I. The Imperial Prerogative
The sovereignty of the Emperor is the fundamental principle of the Japanese Constitution. Article I reads as follows:
The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.
The late Prince Ito, the chief compiler of the Constitution, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan,[1] says of this article:
It is meant that the Emperor on the Throne combines in Himself the sovereignty of the State and the government of the country and of His subjects.
The "divine right of kings" was carried to such an extreme in England that Charles I lost his head; but in Japan "the divine right of the Emperor" is acknowledged to a degree of which no Stuart ever even dreamed. Uyehara, in his Political Development of Japan[2] sets forth that point very vividly: he asserts that the Emperor of Japan can use "more effectively than Louis XIV" the latter's famous expression, "L'Etat c'est moi," And then the Japanese writer sums up the status of the Emperor as follows:
He is to the Japanese mind the Supreme Being in the Cosmos of Japan, as God is in the Universe to the pantheistic philosopher. From him everything emanates; in him everything subsists; there is nothing on the soil of Japan existent independent of him. He is the sole owner of the Empire, the author of law, justice, privilege, and honor, and the symbol of the unity of the Japanese nation. He has no pope or archbishop to crown him at his accession. He is supreme in all temporal affairs of the State as well as in all spiritual matters, and he is the foundation of Japanese social and civic morality.[3]
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