Sakamoto Ryūma

Sakamoto Ryūma appears in the account of Japan’s Meiji Restoration as a Tosa-domain signer of a treaty with Ōkubo Toshimichi and as the author of an eight-point proposal to the shogun. The plan urged the shogun to resign to avert civil war, but it was more than a demand to restore the emperor: it outlined a new political order, with legislative bodies, government measures shaped by general opinion, appointments based on ability, regulated foreign affairs, and a replacement for earlier laws. Its significance lies in how clearly it joins the restoration of imperial authority to a much wider remaking of political and economic institutions.

Political Context and Alliance

The proposal took shape amid a challenge to the Tokugawa shogunate. Although the Tokugawa family had taken control of Japan in 1600, the southern Satsuma domain remained relatively autonomous and could trade independently with the outside world through the Ryūkyū Islands. Ōkubo Toshimichi, born in Kagoshima in 1830 to a samurai family, rose in Satsuma’s bureaucracy after Lord Shimazu Nariakira recognized his ability. Shimazu Nariakira had considered using Satsuma troops to overthrow the shogun, expand overseas trade, dismantle feudal economic arrangements, and build a modern state. His death in 1858 interrupted that plan; his successor, Shimazu Hisamitsu, was initially more cautious.

By the time of the political realignment described in the account, Ōkubo had become convinced that the feudal shogunate needed to be overthrown and had persuaded Shimazu Hisamitsu to support the cause. To rally backing, they framed it as opposition to the emperor’s sidelining. The treaty Ōkubo signed with the Tosa domain expressed that claim in language of a single sovereign: “a country does not have two monarchs, a home does not have two masters; government devolves to one ruler.” The book stresses, however, that the aim was not simply to restore the emperor but to transform political and economic institutions. Sakamoto was one of the treaty’s signers on the Tosa side, linking his constitutional proposal to the broader alliance of Satsuma and Chōshū.

The Eight-Point Plan

As Satsuma and Chōshū mobilized their armies, Sakamoto presented the shogun with an eight-point plan urging him to resign and thereby avoid civil war. The surviving clauses in the account show that imperial restoration was only the first part of its program. Clause one called for the return of the country’s political power to the Imperial Court and for decrees to be issued by the Court. The next proposals specified institutions and practices that would make the change broader than a transfer of authority at the top.

The plan called for two legislative bodies, an Upper and a Lower house, with government measures decided on the basis of general opinion. It proposed employing capable people from among the lords, nobles, and wider population as councillors, while abolishing traditional offices that had lost their purpose. On foreign affairs, it sought regulations worked out in accordance with general opinion. It also called for setting aside earlier legislation and selecting a new, adequate code. Taken together, these provisions envisioned a government that would deliberate through new bodies, draw on talent beyond inherited offices, reconsider external policy, and replace the old legal framework.

The plan’s insistence on general opinion connects its institutional details to its stated political aim. The appeal to restore authority to the Imperial Court gave the proposal a unifying claim against the shogunate; the legislative houses, wider recruitment of councillors, and new laws spelled out what government might do after that transfer. The evidence presents this as a program, not as proof that each provision was adopted or that Sakamoto personally implemented it.

Resignation and the Meiji Restoration

Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu agreed to resign. On January 3, 1868, the Meiji Restoration was declared: Emperor Kōmei and, after Kōmei’s death a month later, his son Emperor Meiji were restored to power. The book places Sakamoto’s plan immediately within this transition, but does not say that its clauses were enacted as a direct result of his proposal.

Satsuma and Chōshū forces occupied Edo and the imperial capital Kyōto, yet feared that the Tokugawas would seek to regain power and re-create the shogunate. Ōkubo wanted the Tokugawa family crushed permanently and persuaded the emperor to abolish the Tokugawa domain and confiscate its lands. On January 27, the former shogun Yoshinobu attacked Satsuma and Chōshū forces, and civil war followed. The conflict continued until the summer, when the Tokugawas were defeated. The sequence gives the plan’s call for resignation a stark setting: resignation accompanied the declaration of restoration, but the anticipated danger of renewed Tokugawa power soon became armed conflict.

Institutional Change and Historical Significance

After the restoration, Japan undertook a sweeping program of institutional reform. In 1869 feudalism was abolished, and the three hundred fiefs were surrendered to the government and turned into prefectures governed by appointed officials. Taxation was centralized, replacing the old feudal order with a modern bureaucratic state. Equality of social classes before the law was introduced, and restrictions on internal movement and trade were abolished. The samurai class was ended, though rebellions had to be put down; individual landownership was introduced, and people were allowed to enter and practice trades freely. The state also took a substantial role in building infrastructure.

These reforms help explain why Sakamoto’s proposals matter in the narrative, without establishing that they were all derived from or carried out according to his plan. The account sets the plan’s call for new legislative arrangements and a new legal code beside a transformation that abolished feudal institutions, centralized government, and altered rights and economic activity. Sakamoto’s place in the episode is therefore that of a political advocate whose proposal joined imperial restoration to institutional redesign. The surviving evidence identifies him as a treaty signer and plan presenter, but supplies no account of his later life or personal fate.