Daimyo’s began turning out when the shogun received opposition from neighboring samurai clans and thus Daimyo got more power. Once the Meiji Restoration had started, one samurai revolted against the restoration and lost the Battle of Shiroyama, ending the samurai era. Back to Yoshitsune, he was the general of the Minamoto
In chief Seattle they’re also being forced to abandon everything they have, including their homelands. In other words both cultures are being forced to give up the things they love most. Another connection I found in “The Last Samurai” and “Chief Seattle” was that both of their cultures were very similar. In “The Last Samurai” the rebel group leader, Katsumoto had a sword he cherished deeply. It was so meaningful because it was passed down to him through many generations of ancestors, and in the Bushido tradition ancestors mean a lot.
In order to restore rule to a new Japanese government, a young group of samurai framed the constitution and future laws. It stated that “All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the administration of affairs of state.” To become as modern as the West, Japan saw that they needed a new power of sharing government where all classes of people would unite in carrying out laws. The samurai saw that their previous rulers were not keeping up with other countries, and that was the reason for their decline. Also in their constitution, it was stated that, “The Imperial Diet shall consist of two Houses, a House of Peers and a House of Representatives.” The Japanese adopted a modern way of thinking here, as it compared to the newly drafted American Constitution. They established a parliament (the Diet) where the higher government was appointed and the lower was
Thesis: World War II affected the lives and Civil Liberties of Japanese Americans. The relocation of the Japanese during WWII was a big part of American history because by putting American citizens into internment camps that had not been tried by a court and a jury meant that the government was taking away their civil liberties, which is what the United States was founded upon. It was founded upon the belief that all people whether they were a man or woman were innocent until proven guilty. The Japanese were put into the internment camps not because they were proved guilty but because of their race and the possibility that they could be part of the Tokyo Rose/ Tokio Rose. Tokio Rose was a name given by the Allied forces to about a dozen female broadcasters of Japanese Propaganda.
Besides stripping Japan of its military arms, soldiers who were posted at various locations in the large Asian empire during World War II were repatriated (8). The SDF became controversial because Article 9 banned the maintenance of a military yet Japan has one of the largest defense budgets (11). The new Constitution not only demilitarized the nation, it also aimed to democratize Japanese society. A new Constitution was written in 1946 and it brought about changes from the Meiji constitution that shifted Japan away from its prewar policies. An important pillar of the Constitution was the introduction of the idea that sovereignty comes from the people because it eliminated the higher privileges of the aristocracy (11).
The doctrine of habeas corpus stems from the requirement that a government can either charge a person or must let him go free (Rutherford, 2013). The Habeas Corpus Act is a British Act of Parliament passed in 1679. This Act formalized the recognition of the right of an individual to be able to challenge imprisonment as unlawful. With passing the Act, British Parliament was ending the right of the monarchy to imprison a person without charges. After England passed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, other nations, including the United States, incorporated habeas corpus into their founding documents and constitutions.
During the period of the Meiji, the military was placed under the authority of the council of state, making it so that there was no separation of military and civil affairs. Japan's political journey from its quasi-democratic government in the 1920's to its radical nationalism of the mid 1930's, the collapse of democratic institutions, and the eventual military state was not an overnight transformation. There was no coup, no march on Rome, no storming of the Bastille. Instead, it was a political journey that allowed a semi-democratic nation to transform itself into a military dictatorship. The forces that aided in this transformation were the failed promises of the Meiji Restoration that were represented in the stagnation of the Japanese economy, the perceived capitulation of the Japanese parliamentary leaders to the western powers, a compliant public, and an independent military.
Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu was born in Matsudaira Takechiyo in 1542, son of the lord of the province of Mikawa. At the time of his birth, Japan was plummeted in civil war, with violent feuds between territorial lords which had lasted for nearly a century. When he was four Ieyasu was sent as a hostage to secure an alliance between his clan and the neighboring Imagawa clan. He was then raised at their court and given the education of a nobleman. In 1567 Ieyasu’s father’s death had left him as leader of the Matsudaira, allied with the Oba Nobunaga who was a powerful neighbor.
Japan had been governing themselves by means of a feudal system since the 11th century [lecture], which all citizens inherently knew their place in society and their expectations. Japanese culture at the time reflected how conservative they were through such a long period peace, but a widespread feeling of discontent and wanting change surged through Japan. In 1853, Japan opened up its closed door policy to foreign trade which ended their system of exclusion as requested by the President of the United States [book]. The Japanese signed treaties to continue foreign trade, but the general feeling amongst the Japanese people was that the Shogun had shown his weakness by giving in to signing those treaties. In the wake of these treaties, the Japanese military was overthrown and was replaced by the 15-year-old Meiji Emperor, whom quickly put into effect a new policy of modernization.
Name: Date: JAPANESE AND EUROPEAN FEUDALISM Read the selection below comparing and contrasting feudalism in Japan and Europe, and complete the chart. Japan’s feudal culture was in many basic ways more like that of feudal Europe than China. The warriors, who were known by the generic tern of samurai “servitors,” placed great emphasis on the military virtues of bravery, honor, self-discipline, and the stoical acceptance of death. Lacking any religious injunctions against suicide, they commonly took their own lives in defeat, rather than accept torture and possible humiliation in capture. Suicide by the gruesome and extremely painful means of cutting open one’s own abdomen became a sort of ritual used to demonstrate will power and maintain one’s honor.