Building the modern state: diplomacy, law, and the 1889 Constitution

The Iwakura Mission was a diplomatic delegation sent to the United States and Europe between December 1871 and September 1873, headed by Iwakura Tomomi, with Okubo Toshimichi, Kido Takayoshi, and Ito Hirobumi serving as vice-envoys, and it included roughly fifty officials and dozens of students. One of its declared objectives was to open negotiations to revise the unequal treaties, an objective not achieved on this trip; the mission instead spent months observing Western political, industrial, and educational institutions, and in Germany the delegation was especially impressed by the Prussian model of a strong state under Bismarck, an impression that would later shape Japan's constitutional design.