The was a

national assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

in early Meiji

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, established after the

Osaka Conference of 1875 The was a meeting held by the major leaders of the Meiji Restoration in Osaka, Japan from January to February 1875 to address the issue of forming a representative assembly. The leaders present included Okubo Toshimichi, Kido Takayoshi, Itagaki Ta ...

. It is also referred to as the Senate of Japan, being the word used to describe the

Roman Senate The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...

, and other western legislatures named after it. The

Freedom and People's Rights Movement The (abbreviated as ) or Popular Rights Movement was a Japanese political and social movement for democracy in the 1880s. It pursued the formation of an elected legislature, revision of the Unequal Treaties with the United States and European c ...

and liberals among the

Meiji oligarchy The Meiji oligarchy was the new ruling class of Meiji period Japan. In Japanese, the Meiji oligarchy is called the . The members of this class were adherents of ''kokugaku'' and believed they were the creators of a new order as grand as that est ...

had withdrawn from the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...

over their efforts to establish a national assembly with increased

representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represen ...

. The Osaka Conference of 1875 attempted to address this issue by the establishment of the , a national assembly whose members (theoretically appointed directly by the Emperor) were drawn from the

peerage A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks. Peerages include: Australia * Australian peers Belgium * Belgi ...

, upper ranks of the bureaucracy and various scholars. The was only quasi-legislative, in that it had the power to review proposed

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

and make recommendations, but did not have the power to actually initiate any legislation. As an assembly, it replaced the . In 1876, the was given the task of drafting a

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

for Japan, which it completed in 1880, only to have the draft rejected by

Itō Hirobumi was a Japanese politician and statesman who served as the first Prime Minister of Japan. He was also a leading member of the ''genrō'', a group of senior statesmen that dictated Japanese policy during the Meiji era. A London-educated samur ...

and

Iwakura Tomomi was a Japanese statesman during the Bakumatsu and Meiji period. He was one of the leading figures of the Meiji Restoration, which saw Japan's transition from feudalism to modernity. Born to a noble family, he was adopted by the influential Iwa ...

as being too liberal. The was replaced by the Imperial Diet in 1890. The should not be confused with the , or elder statesmen. Most of the were members of the , but not all members of the were .

Chairman of the Genrōin

References

* Banno, Junji. ''The Establishment of the Japanese Constitutional Sys''tem. Routledge (1992). * Brunton, Richard. ''Building Japan 1868-1876''. RoutledgeCurzon (1995). * Buruma, Ian. ''Inventing Japan: 1853-1964''. Modern Library; Reprint edition (2004) * Sims, Richard. ''Japanese Political History Since the Meiji Renovation 1868-''2000. Palgrave Macmillan. {{DEFAULTSORT:Genroin Defunct upper houses Politics of the Empire of Japan Japanese parliaments Japanese words and phrases