February 11, 1889

Meiji Constitution

Emperor Meiji promulgates the Constitution of the Empire of Japan

It was handed from emperor to prime minister as a gift from ruler to subjects. Nobody voted on it, and none of its machinery ran for another year and a half.

A grant, ceremonially handed over

On 11 February 1889, Emperor Meiji promulgated the Constitution of the Empire of Japan at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, as a constitution granted by the emperor to his subjects.

In the palace ceremony the document passed to Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka, expressing visually the official claim that constitutional government flowed from imperial authority. There was no popular or parliamentary ratification, which makes "adopted" the wrong verb for it.

Public festivities followed, and research on the celebrations traces the first modern political use of the threefold "banzai" cheer to crowds greeting the emperor that day.

Seventy-six articles

The signed text declared the emperor sacred and inviolable and head of the empire, created a bicameral Imperial Diet, recognised specified rights within limits imposed by law, and provided for courts exercising judicature in the emperor's name.

Only the House of Representatives was elected; the House of Peers was not. Ministers advised the emperor and were responsible for that advice rather than to the Diet, and about 1.14% of the population was eligible to vote for the lower house.

The Diet did not meet for another year

Promulgation did not make the constitution operative. Its own rescript scheduled the first Imperial Diet for the day the constitution came into force, 29 November 1890 — so the listing's reference to the first Diet belongs to that date, not to this one.

The body created was the Imperial Diet, not the post-1947 National Diet.

The date chosen was Kigensetsu, tied to the legendary foundation of the country by Emperor Jimmu.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

February 11, 1889 is securely documented as the date of promulgation. “Adopted” is less precise because there was no popular or parliamentary ratification; the official form was an imperial grant.
The title’s reference to the first Diet belongs to November 29, 1890, not to the February 1889 event.