsof Edo may have hastenedthe end ofthe Shogunate and certainlyhurried Kido's exit fromthe city.Still, he guided the radical factionto controlof Ch6shfi politicsin 1865, and, servingas chiefminister of the clan in 1866,di- rectedit to victoryover the fading Shogunate on thefield of battle.Soon after,the thirty-four-year-old chief minister linked Ch6shfi with Satsuma to completethe revolution,or ImperialRestoration, of 1868. As a reformingprivy councilor in the Meiji government,Kido would have moved with recklesshaste, possibly igniting profeudal rebellion. Iwakura Tomomi and otherconservative colleagues, however, blocked his impetuouscourse of insuringnational unity by smashingthe feudal administrativestructure at once." Not until 1873,five years after the revolution, did Kido emergefirmly and finallyas themoderate reformer. After 1873 he aimed to moveJapan cautiouslytoward constitutional monarchy, to do it while at peace with 6Yoshida's letter of January 22, 1859, justifyingviolence as a positive good, apparently impressed Kido. Yoshida contended that Japan's weakness in the 185o's derived froma lack of wars over a period of 2oo years. "I regret no little," he continued, "that I have not yet seen a man's blood shed; not has another caused by blood to be seen." Typically Yoshida concluded that "men of peace are all disloyal and unrighteous." Reprinted in Tsumaki Chata, editor, Sh6giku Kido K5 den (Biography of Prince Shagiku Kido) (Tokyo, 1927, two volumes), I, 52-58. Hereafter,Kido den. On Yoshida's career see Tokutomi lichiro, "The Life of Shoin Yoshida," translatedby H. E. Coleman. Transactions,Asiatic Societyof Japan, XIV, Part 1 (1917), 117-188;
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