Chapter VI
MEIJI, OR THE ERA OF "ENLIGHTENED GOVERNMENT"
I—HISTORY
It has been shown in previous chapters that the restoration of the Throne's direct administration was the ultimate purpose of the revolution which involved the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. But though imperialistic in its aim, the revolution may be described as democratic with regard to the personnel of its most active agents. The people indeed—that is to say, the people in the Occidental sense of the term, the mercantile, the manufacturing, and the agricultural classes—had no share in shaping the event. Their position as a part of the body politic underwent great improvement during the last two centuries of Tokugawa rule, but they nevertheless remained without spirit to assert or strength to enforce their right to a voice in the direction of State affairs. The term "democratic" is here used, therefore, in the sense that whereas all the great political vicissitudes of previous eras had been planned in the interests of some aristocratic family or eminent
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