Azusa Ono (小野梓, Ono Azusa?; March 10, 1852 – January 11, 1886), was a Japanese intellectual,

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

and politician during the

Meiji era The was an Japanese era name, era of History of Japan, Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feu ...

. He was an advisor to

Ōkuma Shigenobu Marquess was a Japanese politician who served as the prime minister of Japan in 1898, and from 1914 to 1916. Born in the Saga Domain, Ōkuma was appointed minister of finance soon after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, aided by his friendship w ...

and participated in debates on reforms and the drafting of a first constitution for Japan after the

Meiji restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

of 1868 which saw the end of the shogun regime. A specialist in international law, Ono advocated the establishment of a parliamentary system based on respect for the rights of the people, inspired by the British model. He then played an important role in the founding of the Progressive Constitutional Party (

Rikken Kaishintō The was a political party in the Empire of Japan. It was also known as simply the Kaishintō. The Kaishintō was founded by Ōkuma Shigenobu on 16 April 1882, with the assistance of Yano Ryūsuke, Inukai Tsuyoshi and Ozaki Yukio. It receive ...

) and the creation of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

Biography

Ono was born in Sukumo, a small

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

, into a family of well-to-do merchants who became

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

associate in the

Tosa Domain The was a Han (Japan), feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, controlling all of Tosa Province in what is now Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. It was centered around Kōchi Castle, and was ruled throughout its ...

. He served in the

Boshin War The , sometimes known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a coalition seeking to seize political power in the name of the Impe ...

(civil war) of 1868–1869. He left to study at Shōheikō in Tokyo, then in

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

where he learned English in 1871. He went to the United States to study law before going to London from 1872 to 1874 to learn economics and the banking system. During this stay, he took the opportunity to travel to Europe and discover the different Western

political system In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state. It defines the process for making official gov ...

s. Returning to Japan in Tokyo, Ono obtained a post at the Ministry of Finance in 1876. He soon was given the responsibility of drafting a new

civil code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property law, property, family law, family, and law of obligations, obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdiction ...

for the Ministry of Justice. His knowledge of

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

earned him a rapid ascent in the

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...

so that he quickly rubbed shoulders with various leaders of the

, including

, minister of finance. The two men had many similarities of views. In 1880 Ono was transferred in the same ministry and occupied an important position. It was a political turning point in 1881 when the

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

decided to form 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 repr ...

in Japan. Therefore, in 1882, Ono resigned with others from the administration and participated in the founding of a political party, the

(Constitutional Progressive Party), around

. He was active at all levels in the creation of the party and eventually became its secretary general. It is no exaggeration to consider Ono as the "real" founder of the party, with his significant contributions. In 1882 Ono also assisted

in the opening of an educational establishment, ''Tokyo Senmon Gakkō'' (Specialized School of Tokyo). The school eventually became

. Ono died in 1886 at the age of 33 from chronic

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

Political and intellectual positions

In the 1870s and 1880s, there were many debates in Japan over the form of government the country was to adopt after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji restoration strongly influenced by his stays abroad. Ono took part in the discussions and published numerous articles offering a point of view close to the British model. This was put into action upon his return to Japan by the creating a group of young intellectuals named ''Kyōzon dōshū'' (Society for Coexistence). They organized conferences, published an opinion journal and opened a public library. This group was displayed on the Society of Japanese Students which he had created in London during his studies with a countrywoman, Baba Tatsui. In an article of 1875, he wrote on the importance of the respect for the natural rights of the people and individual freedom. He strongly supported the abolition of torture in 1879. Ono mainly contributed to the images of the organization of the government and the writing of a constitution for Japan. In Ono's 1881 constitutional essay which he wrote together with Miyoshi Taizō and Iwasaki Taizō, he proposed a parliament elected by the people, an upper house appointed by the emperor, a rigorous framework for state administration, and also stressed the importance of the rights of the individual (using ideas from the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

). He also upheld the importance of a unified ministerial cabinet and from political parties, replacing the territorial administration derived from

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

s who ruled Japan for many centuries. In this sense, he strongly opposed the defenders of an oligarchic government linked to the big clans and repeatedly criticized the feudal practices which he judged evil for the

liberties Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

of the people. He was a defender of individual rights and freedom and therefore remained very close to western models. However, he also brought forth the dangers of forced westernization and rather favored reforms that kept the Japanese spirit, notably the central role of the emperor. This was also a reason why the French model, born of a particularly radical Revolution, was not preferred by Shigenobu and Ono. Ōkuma Shigenobu remains known among other things for his memoir given to the emperor in 1881, his advocacy for the rapid establishment of a

, the drafting of a

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

, and his campaign for the importance of political parties. Ono's role has been debated in the writing of this memoir, which had received favorable receptions from the emperor. However, many of the ideas present were discussed between Ono and Shigenobu.Culture"Shigenobu Okuma and Azusa Ono─Foundations of the University" Exhibition
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ono, Azusa Japanese jurists 19th-century Japanese people Japanese human rights activists 1852 births 1886 deaths 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Japan Activists from Kōchi Prefecture People from Sukumo, Kōchi

Biography

Political and intellectual positions

See also

References